President Clinton is giving Americans word games for Christmas.
He is uttering phrases designed to give the impression of innocence against charges of immoral and financial misdeeds, but he doesn't actually deny much of the behavior charged.Clinton has played such games previously.
When asked in the campaign if he ever used drugs, he said he never broke U.S. drug laws. It turned out he had experimented with marijuana - but in England when he was a student at Oxford.
Clinton said he revealed that when he was asked the right question. Then he denied inhaling the marijuana. Maybe Rhodes scholars discovered a new high-tech way to use it.
He's playing such word games again with charges that he used Arkansas troopers to assist in extramarital affairs even after he won the presidential election and that he hid data about his ties to a land deal entangled with a failed thrift.
He did flatly deny that he offered troopers jobs in exchange for silence. "That absolutely did not happen," he told wire service reporters.
Of course, the White House says Clinton did call a trooper when he heard such charges were coming - but denies he offered a job for silence. It didn't address any other type of pressure.
Radio reporters tried to pursue other charges further, and asked Clinton if all allegations were false. He stammered, "We . . . we did, if, the, the, I, I, the stories are just as they have been said. They're outrageous and they're not so."
With more composure, he added, "We have not done anything wrong. I don't want to speculate on the rest of it." Clinton said previous statements by the White House had also adequately covered the situation.
Clinton did not deny affairs - just that he had done nothing wrong in his view. He was asked to flatly deny charges. He did not. The White House then tried to ban further questions on the topic, and ABC, NBC and CBS canceled scheduled interviews with Hillary Rodham Clinton rather than submit to such a ban.
The other White House statements Clinton referred to were also far from unequivocal denials.
Bruce R. Lindsay, a senior White House official, earlier said the "allegations are ridiculous. Similar charges were made, investigated and responded to during the campaign. There is nothing that dignifies a further response."
Look at the key points. He said the allegations are ridiculous. OK, but are they false? It's like saying, as the Nixon administration did, that Watergate was a third-rate burglary. It was, but the administration was behind it.
Lindsay said similar charges were made, investigated and responded to during the campaign. That doesn't say they were false, either.
During a campaign interview at half time of the Super Bowl, Clinton all but admitted infidelity (after Gennifer Flowers alleged a 12-year affair), saying his marriage had suffered "pain" but that it was patched up. Troopers are alleging problems continued after that interview and after the election.
Clinton also offered to cooperate with officials looking at fraudulent use of bank funds by a business partner but then reserved the right to exclude some documents - such as files taken from the office of White House counsel Vincent Foster after his suicide.
Administration officials have said the records are covered by the attorney-client privilege because Foster was the Clintons' personal attorney.
With all that, Clinton made another interesting statement this week when he explained that a trip to Moscow will not include a meeting with ultranationalist Russian leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who has made violent and racist remarks.
"A lesson I've learned as president: Word are deeds in a fundamental way," Clinton said as he dismissed suggestions that Zhirinovsky's words were just campaign rhetoric.
If words are deeds, Clinton's are murky. If he is innocent of major charges, the best way to quiet them would be to flatly deny them and open up related documents for review.
Otherwise, Americans will continue to wonder and suspect his careful phrases are covering something - especially given his past record.