Perhaps it is the curse of Bill Clinton's victory that his presidency is doomed to be the obverse of George Bush's. Americans generally liked the amiable Bush, yet became dismayed by his unwillingness to act as a leader (except for the gulf war) and allay their fears that the nation had slipped off track. In contrast, they mostly appreciate Clinton's energetic approach to solving problems and his Oprah-like capacity to embrace audiences of any stripe. But they are plagued by doubts about what kind of man he is.
As in the Bush season, Americans will probably be content to live with their conflicting views of Clinton for a while. Bush's approval rating once topped 80 percent at the same time a majority of citizens believed the nation was heading in the wrong direction. Eventually, though, the contradiction is resolved. In Bush's case, that meant voters' once high estimation of him as a man gave way to their despair of his ever being an effective leader. In Clinton's case, the danger comes from the opposite direction: His significant governing achievements could be crushed by the accumulated weight of his flaws, his mistakes and his past.
It is baffling why Clinton, a skilled politician attuned to the public's yearnings, does not appear to see this. He, his wife and his staff are all treating the burgeoning problems associated with the family's tangled investment in the Whitewater Development Corp. just like the lawyers that they are. To them, the issues are technical finance and tax matters to be handled with carefully calibrated answers and limited disclosures. This cat-and-mouse game is wearying.
Clinton seems not to remember that Americans like nothing better than repentance, expiation of sins and redemption. If the Clintons had made full disclosure, settled their tax bills and offered appropriate apologies, the Whitewater saga would likely have ended a week after it arose last fall. Instead, they have increasingly withdrawn into a cocoon, sheltered by a top level staff of friends and a friendly staff at lower levels. Their reward is a special prosecutor who will drag the Whitewater issues into the 1996 election cycle.
Clinton's challenge in overcoming public doubts is especially dicey because Americans increasingly believe that the nation suffers grievously from a lack of values: honesty, honor, courage, personal responsibility, temperance, fealty and, most important of all, a clear sense of right and wrong. Voters not only want public policies organized around such values, says pollster Celinda Lake, but they want the politicians who make the laws to be of high moral character. It's becoming harder and harder for a leader to get a hearing for his ideas unless the public thinks he's virtuous himself.
Clinton can take comfort that people continue to cheer when he speaks as a moral leader about the nation's spiritual collapse. He still has what the lawyers around him would call "the standing" to address such issues. But if his moral stature slips, his capacity to lead could be fatally compromised.
