THE CLINTON-FLYNT DEMOCRATS

The enduring political photo of 1998 will be the one of the president on his trip to Africa, caught unawares by a TV camera as he triumphantly chews a stogie and pounds a tom-tom drum to celebrate the end of Paula Jones's sexual harassment lawsuit. It is -- or should be -- an enduring image because it so vividly captures Bill Clinton's boundless arrogance and contempt for the truth.

The day after he was impeached, the president was caught in a similarly unguarded moment by Los Angeles Times reporter Elizabeth Shogren at a White House Christmas party.

The evening before, surrounded by House Democrats at his impeachment rally, the president had unctuously asked that we "get rid of the poisonous venom of excessive partisanship." Now, Shogren reported, the president "laughed about the fact that Larry Flynt, publisher of Hustler magazine, had become the latest influence on the Washington political debate. . . . Clinton regaled his listeners with a description of a letter that Flynt wrote to independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr -- whose investigation of Clinton's affair with Lewinsky led to his impeachment -- congratulating Starr for aiding the cause of pornography."

Not surprisingly, Clinton flack Joe Lockhart was pursued on this subject the following day at the daily White House press briefing. The transcript is amusing:

QUESTION: Joe, since you and the president and others have called for an end to the politics of personal destruction, is the president prepared to call Larry Flynt and James Carville and others who are vowing to pursue those who supported impeachment?

LOCKHART: Well, I -- I'd hardly put Larry Flynt and James Carville in the same category. But -- but . . .

QUESTION: Why?

LOCKHART: Let me take this -- I don't think we have any control over what a -- a newsmagazine publisher does. I think, Wolf, you would be . . .

QUESTION: A newsmagazine?

LOCKHART: I'm sorry, a magazine . . . what a magazine publisher does. I mean, that -- you can't expect him to get personally involved in that.

No, of course not. As it happens, Lockhart serves an administration notorious in Washington for its constant efforts to shape the news by complaining to, even browbeating, the executives of newsmagazines and television networks, but one takes his point. The next day Lockhart finally issued a lame statement criticizing Flynt. But Carville and the private investigators continue on unrebuked.