Clinton Rigs for Silent Running During Crisis

WASHINGTON —  The drum roll has started on President Clinton’s long-awaited testimony on his relationship with former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky and speculation abounds on what he will and should do.

But advisors close to the president stressed Thursday that history is the best guide for how Clinton will approach his scheduled Aug. 17 appointment with independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr.

“The past is prologue,” said one senior White House advisor who has been with Clinton through past difficult times.

The president’s approach likely will follow the low-key pattern set the three previous times he has given videotaped testimony--twice in Whitewater trials of associates and once in the since-dismissed Paula Corbin Jones sexual harassment civil lawsuit, White House officials said.

Those awaiting a mea culpa or a public explanation of the relationship between the president and the former intern have not been consulting their Clinton biographies.

In the 1992 campaign, Clinton was hounded by the media about how he had avoided the draft and about an alleged years-long relationship with a cabaret singer named Gennifer Flowers. Voters never got confessions or explanations of either charge, although Clinton has since admitted having had a relationship with Flowers.

Some legal advisors have warned Clinton’s lawyers that they are walking into a perjury charge if the president sticks to the story he told in his deposition in the Jones case--that he and Lewinsky did not have a sexual relationship. And some former political advisors are warning Clinton that without a detailed explanation his legacy will suffer.

But Clinton is unlikely to take their advice, no matter what these advisors say, Clinton’s political team stresses.

“Although there’s enormous pressure from well-intentioned friends to go into every kind of absurd detail, I don’t believe it’s what the American people want,” one advisor said.

Analysts suggested that it would be out of character for Clinton to give a candid account of something he did that put him in anything less than a glowing light.

“He is supposed to be the president for the ‘Oprah’ age but that is really not true. The talk-show society lets it all hang out. You don’t have to lie or mislead. You simply tell the truth, apologize and admit your misdeeds,” said Larry Sabato, professor of government at the University of Virginia. “Clinton has very rarely admitted any misdeeds.”

One veteran Washington lawyer warned a senior member of the president’s legal team this week that he is walking Clinton into a perjury charge by allowing him to deny a sexual affair with Lewinsky in his closed-door grand jury testimony.

The lawyer outlined a preferable option: “the Southern gentleman’s approach.” The president would refuse to answer Starr’s questions, explaining that he does not trust him and believes the independent counsel’s Lewinsky investigation is dishonorable.

The president would subsequently repeat this to the American people, adding that he has not been a perfect husband but that spending so much taxpayer money and so much of his time on this case is a foolish waste, the lawyer suggested. Clinton would then explain that he would not dignify Starr’s investigation by answering sordid questions about his personal life or the personal life of a young woman. And, if Congress believes he should be impeached for this, then so be it.

Although the senior member of the Clinton legal team listened politely, it was clear by the end of the conversation that the counsel likely would be ignored, the veteran lawyer said.

Leon E. Panetta, Clinton’s former chief of staff, said that--if he were still advising the president--he would try to persuade him to give a full explanation to the country of his relationship with Lewinsky before he testifies.

“This cup is not going to pass. He’s going to have to confront this issue directly,” Panetta said. He added that 30 years of political experience in and out of Washington had demonstrated for him that “the sooner you do it the better off ultimately you’ll be.”

Panetta said that, if the president fails to tell the full truth in his testimony and to the American people, it would overshadow the accomplishments of his presidency.

“Despite the myriad of investigations his administration has had to go through, he’s been outstanding in the leadership he’s provided on the economy and other issues he’s confronted. What I would be disappointed by would be if this scandal were allowed to undercut his achievements,” said Panetta.

Dee Dee Myers, Clinton’s first press secretary as president, offered slightly different advice.

“If he’s going to testify and change anything that he has said [about the nature of the relationship], then I think he needs to find a way to go before the American people and explain that.”

If his description of the relationship differs from what he has said publicly--and in the deposition in Jones’ civil sexual harassment case, which was later made public--that information is sure to leak eventually. It would be better if Americans learned it first from him, Myers declared.

Even if he does not plan to change his testimony, Myers added, he should use the occasion of his upcoming appointment with prosecutors to reassure the American people.

As he prepares to meet Starr, added Myers, “he could say: ‘I’ve already told the American people what the truth is: I look forward to telling the same to Ken Starr.’ ”

Rahm Emanuel, senior advisor to the president for strategy and policy, said it is easy for people who cannot know all the facts and are not sitting in the White House to criticize the path chosen by the president and his advisors.

“This has been a full employment act for the jaw-flapping community,” Emanuel said. But no one can possibly know what is best for the president from the perspective of an armchair, he added.

“Nobody has ever been in this position.”

Times staff writers Robert L. Jackson and Ronald J. Ostrow contributed to this story.

An ongoing discussion of the Monica S. Lewinsky matter, with news coverage, editorials and commentary, is on The Times’ Web site, at:http://arstechnica.netblogpro.com/scandal