When His Presence Is the Message

His sturdy jaw precedes him, he smiles from sea to shining sea. Is this president a candidate for Mt. Rushmore or what?

A recent poll gives President Clinton the same 60% public approval rating that Ronald Reagan brought to his second term. But that is not all the two former governors share.

No presidents in the TV era have been as camera-ready.

Reagan, the onetime movie actor, could create a national swoon as president just by grinning and cocking his head boyishly. He also scored mightily with a tear in his eye, another in his voice. His televised press conferences were often convoluted, out-of-body adventures. But he ate the lens. It was less what he said, but how affably and earnestly he appeared to say it that resonated loudest and lingered magically.

Clinton has his archive of enduring TV moments, from playing the saxophone with abandon to fending off personal, political and legal attacks from his many accusers in a continuing war zone that some believe may ultimately undermine and define his second term.

Yet like Reagan, Clinton seems to know instinctively when stalked at long range by a TV camera spoiling for a close-up--which is nearly always when a president is in the vicinity--and just as instinctively what to do when he’s center screen, where he was during much of Monday’s inaugural rite:

The chin edges forward. Read strength, determination. The eyes narrow. Read total absorption. The bottom lip fattens and pushes out beyond the lower lip. Read defiance, yet all-knowing insight. The head nods ever so slightly. Read empathy, sensitivity and support for whatever platitude is being expressed. And when he adds one of his trademark thumbs up. . . .

Love you, man.

Anyone else wearing these looks simultaneously would end up appearing rehearsed or mannered, if not like a jerk. But on Clinton, they blend artfully.

Thus, what his speeches say or don’t say may matter little in the pantheon of public opinion, and the many TV pundits who faulted his inaugural address Monday and Tuesday just didn’t get it.

No “romance,” veteran Washington journalist Hugh Sidey lamented about Clinton’s rhetoric on the Fox News Channel. “Ersatz eloquence . . . content-free,” charged Richard Norton Smith of the Gerald Ford Library and Museum on C-SPAN. “Not . . . very well written or delivered,” Tim Russert ruled on NBC’s “Today” program.

And so on and so on, the critiques having merit but missing the point. What difference did it make whether the speech was inspired or uninspired? The importance of speeches is ever overrated. Judging Clinton solely by what he said and didn’t say at his inaugural ignored the other things he did that eclipsed his oratory.

Although Clinton contributed a heroic cameo to Tuesday night’s emotional CBS movie, “A Child’s Wish,” he hardly needs written lines to indelibly stamp TV. Like Reagan, his presence alone conveys a message. And he, not what he says, is that message. Again like Reagan, his demeanor and physical essence, advertising who he is (or who he wants to be seen as), bellow louder than his words. In fact, when it comes to influencing the public, a single medley of expressions from Clinton may be worth much more, to much of America, than every ugly accusation Paula Jones can muster.

He was transfixed, even mouthing lyrics during Monday’s singing of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” by a Little Rock choir. Read spiritual. At one point his hands were in a prayerful pose, tips of his fingers touching his nose and his gaze elevated, as if in divine communication, while hearing Arkansas poet Miller Williams speak of “flowering faces and brambles that we can no longer allow.” Read spiritual again.

With TV continuing to be the nation’s primary means of discourse, from White House lips to your ears, having an affinity with the medium is essential for modern presidents. Can’t do without it. Yet this president is so very, very good at massaging opinion through TV, it remains to be seen whether historians ultimately rate him as having been as determined to safeguard the Constitution as to preserve, defend and protect his public image.

Perhaps all of this is Clinton doing what comes naturally without forethought. Perhaps he is responding sincerely from the heart, oblivious to the cameras that are closely monitoring and scrutinizing him, pore by pore, sensitive to his every facial tic and nuance. There certainly is no question that he blossoms amid crowds and thrives on public contact, witness TV pictures of his happy late-hours ball-hopping with the first lady Monday night, ending a day that began with telecasts of the Clintons and Gores responding with great zest to a rousing church revival.

Yet it’s impossible to know where old-time religion ends and old-time PR begins. After being jobbed so often by politicians, we’re conditioned to be suspicious of them and to believe that everything they do is for public consumption. Thus, you are left to wonder whether the president was also referring to his image when he said on CBS Sunday about the inaugural speech he was then working on: “It’s like polishing a stone. You can always find one more place that you want to polish some more.”

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STAR POLISH. America should be long past being surprised when star journalists move in the same circles as those they may cover. But such coziness creates potentially dangerous ethical conflicts, and some lines just should not be crossed.

A motorcade of black limos crept along Washington’s Pennsylvania Avenue on Monday morning like a funeral procession, finally stopping at the White House to pick up President Clinton. Emerging from one of the limos was Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the inaugural committee. And popping out right after him?

“Unless my eyes are deceiving me,” someone said on C-SPAN, “that’s Barbara Walters.”

The Barbara Walters, ABC News’ ace interviewer and star of “20/20”? The same.

Well, perhaps Warner had seen her waiting for a bus or hitchhiking to the inaugural and generously gave her a lift.

Actually, no.

Later, Walters spoke briefly on ABC (“I don’t get to the White House very often”), after which anchor Peter Jennings explained that, as Warner’s guest, she was leaving “to go out on the podium and enjoy the inauguration in a way she hasn’t done before.”

Indeed, an ABC camera later found her in the very, very VIP area of the podium, seated directly behind Warner and within a few feet of the president and Vice President Al Gore as they were administered their oaths of office.

Afterward, NBC and C-SPAN cameras caught her at the traditional post-inaugural luncheon in her white suit, appearing almost to be on the official congressional receiving line while greeting Clinton and getting kissed by Gore before joining them at the head table with their wives, Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and the Rev. Billy Graham.

Not that chumminess between the power press and Capitol Hill power brokers is anything new. In fact, it appears to be growing, and the only shocker Monday was that Graham, not Walters, gave the blessing.

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DEEP THROAT. As if embattled Speaker Gingrich didn’t have enough problems, NBC delivered a Dennis Rodman-esque kick to his groin Monday by cutting to an unflattering shot of him yawning during the inaugural benediction.

You could blame Gingrich for not knowing when to keep his mouth shut, but also NBC for appearing to go out of its way to embarrass him by telecasting it wide open.