`NEW' CLINTON STRUGGLES OVER COURSE

So President Bill Clinton has discovered family values. And this commander-in-chief, a child of 1960s war protests who is recklessly cutting defense spending while expanding commitments, has found a country where he approves of the use of military force.

With midterm elections just six weeks away and his poll numbers falling and with a majority of Americans disapproving of his job performance, our president seems determined to remake himself into a "new" Bill Clinton. Evidence abounds.

The president's performance on Haiti was hardly reassuring. Having painted himself into a corner in which U.S. credibility would have been nil, absent an invasion, Clinton sent three 11th-hour private emissaries. Once launched, it quickly became clear that the trio's leader, former President Jimmy Carter, was not only uncontrollable, but determined to thumb his nose at the president who sent him there. Control over American foreign policy had been ceded to unelected and unaccountable designees of the president. When, in due course, the 82nd Airborne was dispatched, Carter, who had exceeded by seven hours the Clinton deadline, was furious. Dismayed Americans, watching the whole bizarre episode, are entitled to wonder whether this president has a good grasp on his own administration.

Or again: Family values. Joining a group one wag dubbed the "Quayle Democrats," President Clinton recently traveled to New Orleans to address a black church audience, there to decry illegitimacy, the decline of family values and fading moral standards.

Let us not dismiss the importance of the presidency as a bully pulpit from which to address great issues. This is, indeed, an important function of America's chief magistrate. The point is that in successful presidencies, the broad themes are intimately connected to the style of governance and -- this is crucial -- it is understood that style flows from substance in leadership. Presidents who don't display this anchor in substance are condemned to appear rudderless. Like this one.

Thus we saw last week's dust-up in the White House communications office. New chief of staff Leon Panetta had been determined to oust Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers and replace her with a more seasoned pro such as the sober State Department spokesman, Mike McCurry. Numerous leaks had telegraphed this eventuality, that is, until the very last moment. At the 11th hour last Thursday evening, Myers asked for and got a private audience with the president.

At what was described as an "emotional" meeting, Myers' pleas saved her job. A rather humiliated Panetta was trotted out the next day to explain, at great length, that even though Myers was staying, responsibilities between her and White House Communications chief Mark Gearan were being shuffled in some profound manner that would "refocus our message."

This episode, and others like it, suggest strongly that senior Clinton White House officials believe their president's problems to be matters of public relations. It is a familiar lament. Presidents in trouble cannot accept that the public is accurately hearing their message and evenhandedly judging their policies. "It just has to be the message," they say. "We need new personnel, or redefined job descriptions, especially in communications."

This leads to a shuffled deck and much clucking about how things will be different. The substance rarely changes. And substance, not perception, is Clinton's problem. He campaigned as a New Democrat, but has gone out of his way to govern as an old one. He talks a good game of seeking bipartisan cooperation. But with the single exception of NAFTA (where Republican votes saved his program when Democratic majorities rejected it), he has had no use for Republican ideas. He talks values, moderation and respect for opposing viewpoints, but retains insulting appointees such as the embarrassing Dr. Joycelyn Elders, who goes out of her way as surgeon general to offend Americans by the millions.

As a result, nearly two years into his term, the judgments of the American people on Clinton's stewardship are hardening. This Comeback Kid has bounced back from some low depths before. Perhaps a "new" Bill Clinton will assuage voters' doubts. Historical evidence from many presidencies, as well as public reaction to this one, suggest otherwise.