
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, June 30, 1994                   TAG: 9406300121
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A14   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

DRIFT, DISARRAY

PRESIDENT CLINTON needed a midcourse correction, and the White House personnel reshuffle announced this week should help. Further steps also will be necessary, though, to firm and focus the administration's management.

Mack McLarty, Clinton's crony from Arkansas, was said to be too affable, too lacking in Washington savvy, when the president appointed him White House chief of staff. Endless displays of indecision, confusion, drift and disarray in the White House since then have somewhat confirmed that criticism.

In any case, Clinton has made a superb choice in replacing him with Leon Panetta, who had been budget director. A Republican turned Democrat with 16 years in the House, Panetta is no arrogant Darth Vader, a la a John Sununu or H.R. Haldeman. But he is highly respected. He's also experienced in interpreting and influencing Washington's rival power center, Congress, which has proved less than deferential to Clinton despite Democratic majorities in both houses. Panetta deserves much of the credit for passage of the 1983 budget package, which cut $500 billion from projected national debt. Let's hope he can notch a win for health-care reform, too.

As presidential counselor, McClarty can remain Clinton's confidant. Alice Rivlin, like Panetta a deficit hawk, becomes budget director: another good choice. And adviser David Gergen, who has already announced he wants to leave government to return to what passes for journalism in Washington these days, is moving to the State Department for a few months, presumably to help mitigate the impression of disarray there.

That's not nearly enough. The next shakeup, while Panetta makes needed changes in the White House staff, ought to come in Clinton's foreign policy team. Having failed both to clearly articulate a foreign policy and to show any resolve in its prosecution, the secretary of state and national security adviser should go.

Meantime, no one should believe that shuffling appointees, whether in the White House or State Department, can compensate entirely for the management deficiencies of the man at the top.

by CNB