White House In the Red for Christmas By Richard Craig December 5, 1997

So much for Christmas cheer in the Clinton household. Like so many families facing hard times, the Clintons are cutting back on their Christmas spending.

Did they make another bad land deal? No, it's just that the extended family -- the Democratic party, actually -- is hurting for cash. So the Clintons are scrimping and saving as much as the society (and the Republicans) deem acceptable.

The president is in a peculiar bind here. As our country's head of state, he's expected to throw gala parties and generally act as a holiday figurehead. As the head of government, however, spending lots of taxpayer money on Christmas activities looks wasteful. Acts that seem appropriate for statesmen can look rather questionable when carried out by a politician.

This is especially true of Clinton, given the scandals and criticisms that have followed him since well before he was president. With Republicans monitoring his every move, actions considered second nature to other presidents are suddenly brought into question.

Of course, it's not as though the president will suffer for lack of pageantry. It's true that the budget for Christmas celebrations has been cut by 25 percent, but it's still an estimated $300,000 -- plenty of money for egg nog, even when you have a daughter at Stanford.

The problem is that as a nation, we want certain contradictory things out of our presidents. We want them to be noble heads of state, hosting visiting dignitaries at state dinners and looking powerful and regal at all the appropriate moments. At the same time, since they're still politicians, we don't want them to get too big for their britches. We like presidents who will make little gestures to show us that they remember what it's like to be common people.

This often puts them in nasty spots. When Nancy Reagan spent $100,000 to buy new White House china, her hubby took plenty of heat for being "out of touch," yet this was not out of line with what past First Families have done. When George Bush was president, he suffered from similar criticism when his wife let it slip that he hadn't driven a car in years, since presidents and vice presidents are chauffeured everywhere. And we all remember the furor created by Clinton's high-octane hair cut.

In many other countries, this isn't a problem. Does the Queen of England have to justify a lavish 50th Anniversary bash? Of course not. If the Windsors are short of cash for some reason, they can just call up Sotheby's, sell off a few of the lesser crown jewels, and it's party time. On the other hand, if Tony Blair wants to attend a state function, he's gotta buy a ticket. And what about Saddam Hussein? If he wants to host a big blowout in honor of his latest act of military futility, who in Iraq is going to complain?

Being a head of state in a democracy is comparatively risky business. It's no wonder Henry Kissinger wanted a monarchy. From the elite's point of view, it's a much more efficient system. You have your cocktail parties and fancy-dress dinners and let somebody else worry about making the trains run on time. This doesn't sound too appealing to the rest of us, yet we remain a demanding bunch when it comes to the social lives of presidents.

In this age of budget-cutting, the most democratic thing to do would be to have a national referendum on presidential extravagance. We could all have our say about how often the White House ought to host state dinners and what should be served. We could vote on whether it needs new drapes or cutlery or towels. Shoot, we could even pick a department store and have the Clintons register there, and furnish the whole building from the ground up. We could say yes to Land's End, no to Tommy Hilfiger.

Of course, this might lead to designers forming their own lobby groups and political action committees, finding loopholes in assorted laws about donating furnishings to the White House, then attempting to curry favor. This all sounds disturbingly familiar.

Then again, if you furnished the Lincoln Bedroom, you might have a legitimate claim to spending the night there.

©1997 Richard Craig. All rights reserved.

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