Clinton digs in
for the long haul
Analysis,
By Alan Deans
While Washington has been pre-occupied with the details of the Lewinsky case, Mr Bill Clinton has judiciously staked out the foundations for continuing his presidency.
Anyone who challenges him now risks being demonised.
And, like any hellfire Southern evangelist, Mr Clinton is happy to point the finger. Top of his list is independent counsel Mr Ken Starr.
This battle depends upon Mr Clinton convincing people that his accuser is an evil man.
Mr Starr is being cast as a voyeur. Worse, he is peddling pornography into American homes by needlessly detailing the most salacious aspects of Mr Clinton's sexual affair.
And all of this is being done, Mr Clinton's advisers say, because he wants to bring down the President. There are simply no matters of impeachable significance that Mr Starr has been able to raise.
Suddenly it is Ken Starr the deviant pitched against Bill Clinton the redeemed. Quite a turn of events.
In this deliberately personal attack, Mr Clinton knows that Mr Starr cannot defend himself. He has had his day by authoring the 445-page referral being considered by Congress as the grounds for impeachment.
Mr Clinton believes that his survival as President depends on winning the high moral ground.
Never mind that he has admitted to a long-running affair with a vulnerable young intern less than half his age. Forget also that Congress is considering a report on the Lewinsky affair that lists 11 grounds for his impeachment, most of them involving alleged criminal breaches of the law.
The President has apologised for his transgressions to everyone who will listen. He has also humbled himself at a prayer breakfast - that most solemn of American occasions - and admitted that he is a sinner. Every time you turn on the television, there is Mr Clinton baring his soul to all and sundry.
The President, who has displayed an amazing lack of moral fortitude, now wants to get on with life. It would be downright un-Christian, he would contend, for anyone not to extend forgiveness.
Yet Mr Clinton risks showing that he is not repentant at all.
It was his attack against the independent counsel in a televised statement in mid-August after his grand jury appearance that did him so much damage for not being sufficiently contrite. Now the President has launched an even more bitter assault against a man who, after all, is only doing his job.
By pursuing this action, it raises the point that Mr Clinton believes his own case is weak.
Far better for the President to extend the forgiveness that he has desperately sought from millions of other Americans. Only if his heart is free from bitterness can he hope people will believe that he has risen about the ruck of Washington politics sufficient for him to continue the serious business of running America.
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