Clinton: Lofty Goals, Weighty Scandals

In a solemn swearing-in ceremony topped off by glittering celebrations, President Clinton on Monday opens a new chapter amid high hopes and nagging troubles for himself and the nation.

Rarely have so many conflicting currents swirled around a presidential inaugural. William Jefferson Clinton, exuding youth and vigor at age 50, will take the oath of office for the second time with the economy expanding, the stock market soaring and his popularity climbing over 60 percent approval in the opinion polls, the highest of his presidency.

Yet, he is sworn in as a president who was twice elected with less than a majority and whose scandals have triggered an unprecedented number of independent counsel investigations.

His inaugural address, which he almost certainly will be honing until the last possible minute, is expected to set lofty goals for the new millennium and call the United States the “indispensable nation” with responsibilities for world leadership.

And he will rally Americans of all backgrounds and political persuasions to help solve problems such as failing schools and putting welfare recipients to work, said Clinton aides.

Clinton’s aim is “to put in a larger historical context where we are as a nation, to put in one place our dreams for the world we are trying to make, and call the country together so that we can do the job,” White House press secretary Michael McCurry said on Friday.

However, specifics for the second-term agenda will be saved for the state of the union address that Clinton will deliver on Feb. 4 and for the White House budget that will be released two days afterward. The inaugural speech will focus on the nation’s future, McCurry said.

Deep in the drafting work, the president last week summoned works of poetry and famed oratory. Harking back to an election campaign in which his refrain was “building a bridge to the next century,” he consulted the biblical text in Nehemiah, “Let us rise up and build.”

And yet, as Clinton arrives at the door on the east side of the Capitol on Monday just before the ceremony, signs of his difficulties will surround him. He will be able to glance across the lawn and see the U.S. Supreme Court building, where the justices heard arguments a week before on a sexual harassment lawsuit against him.

At precisely one minute before noon on Monday, Clinton will take the oath outside the Capitol’s west front, festooned in red, white and blue bunting to a crowd of tens of thousands.

But inside the Capitol, where Clinton is scheduled to attend a traditional luncheon with lawmakers, a double challenge awaits. No matter how musical his words may sound at the inauguration, a Congress still controlled by opposition Republican majority will not be dancing to the tune of his legislative agenda.

And more troubling for the new administration, the lawmakers have pledged to examine a broad range of simmering Clinton scandals, especially the millions in Asian dollars that flowed into Democratic campaign coffers.

That’s in addition to the two-year-old Whitewater investigation conducted by independent counsel Kenneth Starr, who is expected to issue his report and new indictments soon.

Whatever the outcome, the Starr report will refocus attention on first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s role in the Whitewater real estate ventures. Perhaps because of that, Hillary Clinton has cautiously avoided sketching out a high-profile policy role for herself for the new term.

The outlook for the second Clinton term is secure or tenuous, depending on your perspective, said Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia.

“The scandals have done surprisingly little damage to him on the popular level,” he said. “The problem for him is the ‘elites’ - the press, the political partisans - are convinced that he is on that long slope downwards and that it’s unstoppable - that there are so many strands of so many scandals that are being balled up that he will inevitably be paralyzed.”

Sabato said his own view is that the Clinton administration will not be totally halted, but that controversies, particularly the sex harassment lawsuit, will undermine his personal credibility. “To use the ‘bully pulpit’ (of the White House), you have to have moral authority,” Sabato said.

Clinton’s plans for his second term make clear that he will rely heavily on his powers of public persuasion, especially now that he cannot depend on Congress to pass his agenda.

In fact, the president who has long been a fervent campaigner, is about to launch a new Clinton campaign to state legislatures, schools and small towns around the country - stumping not for votes but to mobilize local groups and governments behind his ideas for reform.

The effort begins Wednesday when the president travels to a school in a Chicago suburb to focus on his hopes for reinvigorating education across the country.

Clinton has concluded, said his spokesman, that “the White-House-to-Congress axis up and down the length of Pennsylvania Avenue that he will walk on Monday (after his inaugural) does not define the resources available to the modern presidency.”