The Presidency

By Hugh Sidey

It is a little hard for most people to understand how a President of the United States, with Air Force One always ready and 93 servants hovering to make his bed and bring him decaf and the Marine Band playing Hail to the Chief at every whipstitch, can go around feeling sorry for himself.

But there was Bill Clinton last week, in Cranston, Rhode Island, at a "town meeting" -- his favorite environment -- with two perky television hosts and friendly questioners. And he was seized with an outbreak of Potomac paranoia.

"I'd just like to know," asked Natalie Sintron of Chicopee, Massachusetts, "if you feel you're being held on a higher standard than previous presidential families?"

"Well," answered Clinton, "I think I've been subject to more assault than any previous President, based on the evidence. But as the Vice President said a few days ago, there are powerful forces in this country who basically resent the way the last election came out, so they keep trying to undo it . . . I wish we could just all settle down and be Americans for a while and work on ; our problems, and then evaluate me based on the job I do . . ."

That's some psychodrama for you, complete with echoes of H. Ross Perot, a consummate whiner who had the feeling anyone standing in his way to the White House was somehow not a true American.

Fact is, Clinton's policies and his masterful delineations have received sympathy and even sycophancy from a great portion of the press and public. Now, however, his personal life from other years and his tortured explanations are at issue. These are hard questions of fact and of the record, not arguable policy musings. He is the problem.

And it makes one wonder how well he understands all that history of former Presidents that he has read and pondered, in which political success almost always is rooted in a preponderance of personal discretion, discipline, restraint, candor and courage. Harry Truman: The kitchen is hot. Live accordingly.

Standards have changed, and Clinton helped change them. He went whole hog into touchy-feely, talk-show politics, even held a confessional commune with his staff and Cabinet. It was uncomfortably logical then when someone dared to ask what kind of underwear he wore -- and worse to hear his answer.

And what of those "powerful forces" who resent his winning the presidency? Is politics a contact sport, or bean bag? Of course "forces" prowl and scheme along Pennsylvania Avenue. Forewarned is forearmed, unless you believe the rules of public propriety are only for others.

The White House has yet to produce convincing "evidence" that Clinton has been "assaulted" more than any previous President when dubious behavior surfaces. But Clinton can take some comfort that he is not alone in suddenly realizing he is high and visible, and his flaws are every night's soap. Remember Jerry Ford the Klutz? And Jimmy Carter's harsh season of invective as the passionless, peanut President?

Lyndon Johnson was charged with being a monstrous liar, accused of napalming babies in Vietnam, of being a vulgarian for conducting interviews on the toilet. Asked what it was like being President, Johnson responded, "Like being a dog in the country. When you run, they are always snapping at your ass. When you stop, they f--- you to death." Crude, naturally, but historically accurate. Presidential provocations are a constant of history. The presidential responses spell the difference between success and dismissal.