Shear Dismay

By Margaret Carlson/Washington

President can do just about anything he wants, which is why he is under constraints to behave so well. As much as the bills he introduces, the speeches he gives and the Executive Orders he signs, a President is defined by the small acts at the margin that burn themselves into the national consciousness: Jimmy Carter with his killer rabbit and lust in his heart, Lyndon Johnson displaying his surgical scar, Richard Nixon strolling on the beach in his wing tips. In years to come, the biggest small thing of the Clinton presidency may turn out to be The $5,500 Haircut.

Itemized, that's $200 for the haircut and $5,300 for the plane. While Cristophe of Beverly Hills, California, snipped the presidential locks, Air Force One idled at Los Angeles International Airport with a full crew aboard for close to an hour. The Secret Service says it put no hold on traffic; nonetheless, two runways were closed and at least two flights delayed. Just a day earlier in New Mexico, Clinton had had his sideburns and neck shaved and a dab of makeup applied. "He got his neck shaved?" asked an incredulous White House official. "He might as well have got it cut."

Invoking privilege of any sort goes against the picture of the down-home Arkansan whose natural populist tendencies served him well in the campaign. His Bubba barber of 17 years, his off-the-rack suits, the Governor's mansion with its tattered volleyball net -- these have given way to a Belgian-born hair stylist, Armani jackets and a private jogging track.

The little things only assume greater significance when they suggest some insight into a person's character. Few citizens begrudge a President some luxuries, but it has to be done in the context of respecting the folk who sent you. The New Democrat who cared about the people who worked hard and played by the rules and who eschewed the cultural elite for a decaf at McDonald's is now perceived as being concerned more about gays in the military, abortion-rights activists, and loading up his Cabinet with millionaire lawyers than with Middle America. "The President should remind himself," says presidential scholar Stephen Hess, "that the people who elected him get their hair cut, not styled, by barbers named Ed, not Cristophe, and they pay in cash, not personal-services contracts." The speed of passage of the haircut from Beltway to Burbank monologue set a new indoor record.

The trivial event resonated because it served as an emblem of Clinton's troubles: the seesawing on Bosnia, the collapse of the stimulus plan and Democratic attacks on his tax increases. In a TIME/CNN poll, only 33% of those surveyed think the President has done a good job of keeping his campaign promises, down from 44% in mid-February. Just 27% think he has made a good effort toward reducing the budget deficit, a plunge from 48%. He gets good marks for leadership from 50%, but that is down from 65%.

The haircut hubbub even had a complex sideshow: the disclosure that the Administration had abruptly fired seven longtime employees of the White House travel office, which handles trips for the press. The move should have been a public relations plus -- rooting out shoddy accounting practices and gross mismanagement in an office with large amounts of unaccounted-for cash and noncompetitive contracts.

But how the White House handled the affair overshadowed the affair itself. The White House can replace any political appointees it desires, with or without cause, but it should ensure beforehand that its pink slips do not produce red faces. It turned out that the investigation was touched off, in part, by a memo from Darnell Martens, president of an airline consulting firm, TRM, in which presidential friend and Inaugural chairman Harry Thomason has a 25% share. During the campaign, TRM received a fee for administrative work associated with carrier contracts and for locating suitable ground facilities. Thomason, who has a temporary office in the White House while he closes Inaugural accounts and advises the President on reorganization, passed Martens' memo on to the White House; the memo said that nine charter airlines had complained to him that all the White House business was going with a handshake to a friend of travel office director Billy Dale. But Thomason says TRM would not benefit directly even if one of the nine companies Martens wrote about got White House business, because such business would not produce a fee. He did acknowledge, however, that TRM could have benefited from goodwill generated by the memo, possibly by consulting on subsequent transactions, like aircraft purchases. "I have too much regard for the charter owners to want them to carry the White House press corps, known to be unruly," said Thomason with a touch of sarcasm. "Would I turn in an office which is grossly inadequate again, knowing my motives would be questioned? Absolutely."

It also turned out that a distant cousin of Clinton's, Catherine Cornelius, who had written a memo back on Feb. 15 criticizing the travel office as "overly pro-press," would become interim director of that office. Cornelius had done business with World Wide Travel, the Little Rock, Arkansas, company that would be handling some of the travel arrangements for 90 days while a permanent agency was found.

The press bombarded the White House with charges of cronyism and hubris. The release of the audit of the office by the accounting firm Peat Marwick documenting serious abuses and the FBI'S decision to move forward with a criminal investigation did not reduce the reporters' outrage. Nor did the White House's move to sever its tie with World Wide and contract temporarily with American Express.

The White House failed to take into account that the travel office had a powerful protector in the press, which has long been pampered by the plush level of accommodations. The reporters appreciate the way their favorite drinks are served the minute they sit down in their first-class seats. Family members can come along for a flat $100; any purchases made during trips get hauled back free. A reporter's fingers hardly ever touch luggage.

It does the White House no good that the press has a vested interest in the outcome, since the public's attitude is fie on both their houses. Past presidencies are filled with cautionary notes that should warn a public official off any non-Jeffersonian actions. George Bush's attempt at just-folks normalcy was undermined when he turned a blind eye to his chief of staff flying military jets to private appointments, and closing the waters off Kennebunkport, Maine, while he pounded through the surf in his cigarette boat. Ronald Reagan could pull off the common touches as only a B-movie actor could, but his wife offset those by ordering a set of hand-painted china inscribed NANCY and a closetful of unpaid-for designer creations. Nixon dressed up the White House guards like something out of a Sigmund Romberg operetta.

The most consistent image of the White House so far is the parade of celebrities being whisked in and out of the iron gates for private audiences with Administration officials. Barbra Streisand played her new CD for the President first, made calls from the study next to the Oval Office and dined with Janet Reno. Christopher Reeve and Billy Crystal got environmental briefings from two Cabinet Secretaries. A group of Hollywood celebs was invited for a Saturday-morning briefing on health care. The overnight guest list for the Lincoln Bedroom sometimes reads like the register at the Hotel Bel-Air.

White House officials realized there was too much Wilshire Boulevard and too little Main Street, and for two weeks there were no sightings of anyone whose birthday is announced by Mary Hart on Entertainment Tonight. But it was Clinton who broke his own edict first by giving Quincy Jones a guided tour of the flying White House on the infamous tarmac in L.A. just before the presidential haircut. The next day, when Clinton was going to the Hill to push a tax bill that asks the middle class to pay more, the driveway in front of the mansion was clogged again with stretch limos bearing people who think sacrifice is a day when the personal masseuse doesn't show up. Sinbad, the comedian, held his own impromptu press conference in front of the West Wing, explaining his deeply held belief that it was every American's right to have his hair done daily. Rap star M.C. Hammer was also on the premises but unavailable for comment.

Hollywood has always been White House-struck: Michael Jackson moonwalked through the Bush Administration, and Frank Sinatra danced cheek to cheek with Nancy Reagan. So far, Clinton has resisted naming a Shirley Temple Black as an ambassador or an Arnold Schwarzenegger to a presidential commission. But he needs to prove that Roger Clinton got all the rock-star genes in the family and that he intends to govern more like Harry Truman than Oprah Winfrey on wheels. The most perceptive question pollsters ask is whether the respondent believes that the President cares about people like you. Unless Clinton is pursuing a 40% strategy, he might consider spending more time in Arkansas than in L.A. And in a barber chair, not a traffic-stopping runway salon.

CHART: NOT AVAILABLE

CREDIT: From a telephone poll of 1,000 American adults taken for TIME/CNN on May 12-13 by Yankelovich Partners Inc. Sampling error is plus or minus 3%.

CAPTION: Is Clinton doing a good job?

With reporting by Michael Duffy/Washington