(2 of 7)
The White House spin all year, repeated five times daily like a call to prayer, is that the President is going about the people's business, not obsessing about his legal defense. But he doesn't need to pull every lever and push every button in order to control the campaign machine. After two elections and a full year of fire by trial, says a top aide, "we know what he wants, when he wants it, and how he wants it."
The sharpest change in the President's defense last week was that after months of arguing the merits, the White House lawyers finally argued the facts--and that decision was pure Clinton. In the House proceedings, his team buried the evidence deep in their legal briefs, arguing in their rare public comments that the offenses, even if true, did not warrant impeachment. But once the prospect of a trial became real--and the President's lawyers got the time to make a variety of arguments--the direction of the defense came from Clinton himself. Lawyers Charles Ruff and David Kendall kept in touch with the President by telephone; meetings were avoided. Even upon their return from the Hill last week, Clinton simply called to thank them for their work. He was confident that his team knew how to make the most of the overall strategy. Plus, says a White House adviser of the case against the President, "he really doesn't believe he did it."
While Clinton stays focused on business during the day, he grows more expansive as the hours pass. Mornings are consumed by press events and policy briefings, the annual winter wonkathon that produces both the State of the Union speech and the budget; he can use the afternoon to think and read. White House aides are very careful to insist that he does not watch the trial as it's happening, but as one aide put it, "it's not that he's oblivious either." And at the end of the working day, the walls come down completely. Clinton carries upstairs to the residence the fat folder of policy questions and decision memos that accumulate in his In box every day, but the rest of his life is up there waiting for him. He channel surfs among news, sports and nonstop talk shows, thinks through the twisted case again and again, calls friends and supporters to gauge reaction to the day's events and, most important, checks in with his friends in the Senate.
His call list varies night to night, but among the regulars are Tom Harkin of Iowa, Chris Dodd of Connecticut, John Breaux of Louisiana and Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the minority leader. Every morning the cycle starts again, with his focus back tightly on his job, the fat folder in chief of staff John Podesta's hands, with Clinton's scribbling on every page.