SCANDAL FREEZES CLINTON

THE GAY activist's voice was both shrewd and sad. The Monica Lewinsky
story had just broken, and he had a prediction to make.

President Clinton would be too busy defending himself to defend his
causes. Three months later, that forecast appeared as news on the front
page: "Feds give needle exchanges a boost -- but still no U.S. funding."

While his own scientists agree that getting clean needles to drug addicts
would reduce the spread of AIDS, the president refused to authorize funds
for such a program. The Clinton rationale -- that any move by him to lift
the nine-year federal ban on need le exchanges would have been
countermanded easily by the Republican-dominated Congress -- is
unconvincing.

Why would a popular president fear an all-too-predictable fight with Jesse
Helms and Dick Armey over AIDS policy? Since when does a political leader
get hurt fighting the good fight for his friends and against his enemies?

The sad, shrewd answer was offered by that gay rights lobbyist who warned
of this scenario in January. The real victims of the Lewinsky episode, he
predicted, would be the causes, including the battle against AIDS, that
excited so many to support a Clinto n presidency from the outset.

The White House decision on needle exchanges, announced Monday by Health
and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, is an emblem of this
post-Lewinsky phenomenon. With Ken Starr fashioning his report and key
witnesses, including Lewinsky, still to testif y, Clinton and his hardball
handlers are determined to resist any policy shift that could cost him so
much as a percentage point of popular approval. This is the Catch-22 of
the Clinton second term. At 51 and at the height of his public approval,
the pres ident is afraid to consume a dollar of his political capital for
fear that his job approval, now at 63 percent in the Gallup Poll, will
begin a tell-tale fall that would leave him naked to his enemies. This
explains the cryogenic state of the Clinton pres idency. Rather than risk
melting of its popularity, it's allowed itself to become frozen. On one
issue after another, we hear the president declare the need or action,
then declare his own refusal to act:

* Clinton says Social Security needs to be saved for those baby boomers
who hope to retire in the early 21st century, but he refuses to offer an
administration plan for doing so. Instead, he talks about starting a
"dialogue."

* The president wants to save Medicare, yet puts off the gutsy work for
yet another bipartisan commission.

* He knows the need to discourage cigarette smoking yet clings to the idea
of financing social programs through a deal that would make trial lawyers
rich. It would make the American people silent partners of Big Tobacco in
a society dependent on cigarette sales to pay our public health bills.
This week's failure to provide clean needles to AIDS-spreading drug
addicts is a further demonstration of presidential tiptoeing. Adept at
finding the safe, centrist position, he leaves the country trying to find
his true convictions.

Christopher Matthews, chief of The Examiner's Washington bureau, is host
of "Hardball" on CNBC cable channels.