Art of the comeback - Why And Why Not

The Comeback Kid in Bill Clinton has struck again. There he was before the US Congress last Thursday, delivering his eighth and final State of the Union Address, not as the pathetic lameduck almost everybody thought he would be after the Monica Lewinsky scandal, but as one of the most successful -- if undoubtedly flawed -- Presidents of the United States.

How Clinton managed to extricate such a heart-thumping measure of success from the jaws of disaster is one lesson President Estrada can only take heart from and ignore at his own peril.

Yes, adverse media coverage and declining popularity ratings can be overcome.

Not by going on prolonged denial and declaring war against media, but by taking a healthy dose of humility and candor.

Hard work and genuine reforms also help, but these can only work wonders if and when the brutal truth about coming short of people's expectations and of making some very terrible mistakes has been faced. Only after honest diagnosis of the illness has been made can the process of cure and recovery begin.

As Clinton's triumph over adversity shows, anger and resentment got him nowhere. His initial defiance only emboldened his accusers and raised the ante of the controversy towards the greater danger of being tried for perjury and impeachment. But when he found his back to the wall, his unmistakable DNA stains on Monica's soiled blue dress telling all the world that he wasn't telling the truth, he did the only decent thing left, which was to finally admit that he had been wrong and that he was profoundly sorry.

Because presidents are never forgiven that easily, the confession didn't stop Congress from having him impeached. His only saving grace was that there weren't enough votes for the ultimate punishment of removal from office. His next and more forbidding travail was to win the so-called legacy game or to have a say in how he will go down in history.

We all know that 1999 had been good to Clinton -- so good that the lameduck talk eventually dissolved into grudging acceptance that this otherwise competent and hardworking president cannot anymore be written off in some historical footnote as the molester of a White House intern. Like it or not, he was elected president twice and he presided over the longest stretch of prosperity the United States has ever seen. The wonder of it all is that he's retiring in glory in his early 50s with no more worlds to conquer.

Two things helped make the Clinton turnaround possible: 1) his administration was doing its homework and regarded as excellent in terms of governance, and 2) he and his advisers correctly decided that the only way out of the scandal was to make a clean breast of it and let the heavens fall.

In other words, good government and candor turned out to be the magic combination that brought Clinton out of his unwanted political grave.

Estrada's current troubles are hardly in the catastrophic league of Clinton's sex scandal and the ugly spectre of impeachment that came in its wake.

Although there's much talk of covert destabilization campaigns and the usual rumors of coup d'etats in this country, these have always been par for the course. Estrada is in no immediate danger of being overthrown. He has both House of Congress in the palm of his hands. And if you scratch the surface of alleged media conspiracy that's out to get him, you'll find out that the greater number in the profession, although not necessarily the more respected ones, solidly behind him, right or wrong.

True, the economy is at a virtual standstill and the stock market has been comatose for months on end. The communist guerrillas and the Muslim separatists have been making louder and more menacing noises. There are daily protest rallies and demonstrations in Metro-Manila and other major cities. But the situation, increasingly desperate as it may seem, appears reasonably under control.

What I'm suggesting is that Estrada's problems have more to do with his obsession for declining popularity ratings than anything else. The obsession has turned into open resentment and panic, which have spawned a war of images and perception that, alas, he or any other president can never expect to win.

Rather than face the grim message that the people are unhappy about widespread graft and corruption, the upsurge of crony capitalism, the culture of gambling and the administration's plan to amend certain provisions in the 1987 Constitution, Estrada has chosen to pick fights with the messengers. As the Social Weather Stations and Asia Pulse have indicated so far, the more he rants and raves, the deeper he sinks in the poll surveys.

Despite recent attempts to "re-energize" his administration and to revamp his Cabinet, the current perception is that here's a president who can't seem to dispose of excess baggage, whether it be in his official or personal family.

To be sure, Estrada has not been wanting in advice, not all of them bad and self-serving. But there's only so many times you can call on the president to "cut and cut cleanly," in Paul Laxalt's famous words to Ferdinand Marcos. Cosmetic changes like rotating cabinet members and showing off instant advisers with big names can only go so far. Making those extravagant provincial sorties to show that the masses still love their embattled leader only impresses the impressionable.

So what's keeping Estrada from saving himself?

One little clue comes from a palace functionary who's constantly seen by his side and presumably knows whereof he speaks. "The trouble with the president," says this character in what must be an act of supreme indiscretion, "is that he still cannot think of himself as president 24 hours of the day. He cannot understand that for his entire term, he can never be not the president for even a single minute. He thinks there's a time to be president and a time to be just what he has always been, which is to be a friend to his friends. This is asking for trouble."

The subtext to this unflattering insider view is that the former actor has brought his movie lifestyle very much intact into the infinitely more exacting territory of the presidency. Unlike an actor who has a screen life and a private life, presidents assume a full-time role which is not divisible into public and private parts. His is the crushing responsibility to be at the disposal of the nation at all times and under all circumstances. All his friendships and relationships have to be measured against the national interest.

It's not nice to say it, but I'll say it anyway: what many people, some his true friends, fear is that up to this rather late hour, Estrada still has to grab his presidency by the horns. Although he has probably accepted that nobody ever promised him a rose garden, he clings just as tightly to the old ways and the old crowd. At the very least, the guy badly needs a comfort zone of new advisers he can trust and new friends who'll give him the real score. But he and he alone has to take that painful first step.

Take note that Clinton tried very hard, when he was really hurting and hurting badly, not to blame the media or anybody else for his miseries. He embraced humility and it has made all the difference. Estrada can do no less.