WASHINGTON–Years of observing the peaks and pratfalls of public officials have led me to a bit of wisdom which I now offer, along with its corollary, to President Clinton:

If you’re going to be in trouble no matter what you do, you might as well do the right thing.

Had I thought to offer this advice sooner, it might have spared Clinton a good deal of anguish, confusion and political and personal embarrassment. In short, it might have helped him minimize the damage of the Lani Guinier affair.

Different dissectors of this fiasco begin at different points: with her first law journal questioning of the tyranny of the majority; with the first rumblings from administration underlings that some of her views are either radical or slightly bizarre; with the time when conservative Democrats joined the attacks first launched by The Wall Street Journal and conservative Republicans; from the day a White House operative told the president that Guinier’s Senate confirmation for assistant attorney general was in trouble.

I begin with the point at which it became obvious (1) that Guinier might not make it through confirmation, (2) that she wasn’t going to withdraw and (3) that she garnered enough support from women, minorities and other liberal bastions that there’d be hell to pay if Clinton dumped her.

Clinton thought he didn’t need a bruising confirmation fight, that Guinier would keep her cool, and that he could make it up to the offended elements of his constituency. The least evil, by that calculation, was to dump Guinier. He dumped her.

My maxim would have taken him along a different logical path: Some members of the Senate Judiciary Committee who were waiting (for a variety of reasons) to sock it to the president would have jumped all over Guinier if he’d let the nomination go forward; Guinier’s backers were prepared to sock it to Clinton—and told him so—if he didn’t let the nomination go forward.

It is in precisely such damned-if-you-do-and-damned-if-you-don’t situations that my maxim is helpful. With political damage unavoidable, he should have done the right thing.

That, of course, presupposes that he knew—that he had some tiny idea of—what the right thing might be. I think he did. I listened to him praise the wisdom, the skill, the legal competence of his (and the first lady’s) longtime friend. There was affection there, and respect. He thought he had found a jewel.

And yet at the end of this hymn of praise, he dumped her. He Hadn’t gotten around to reading her stuff until just a few minutes ago, see, and boy, if he’d known how incendiary some of it was … .

Which brings me to the corollary of my little maxim: If you’re going to be in trouble no matter what you say, you might as well tell the truth.

Clinton didn’t. It may have been literally true that he hadn’t read those long and turgid law journal pieces before Thursday. But the implication that he didn’t know until then what they contained was so patently false, I was surprised he was able to keep a straight face. As a result, he looks weak and dishonest.

This, by the way, is no brief for Guinier. I still don’t know much about her, or what sort of assistant attorney general for civil rights she would have made.

I will say this: On the strength of the only public hearing she was afforded—ABC’s “Nightline”—I wouldn’t have been surprised to see her persuade a majority of the Senate to confirm her.

But suppose the Judiciary Committee had cut her up into small pieces. Wouldn’t that make it more likely, rather than less, that Clinton’s next nominees would have sailed through with little difficulty? If anything seems clear after the Clarence Thomas hearings, it is that members of the committee do not want to be seen as bad guys.

Thanks to Clinton, they weren’t. He killed his nominee, which leaves his enemies with clean hands to attack the next one. This embarrassing fiasco wasn’t even sound politics.

He could have used my maxim—when faced with impossible choices, opt for principle. He might still have lost, but he’d have gotten over it—just as he’ll get over the Guinier business. But in the meantime, he would have given the impression of being willing to fight for what he believes in.