Give President Clinton credit.
Judging by his conciliatory words and subdued demeanor at his post-election news conference Wednesday afternoon, the beleaguered chief executive evidently got the stern message from the voters.The question now is whether he is willing and able to match his professed conversion to bipartisanship with concrete deeds.
To express this reservation is not to detract from Clinton's performance at the news conference, which had its impressive moments.
It would have been easier for him to have remained cloistered in the Oval Office and licked his wounds in private. Or he could have become defensive and combative. Instead, he chose to put his chagrin on public display - and face some tough, pointed questions about his past record and new stab at conciliation.
For this stance, bravo! Congratulations, too, for demonstrating that he knows how to listen and draw the proper conclusions after the voters have spoken. Hence, his candid acknowledgment that the public is calling for less intrusive and costly but more efficient government - and his admission that he is not widely perceived as having delivered on this score.
So far, so good. But some reservations are still in order because Clinton sounded moderate and mainstream during the 1992 election, then jolted many of his supporters after he entered the White House with a series of liberal appointments and his efforts to force gays upon the reluctant military.
Besides, there are no painless solutions to many of the budgetary and other problems facing the nation. Moreover, the election did not and could not eliminate the basic philosophical and policy differences between the two major political parties. Some confrontation and conflict between the new Republican Congress and the Clinton White House is unavoidable.
Consequently, even though voters have told Washington with unmistakable clarity that business as usual won't do, a key question remains: Though this message may have penetrated the mind of the Clinton team, has it penetrated its heart? If not, the same message may have to be repeated even more forcefully two years from now.