A Defense Without Sense

Hours after President Clinton presented himself at a White House prayer breakfast as the most sorrowful and contrite of sinners, his top legal aides were sent forth to proclaim that, while he had indeed made “a serious mistake” in his relationship with former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky, Clinton has committed no crime in the strictly legal sense.

The allegations and supporting evidence in the 445-page report submitted to Congress by independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, the White House argued, constituted a “smear,” salaciously prejudicial in their detail, “an extravagant effort to find a case where there is none.” On probably the most supportable of the allegations, that Clinton perjured himself in a deposition in the Paula Corbin Jones civil case and in his testimony to a grand jury about his relationship with Lewinsky, the White House line remained consistent.

Even with Clinton’s apology for an “inappropriate relationship” and a “bad mistake,” his attorney, David Kendall, as recently as Sunday on an ABC News show, has continued to use narrow and lawyerly interpretations to explain why the president did not commit perjury when he said under oath that he did not have sexual relations with Lewinsky. What Kendall says may be technically true, but it is an affront to common sense.

Bill Clinton of course has the right to mount the most vigorous legal and political defense against the allegations in the Starr report and whatever else might emerge when the House Judiciary Committee launches its expected impeachment inquiry. That entitles him to have full access to the thousands of pages of grand jury testimony and any other material that might have been the basis for the Starr report and to cross-examine witnesses. In the course of this effort he might in fact erode some of the factual foundations for the allegations against him. But all this is in the future.

For now the White House’s strategy is to try to hold on to the high level of public approval for Clinton’s official conduct in hopes of influencing Congress as it ponders impeachment. The results of a Times Poll conducted Sunday show that Clinton’s job approval remains high and that the public still sharply disapproves of Starr.

Two approaches by the White House are clear: to try to cast doubt on the motives behind the Starr report and to portray the president as both chastened and spiritually uplifted by his ordeal.

Last week, after weighing the response to his disastrous Aug. 17 speech acknowledging an “inappropriate” relationship with Lewinsky, Clinton finally issued what amounted to a plenary apology to all those--his family, aides and Cabinet, the American people and Lewinsky herself--that his lies and evasions had harmed. But at the same time he continues to insist that his denial of a sexual relationship with Lewinsky was not perjurious--a statement that Americans are just not buying, according to the Times Poll. To any average person looking at the perhaps gratuitously steamy details in the Starr report, that assertion is preposterous. It is not in sync with the penitence that Clinton claims to truly feel.

The reservoir of approval expressed in the poll offers the White House a chance to realign its schizophrenic strategy, which cannot hold up for the long term.