As Lawmakers Try, Clinton Does

WASHINGTON —  On the day the Senate formally began the process that could remove him from office, President Clinton showed up late for work.

Much of Washington’s attention was riveted Thursday on Clinton’s alleged high crimes and misdemeanors; at the White House, the story was instead about the president’s day and his demeanor.

According to his aides, Clinton paid the Senate little heed. Rather, he adhered to a public and private schedule, they said, that presented him as unaffected by the drama swirling about him.

With a Gilbert Stuart portrait of a stern George Washington peering over his left shoulder and Hillary Rodham Clinton at his side in the East Room, the relaxed-looking president unveiled a plan to increase federal spending on a popular program that helps communities pay for after-school activities for students.

In the daily life of the modern president, little is left to chance. His time often is scheduled by the minute, guided by the overall goal of efficiency and, in public events, projecting a finely crafted image.

Hoping to Present an Image of Effectiveness

Clinton’s schedule now is dictated by his half of the struggle to control the public image of his presidency: that of an effective leader doing his job, in contrast with his adversaries’ portrayal of him as a discredited politician hanging on tenaciously, if also precariously, to power.

Today, he plans to deliver a philosophical speech in Detroit on the economy. Next week, with a Senate trial likely to be underway, his aides are filling his schedule with policy-related events.

In addition, on Monday, he’ll receive President Carlos Menem of Argentina in a state visit--most likely forgoing the news conference he customarily holds with a visiting head of state after their official meetings. At the end of the week he’ll travel to New York to take part in an economic event organized by the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Later in the month, he plans to meet Pope John Paul II in St. Louis.

The idea undergirding much of the president’s schedule, aides say, is the same as the foundation on which his activities were built last January and the January before that: To garner attention for the policy initiatives he is presenting in the State of the Union message and in the federal budget he will roll out a week or so later.

But, conceded a senior White House official in a huge understatement, “this year is a little different.”

One year after charges first surfaced of a sexual relationship between Clinton and a White House intern, the president’s aides hope to play what they believe is his strongest hand: that of a president placing himself above the political noise while focusing on serious matters of policy.

“It makes him look like he’s not beleaguered or beaten down,” said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. “It draws a sharp contrast between himself and the Republicans. That’s the strategy.”

Referring to Clinton’s consistently high ratings in public opinion surveys, a senior White House aide said: “The reason three-quarters of the American people think he’s doing a good job is that he’s dominated the issue agenda, which carried him through all the unpleasant days of 1998.”

So, as the foreground is filled with impeachment, there in the background is the target himself, laboring away at the job to which he was elected.

On Thursday, he spent the morning in the White House residence working at, among other things, keeping in shape. His preferred means: a stair stepper.

He did not make it over to the West Wing, where the Oval Office is situated, until midday, when he had lunch with Vice President Al Gore in the private presidential dining room, White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart said.

No Time to Watch Senate Coverage

He did not, the spokesman said, track the television coverage of the Senate as it first received Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), who as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee will lead the prosecution of Clinton--or as U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and then the senators themselves swore to carry out their constitutional roles in the impeachment proceedings. Even the White House’s allotment of 20 tickets to the Senate’s viewing gallery went unused, a White House official said.

Clinton did speak with aides about the State of the Union address, scheduled to be delivered Jan. 19, in the midst of the trial. He spoke with them about education programs and what Deputy Chief of Staff Maria Echaveste described as the “conundrum” of helping the U.S. steel industry face competition from foreign steel makers exporting their products here, without “raising a protectionist flag.”

But the one semi-public event of the day, the presentation of the expanded funding for after-school programs, was linked, if distantly, to the impeachment proceedings.

Nearly one year ago, on Jan. 26, 1998, Clinton took part in a less formal ceremony, similarly introduced by Mrs. Clinton. It, too, focused on the after-school programs.

But that focus was lost that day when Clinton, finishing his comments, abruptly shifted the topic. Wagging a finger, he looked at the gathered reporters and cameras and said: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky.”