THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, November 9, 1995 TAG: 9511090367
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Charlise Lyles
LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
Moments before, he was just a radio sound bite in my political consciousness, an image from the front page or TV.
Now, President William Jefferson Clinton was sitting less than four feet from me, across a long, oval table in the White House.
I wanted to reach out and adjust the color button. His complexion was too ruddy, his nose unpleasantly bulbous like Ted Kennedy's. Then I wanted to tinker a bit to make his shoulders broader, the way they appear on TV.
And I needed more volume. His voice was too soft and warm, not that high, hoarse rasping with which he delivers even his best speeches.
Just a few adjustments and Bill Clinton would be real to me again, bigger, colder and louder than life: the consummate politician and unabashed flip-flop artist.
But minus the filter of a camera lens or reporter's notebook, President Clinton is a different man than the one I thought I knew.
His personal warmth is arresting.
His manner quiet and gentle, as if soothing a baby crying in a cradle. All the while, talking tough issues: his threatened budget veto, the earned-income tax credit, teenage pregnancy, Haiti, race.
He exudes a sincere charisma so potent it can lull you into loving him.
His boyish truthfulness made it harder for me to believe he could repeatedly cheat on his wife or dodge a draft. Honest.
Although he showed no signs of a sense of humor, how could I not love a guy leaning back and snapping down cookies while surrounded by assertive journalists braced to crumble him?
But was his relaxed folksiness for real or the performance of the well-rehearsed politico who won the Arkansas governor's mansion at age 32?
Be OBJECTIVE, scolded the hard-bitten, perpetual note-taking journalist in my soul.
Our surroundings didn't help. Though decked in stately paintings of presidents past, the Cabinet Room felt more like a musty den near the laundry closet. The once cream-colored Queen Anne sofa was dingy, the seat pillows drooping like a candidate in the campaign's final days.
A waiter gave me a glass of soda but no coaster to protect the leather and wood table. Mama Lyles would've had his hide.
Rest assured, your tax dollar is not working especially hard on White House upkeep - at least not the part that hosts journalists.
Nonetheless, it all contributed to an ambience of comfort in which Bill could chill.
And so I wondered.
Is he a humble man who admits from the heart the folly of his ways and owns up to his mistakes - ``I raised your taxes too much''?
Or is he the arrogant, consummate politician who knows when to risk a flip-flop if it means holding on to constituents?
Is he truly sympathetic to the poor? Empathetic to the plight of African Americans?
Or should a girl who grew up poor like me look harder, deeper at the man sitting directly across from her? Are those compelling blue eyes ringed with circles really casting a ``give-me-another-chance-in-1996'' gaze?
Is his sincerity pure or is it pure politicking?
To meet President William Jefferson Clinton is to have that rock of intuition inside of you unearthed. You know what I'm talking about - that little voice Mama always told you to listen to.
After hearing his voice with my own ears, meeting his eyes with my own, sensing his soul with mine, I know only this:
It is a lot easier to deal with this guy as a sound bite. by CNB