Clinton’s rating still above 60

Political weathercocks in Washington are now saying the President may have weathered the worst and may even invite some sympathy with his performance before the cameras. The early opinion polls back this.

One CNN-Gallup poll on Tuesday showed the President got a slight bump from his performance. His job approval rating went up from 60 to 66 per cent, as did the number of people who did not want him to be impeached.

It has happened time and again throughout Bill Clinton’s political career. Just when he appears most vulnerable, an unexpected bit of luck yanks himback from the brink. The release of the videotape may someday be remembered as the unlikeliest and most ironic in his lifetime of lucky breaks, a potentially damaging event that helped more than hurt, Clinton biographer David Maraniss wrote in the Washington Post on Tuesday, as pundits sifted through the debris of Mondays history-making developments.

There is a sense that the Republicans and Clinton’s political opponents may have overplayed their hands. The video was expected to destroy him, show him as a lying, conniving weasel. There was also expectation that Clinton would come out looking unreasonably angry, maybe even storm out of the questioning. But all such expectations were belied. On the contrary, Clinton came out looking like a victim being subjected to Gestapo-style questioning. Although he was in turn lawyerly, evasive and shifty, he also appeared pained, confused and shredded by the events.

(There were) palpably uncomfortable moments for Clinton, yet there appeared to be no single frame thatwill be burnished for ever in public memory… In its totality it made Clinton appear to be a reasonable man struggling to survive in a difficult situation brought about by his political enemies, Maraniss said.

Clinton’s supporters are now trying to capitalise on this unexpected bonanza by working out a deal with the Congress that will fall short of impeachment but will result in some form of censure of the President. But the hotheads in the Grand Old Party appear hell-bent on initiating impeachment proceedings.

As the TV networks and cable news channels began recycling the four-hour taped testimony in a myriad edited versions, the pundits said Clinton has used the opportunity to put up a bravura defence of his indefensible follies. Silver-tongued and agile of mind, he doggedly deflected the prosecutors’ efforts to nail him on perjury and obstruction of justice charges while at the same time outlining his defence.

The only time the President seemed to be caught off-guard was when a prosecutor asked himif he had used a cigar as a sexual aid. Clinton recoiled, his eyes glazed over, but he recovered his poise and brushed off the question reverting to his formal statement in which he acknowledged improper conduct but would not go into details.

His limited candour, his personal agony and his belated feeling for the girl who is embroiled in the scandal — he described Monica as a good girl with a good heart — elicited some sympathy and understanding among much of the American public, even if they would not condone his actions. Look, he says he did something wrong. You guys should lay off him, Cynthia Paddock, a NGO professional said, blaming the media for whole episode.

Some of the emerging sympathy was evident in the standing ovation that leaders of the world gave him on the opening day of the UN session even as his videotape was being telecast on all major American television channels. Not just the White House, but even UN officials and foreign diplomats said it was an unprecedented reception for thebeleaguered president.