Win some, lose some

Not everyone was damaged by the Monica affair

National Interests by Gary Griffith

President Clinton will win the vote in the Senate this week. Yet even though his approval ratings have, ironically, risen during the impeachment scandal, he will remain on my list of losers in the Monica affair. Clinton once envisioned himself going down in the textbooks as the first Democratic president since Franklin Roosevelt to be elected to a second term. Now he knows that history will mark him as the first president known to have used a cigar as a sexual aid.

White House curators, who have so carefully preserved the building's architectural details and furniture, will point out to their successors the bed that Lincoln slept in, the balcony that Truman built, and the sink into which Clinton masturbated.

There have been lots of losers in the Monica scandal. And you can be sure that lists of winners and losers will be showing up after the final verdict. America was introduced to a new cast of celebrities during the Monica affair. Some strengthened their careers and public standing. Some did not.

Jackie Judd, the ABC News correspondent who broke the stained-dress story, only to have it denied, then verified weeks later, is one of the winners. Similarly, George Stephanopoulos, the former Clinton adviser who became an analyst for ABC News -- a "commentraitor," his former White House pals called him -- gained credibility with his remarks that Clinton was a flawed individual who was probably lying.

Another winner, but for opposite reasons, is Joe Lockhart, the new White House press secretary. Unlike his predecessor, the popular Mike McCurry, Lockhart is a White House partisan, defending his boss daily and criticizing the opposition. Lockhart is one of the few defenders of the president who wasn't previously duped (at least publicly).

The White House lawyers, by contrast, may have "won" the Senate trial, but many in Washington consider them losers for offering the legal advice that resulted in impeachment. As one reporter quipped, "If David Kendall was fighting a traffic ticket, Clinton would have gotten 20 years to life."

Senators, who had no speaking parts in the drama until late in the game, seem to be treading water, neither rising nor falling. But the House of Representatives has lots of candidates for the winner/loser lists.

The person who fell the furthest is Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House, who managed to lead his troops to an off-year election loss of six seats, and felt compelled to resign the third most powerful office in the country. Another big-time loser is Bob Livingston, who backed out of the Speakership and resigned from Congress after Penthouse publisher Larry Flynt exposed his extramarital affairs.

A lesser loser, but one who managed to rise from obscurity only to mar his reputation, is House Judiciary Committee member Bob Barr, the Georgia congressman whose vigorous stance on impeachment gave rise to reports that he was a little too cozy with white-supremacist groups.

His colleague, House manager Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, seems to be a winner with his easy and resonant style. "When you call somebody at two o'clock in the morning," he told the Senate after Monica testified that the president had done just that, "you seem to be looking for trouble."

But the biggest winner, ironically, may be Hillary Clinton, whose favorability rating has climbed even higher than her husband's during the scandal. Where once American women saw her as a controlling shrew who was above baking cookies, she's turned out to be just like the woman next door -- her husband was doing her wrong.

And Monica? I happen to think that Monica has come out a winner too. She's the person with the most lucrative book contract so far. She told Vernon Jordan she wanted an easy job, and she will have it, being a celebrity and an author.

The list could go on and on. See if you can place the following in their proper places: Linda Tripp. Matt Drudge. The Gap. Of course, future historians will revise the list. So my advice to the president is to renovate that bathroom next to the Oval Office. Get rid of the sink.

Gary Griffith is a long-time Boston journalist now based in Washington.