RECENT COMMENTARY ON PRESIDENT HAS BEEN DISMISSIVE, CONTEMPTUOUS

Recent commentary on President Bill Clinton has been remarkably dismissive, even contemptuous. Here's columnist Joe Sobran on our President, quoting Clinton:

"`This isn't about the political center,' he (Clinton) said, explaining his decision to withdraw the Lani Guinier nomination. `This is about my center.'" Oh.

To that firm presidential declaration, Joe Sobran retorted: "What center? Is the chameleon asking us to believe he is showing his true colors? ... Now he (Clinton) is a spent force who has used up his whole bag of tricks especially those arts of self-presentation with which he wowed us like a high-school valedictorian using a lot of big words ..."

Here's nationally syndicated columnist Jeff Hart, who is also a professor of English at Dartmouth College:

"Democratic campaign consultant Patrick Caddell derisively calls Clinton `The Great Prevaricator', a take-off on Ronald Reagan as `The Great Communicator.' There are bumper stickers in Washington that read, `Honk If You Think He's Lying.'

"... In Congress he is not respected, but worse, he is not feared. Former Bush administration official Jim Pinkerton put the situation well, calling Clinton `a male southern belle who charmed his way to the top,' adding, `He is a pinball moving back and forth to the pressures of external events, without any internal gyroscope to guide him.'"

That gets it about right.

* * * * *

In Tuesday's column, we reviewed some revealing background on davidgergen, the recycled imagemaker President Clinton brought in to "fix" his "image". But what of the top staff Clinton had already picked to fill out the upper reaches of his administration?

Practically the first position announced by President-elect Clinton after the election last fall was to name his lifelong friend Thomas "Mack" McClarty chief of staff. The following excerpts from a recent Forbes magazine piece on McClarty are devastatingly revealing.

"Mack the Incompetent/

Finally, some good news for Arkla Inc.'s shareholders. Former chairman Mack McClarty has gone to Washington."

"Folks in the natural gas industry figure White House Chief of Staff Thomas Mack McClarty must feel right at home in Washington. His casual way with a buck will fit right in. In the eight years he ran Arkla, Inc., the $2.7 billion (revenues) Shreveport La.-based gas outfit, McClarty spent more money than Arkla generated every year and more than quadrupled the company's debt. Trying to please Arkla's numerous constituencies, `Mack the Nice' (as he's known in Washington) often ducked tough executive decisions.

"Result? Appalling. When McClarty left last December, Arkla was heading for a 1992 loss of $236 million. In 1985, the year McClarty took over, Arkla stock was trading as high as 24. By the time he left for Washington, it was trading around 8. Standard & Poor's index of similar stocks climbed 44 percent over the same period.

"Arkla's new managers, Chairman Milton Honea and President Daniel Dienstbier, have already proved they're willing to take the tough, unpopular steps one reason the stock has recovered to a recent 10.

"Dienstbier, a pipeline veteran, ... quickly sold Arkla's two jets and its 2,000-odd company cars and cut overhead by more than $50 million annually. Gone are such perks as club memberships and trips for spouses, which Mack the Nice never brought himself to eliminate.

"Borrowing flourished under McClarty. ...

".... The toughest job now falls to Dienstbier: turning around Arkla's original pipeline, Arkla Energy Resources. This line spent $820 million in the 1980s to buy out high-priced gas supply contracts. Under federal rules, pipelines could bill the customers for 50 percent to 75 percent of such costs. But Arkla couldn't pass a penny on to its customers. Why not? Because McClarty had never shifted Arkla's pipeline sales from state to federal regulation. Doing so would have meant a nasty public fight in Arkansas and strained McClarty's friendship with Arkansas' then-governor, Bill Clinton.

"`There is a mixture of business and politics that is inevitable in a small state,' says James Rutherford, an Arkla executive under McClarty. `It's our way of life down here.'

".... Still hanging over Arkla are more clouds from the McClarty era. He bought Entex, the Houston-based utility not long after Entex dumped a savings-and-loan that had scared off at least one other potential buyer. Now the Resolution Trust Corporation wants upwards of $535 million from Arkla to cover the S&L's losses. Arkla is fighting the lawsuit; perhaps McClarty's new job will benefit his former employer.

".... McClarty ... owned a mere 86,288 shares [of Arkla], less than one-tenth of one percent of the company. He should fit right in in Washington, spending other folks' money."