Clinton Staff to Change--How Is Uncertain

WASHINGTON —  President Clinton, conceding that his Administration needs “a little better focus,” said Tuesday that he plans to make changes in the White House staff, but aides continue to disagree about what ails his White House and, therefore, what cure to prescribe.

Clinton seems likely to add a second deputy chief of staff. Some advisers suggested that announcing such an addition could come by the end of the week, but others indicated that, because of continuing disagreement over what the new official should do, an announcement may be further away.

One central issue is whether Clinton’s problem is too little immersion in the political culture of Washington or too much.

Those who argue that Clinton has immersed himself too little in Washington’s ways cite problems with his legislative program, a highly publicized gaffe involving Senate Republican leader Bob Dole of Kansas and danger signals that many liberal House Democrats are chafing at the Administration’s budget-cutting plans. Clinton needs someone to force his staff to think more like Washingtonians, proponents of that theory argue.

“Like it or not, there’s a legislature here, (and) you have to work with the people in this town,” said an adviser who falls into that camp.

A second school of thought holds that Clinton’s problem is precisely the opposite--that his Administration already has become too much a captive of Washington and, because of that, has lost touch with sentiment outside the capital.

“Connection with the country is what you draw on,” said one Administration official who advocates that theory. “If you let the Senate know that you dominate the microphone and that the people are on your side, they’ll vote for your program.”

In that view, what Clinton needs is not a Washington expert but better coordination of his efforts to sell his program to the country.

A third school argues that Clinton’s problem basically has less to do with the inside-game versus outside-game dispute and primarily involves a lack of discipline. Clinton has hurt himself because he has gotten personally involved in too many of the Administration’s projects, said one senior Democratic adviser.

“The President needs to decide what is on his agenda,” the adviser said. “Not the White House agenda, not the Administration’s agenda, not the nation’s agenda or the world’s agenda, but the President’s agenda. Then you stick to that, period.”

At times in the past in the White House, the job of enforcer went to the chief of staff. But Clinton has given Thomas (Mack) McLarty a broader role as an all-purpose counselor, leaving him little time for the details of agenda-setting.

Clinton, himself, in remarks to reporters at a White House photo session, provided some support to each of those arguments--an indication that he may not yet have made up his mind which set of advice to take.

“I’ve never operated here before, and there are some things that are very different about the way Washington works--some good and some not so good,” he said.

“We think that there needs to be a little tighter coordination here to make sure that we’ve got our priorities straight and that those priorities are communicated all the way down to the staff--and a little better focus,” he added.

On another front, the battle between the White House and Dole seemed to cool down. “I’ve seen a lot of stories about a so-called ‘war of words’ between the White House and the Republican leader,” Dole said in a Senate speech. “Well, as far as I’m concerned, it’s all water under the boathouse.”

Clinton had angered Dole with a joke Saturday about the Republican senator’s lobbying to get federal help in building a boathouse in Wichita, Kan.

But another presidential joke--this one aimed at conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh--continued to cause trouble. During an after-dinner speech Saturday, Clinton had noted that Limbaugh spoke out in favor of Atty. Gen. Janet Reno after Reno came under fire from Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), who is black. Clinton joked that Limbaugh had supported Reno only “because she was attacked by a black guy.”

Limbaugh, who was present at the dinner, complained that the joke implied he is a racist.

“The President meant to be funny and it wasn’t,” said White House Communications Director George Stephanopoulos.