President Clinton

WASHINGTON - President Clinton rebuked his own Justice Department yesterday for the way it handled the prosecution of Wen Ho Lee, the nuclear scientist who was held in solitary confinement for nine months as a threat to national security only to be released Wednesday in a plea agreement. "The whole thing was quite troubling to me," Clinton said. "I don't think you can justify in retrospect keeping a person in jail without bail when you are prepared to make that kind of agreement." Clinton's words directly conflicted with those of Attorney General Janet Reno, who earlier yesterday refused to apologize for the case and declared that Lee was to blame for his treatment because he had kept silent for so long.

George W. Bush says Jesus is his favorite political philosopher and describes a religious experience that changed his life. Al Gore says he measures his life by asking "What Would Jesus Do?" the message printed on colorful bracelets worn by evangelical youth. He chose as his running mate Joseph I. Lieberman, an Orthodox Jew known as well for his moral conscience as his political acumen. Could this be the most overtly religious presidential race in American history? Not hardly, says Rabbi Michael Lerner, who, as a spiritual advisor to President Clinton, is no stranger to the struggle with values in the Oval Office.

ABUJA, Nigeria - Among those standing outside the gates of the hotel where the world's most powerful man had just checked in, anger simmered beneath the hope his visit inspired. President Clinton, soon after his plane had touched down here in the capital of Africa's most populous nation, had been brought to the Nicon Hilton and would soon visit President Olusegun Obasanjo. Despite the Nigerian authorities' efforts to clear people from the street outside the hotel's main entrance, a crowd of perhaps 100 had gathered - out-of-state visitors, displaced street hawkers, the jobless, all of them ordinary Nigerians struggling to be heard.

LOS ANGELES - Democrats reacted furiously yesterday to reports that the independent counsel investigating President Clinton had empanelled a new grand jury in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. They charged that the timing of the leak that led to the report was politically motivated. The counsel, Robert Ray, summoned the grand jury July 11 to hear evidence against Clinton. Word of the development has been leaked to the press, more than a month later, and reports appeared yesterday, the day that Vice President Al Gore was to accept his party's nomination for president.

WASHINGTON - Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman was leaving for a family vacation two summers ago when President Clinton appeared on national television to admit that he had, in fact, had an inappropriate relationship with a White House intern and had lied about it. The scandal would be Topic A as four generations of Liebermans gathered at their rented beach house on the Connecticut coast that August. And the earnest, deeply religious senator, a longtime friend and colleague of the president's, an ally in their party's centrist wing, was furious.

PHILADELPHIA - Largely by design, but also with a little luck thrown in, George W. Bush and his party come away from the 37th Republican National Convention impressively unified and focused on the task of regaining the White House. What the nominee called an "iron fist" control of the convention, which exorcised conflict and controversy from the platform before the opening gavel fell, assured one of the most placid and collegial Republican quadrennial gatherings ever. "This year, the delegates came into Philadelphia more united than they have been in years," said David Keene, head of the American Conservative Union.

JULY IS not everyone's favorite time to visit the lovely Catoctin hills north of Frederick. Too hot and humid. Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat are no strangers to discomfort, however. Both have spent careers in less than optimal conditions. President Clinton's announcement of a summit meeting with the Israeli prime minister and Palestinian Authority president starting Tuesday at the presidential retreat, Camp David, is a considered -- not quite desperate -- attempt to get stalled talks moving.

WASHINGTON - U.S. intelligence agencies have told the Clinton administration and Congress that China has continued to aid Pakistan's effort to build long-range missiles that could carry nuclear weapons, according to several officials with access to the intelligence reports. The revelations are complicating President Clinton's effort to win quick Senate passage of a bill establishing normal trade relations for China. In classified briefings on Capitol Hill, most recently on Thursday, the agencies have described how China stepped up the shipment of specialty steels, guidance systems and technical expertise to Pakistan, China's longtime strategic ally, after India and Pakistan set off rival nuclear tests in 1998.

WASHINGTON - President Clinton announced a major change in his proposal for Medicare drug benefits yesterday, making it much more generous to millions of elderly people and much more costly to the federal government. The new proposal came four days before the House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on a Republican proposal to offer drug benefits, through private insurance companies, to all 39 million people on Medicare. Clinton said his revised proposal would cost $79 billion over five years, or more than twice as much as the $38 billion proposal he sent Congress as part of his budget request in February.

Craig Smith, former political director for Bill Clinton and campaign manager for Al Gore, thinks Randy Tate is an uptight right-winger bent on imposing his religious doctrine on American society. Tate, former Republican congressman and political director of the Christian Coalition of America, thinks Smith is a wild-eyed bleeding heart, part of the political ilk that has led America down the path of moral decay. Only in America could these two become business partners. Smith and Tate are top executives in Voter.