The classic Clinton Defense

Just when it looked like bygones would be bygones and even a certain nostalgia for Bill Clinton had set in, another unseemly proceeding comes along to demonstrate how infuriatingly deceptive - and even self-deceptive - this president can be.

Last year, a federal judge in Arkansas found Clinton in contempt and fined him $90,000 for ''giving false, evasive and misleading answers that were designed to obstruct the judicial process.'' In other words, he lied, and for that an advisory panel to the Arkansas Supreme Court recommended Monday that he be disbarred.

That evening Clinton was happily and knowledgeably chewing over the China trade bill with NBC's Tom Brokaw when the anchor asked him whether he would personally battle disbarment and whether the proceeding ''is a stain on your record.''

The president's response, in part: ''... I knew when the timetable for this (disbarment) hearing was moved up that I'd always be at a severe disadvantage because I will not personally involve myself in any of this until I'm not longer president. It's not right. The only reason I agreed even to appeal it is that my lawyers looked at all the precedents and they said there's no way in the world, if they just treat you like everybody else has been treated, that this is even close to that kind of case. ... (W)hen I'm not president anymore, I'll be happy to defend myself.''

There, in a capsule, is the Clinton Defense, from Whitewater through impeachment to disbarment: Deny. Delay. They're out to get me. The lawyers made me do it. Other people got away with worse. Someday - not soon - the truth will come out and you'll see. Right now I'm too immersed in the duties of the presidency.

In Arkansas, the president's lawyers filed an 87-page brief against disbarment, which still must go before a judge whose decision Clinton can appeal. Clinton has not had his lawyers make the brief public, but published accounts say that, while the president's answers under oath may have been false, evasive and misleading, they were not ''legally false.''

That evoked echoes of other Clinton Defenses. Monica Lewinsky had sex with him but he did not have sex with her. And that now-immortal response to one of Kenneth Starr's lawyers: ''It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is.''

The president never did answer Brokaw's question about ''a stain on your record.''