Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 28, 1993 TAG: 9301280170
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GARY BLONSTON KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long
CLINTON PICKED UNLIKELY ISSUE TO PROVE POINTS
Thirteen years after Arkansas's young governor ignored public opinion, proposed an array of bold new programs and ultimately lost his job, Bill Clinton again is showing some familiar habits.This older, wiser, master politician who was going to bring the Democratic Party back to the mainstream suddenly finds himself out on the political edge - opposed by millions of Americans and much of Congress as he tries to open the military to homosexual men and women.
Why he wound up in such a fix seems to be a complicated matter of principle, politics, shaky assumptions and bad advice.
Even people who think kindly of Clinton shake their heads at the way the White House has handled the gays-versus-the-Pentagon situation, and no one can yet say how much he has lost in public standing, party loyalty and congressional trust.
"It's not what I would have suggested he do, to expend his political capital this early on this issue," says George Edwards, who runs the Center for the Study of the Presidency at Texas A&M University in College Station.
"This is clearly a second-level issue, especially compared to the economy. Right now his support from the public is tentative and fragile. You want to focus your political capital . . . on issues that will make your coalition cohere."
Instead, Clinton's nascent coalition has split for the moment between supporters and opponents of gays in uniform for reasons that, in the words of veteran liberal activist Ann Lewis, "have more to do with Freud than politics."
She is a Clinton supporter who saw his defeat in Arkansas and the hard learning process that finally led to his re-election. Today, she says, "he really has been shaped by that first term. He is a guy who does understand fully two facts:
"One, that you can bring about change . . . if you take your politics seriously, and two, that you don't get too far out in front of the public."
On this one issue, she acknowledges he might have stepped out too far, but she also argues, "What Bill Clinton has demonstrated so far is that he means what he says."
Why that stance has left him in such an awkward place is the question that lingers. Political scientist Stephen Hess of the Brookings Institution, a Washington policy research center, offers an answer:
"Every president wants to hit the ground running. It was clear the major programs he wanted to send up [to Congress] weren't ready, and presidential aides usually say: `Don't just stand there. Do something.' "
Whether by prompting or personal intention, he did something, first signing executive orders eliminating abortion restrictions set down during the Reagan-Bush years. Because many Americans vigorously supported that change, "that worked pretty well," says Hess.
"Then came gays in the military" - which Clinton also planned to permit by executive order - "and that didn't work very well at all."
There was no public consensus and a limited constituency for what he intended, and so the military complained, the public complained, and, once the phones began ringing, so did Congress.
"I don't believe that he set out to have his way against the military, against the Congress, that he was going to show them," says Hess. "That's not his style.
"He just got caught off-guard. They didn't do their homework."
Part of the reason seems to be that the gay issue offered some positive political benefits. The question of trust had pursued Clinton throughout his campaign, and when he appeared to be retreating from a series of campaign promises even before his inauguration, his meaning what he said became an issue.
An executive order permitting gays in the military was a way to show he was keeping a promise. At the same time, he could respond to an interest group that had provided him abundant financing and political support - all with the quick stroke of a pen.
The result was quite the opposite, producing a remarkable political turnabout.
"We anticipated Clinton would have his most problems with the left wing," says Edwards. "We thought he'd be the moderate guy. Now he's going to have trouble from the other side because he's taken too liberal a stand.
"And it's such strong opposition from such respectable quarters. It's not just redneck gay bashers."
Lawrence Longley, a political scientist at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis., says that puts Clinton in a special dilemma.
"The last thing the Clinton administration wants to do is dig in its heels and make a fight for its political manhood on a peripheral issue," he says. "The danger is: If you cut and run too many times, you look like a wimp.
"What Clinton has to do is find a way to get back on his priorities - health care and the economy."
A proposed congressional compromise, delaying the gays-in-uniform issue for six months, could give Clinton time to do that and to get his White House in more order.
This honeymoon-less presidency has seemed especially vulnerable in its early days, but on Wednesday, Clinton Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers took note of another time when Clinton seemed to be in irreparable political trouble.
It was Jan. 27, 1992, exactly a year ago, when Gennifer Flowers held her news conference to accuse Clinton of being her longtime lover.
In those dark days, Clinton talked mostly about health care and the economy, and he became president.