WASHINGTON WATCH: SQUIRMING ON POLITICS, PRAYER, PORNOGRAPHY

Bill Clinton, the most powerful man in the world, is in a predicament. If he moves politically to the right, as the country indicated in last week's elections that it strongly wants him to do, he is likely to find himself challenged by the core constituencies of his own party. Already the rumblings of liberal dismay have begun. If he moves farther to the left, however, he threatens to make himself even more anathema to the majority of Americans. Either way, he invites opposition from fellow Democrats in 1996, usually a crippling blow to a sitting president's political viability. It is at times like this that strong leaders forsake the political polls and rely on their guiding principles. Ronald Reagan did this in 1982 and not only carried the United States into peace and prosperity, he was re-elected in a landslide two years later. Governing and not just politicking, Reagan transcended the negativity and partisanship around him, taking the nation with him.

Clinton's handicap is that nobody knows if he has any guiding principles to fall back on. One of his closest political advisers, James Carville, lamented this character vacuum once by drawing a circle on a piece of paper and pointing at it, "Where is the hallowed ground? What does this president believe in?"Early signs of a new Clinton direction are murky. Most of the policy changes announced since the election have been marked by ambiguity rather than clarity. His post-election flip-flop on school prayer is one example. In opposition to a voluntary school prayer amendment the week before Americans voted, Clinton endorsed it the week after. Met with a firestorm of criticism from the left, his aides explain that he didn't mean what he said. Now, no one knows where he stands. It is as if the White House hopes it can hem and haw until the wind changes in a more favorable direction.

Not all of Clinton's actions since election day have been marked by indecisiveness, however. One important reversal concerns the administration's position on child pornography. This change deserves praise, even if the whole episode is rather damning for the White House.

Because the mainstream media has virtually ignored the story, here's a summary.

For the year and a half prior to the midterm elections, the Clinton Justice Department sought to loosen interpretations of federal child pornography law. The effort revolved around a court case involving a Pennsylvania man, Stephen Knox, who was convicted of possessing child pornography after three videotapes were found in his home. The tapes depicted adolescent girls and children as young as eight in bikinis, underwear and stockings and often zoomed in on specific body parts.

Promotional materials for the videotapes said: "Every second is crammed with tender young girls in various revealing outfits.... We have some nice close-ups of the panties she's wearing under those shorts, too.... Just as you are recovering from all of the above, we bombard you with some nice teen and preteen panty close-ups." Knox was convicted in 1991 under a federal law against receiving through the mail or possessing any visual depiction of "a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct," which includes "lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area."After initially urging the Supreme Court not to take the case, the Clinton Justice Department reversed itself and argued for Knox, saying that "lascivious exhibition" would require that a child's body parts be exposed to the camera. In addition, the "behavior of the child" not just her portrayal, would have to be "lascivious." (Lascivious as defined by Webster's: "exciting sexual desire, salacious.")The Clinton position was in direct opposition to the Bush administration's, which had argued that the exhibition of clothed genitals of a child violated federal pornography laws if the context was an attempt to attract sexual attention to the child. Congress, which had written the law, agreed with the Bush administration. All 100 senators and all but three members of the House said they intended the law to apply to people like Knox. Both houses voted to urge the department to enforce the strict interpretation of the law. For nearly two years, however, the Clinton Justice Department disagreed.

Last week, after the Republican sweep, the Justice Department reversed itself again, this time to the good. In a detailed 21-page brief signed by the attorney general, the Justice Department argued that Stephen Knox's conviction should be maintained. (One can only wonder if the administration would have reversed itself if the election results had been different.)Is this a portent of a new Clinton direction, more attuned to the values of the vast majority of Americans? Or are we in store merely for more fumblings, like the initial hemming and hawing over school prayer.

At this point, only one thing is certain. As the pornography case indicates, this administration has a long way to go.

Jon K . Rust is a Washington-based writer for the Southeast Missourian.