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                                                                                WASHINGTON, Page 28

While the Getting's Good


The President looks and sounds like a loser, so his
Administration is in disarray: the CIA is quarreling with
Justice, the State Department is accused of dirty tricks, and
James Baker is missing in action. No wonder Bush aides are
preparing to flee like rats from a sinking ship.

By MARGARET CARLSON -- With reporting by Melissa August/
Washington


    There comes a moment in all losing campaigns when the
energy evaporates. Political operatives function primarily on
adrenaline, carry-out food and the hope that "two more weeks of
this and I'll have an office in the White House and clean
underwear." But when the President goes to the Debate of His
Life and keeps looking at his watch as if he had a much more
important engagement elsewhere, there is no way for his minions
not to lose heart. Trickle-down doom is inevitable when the
candidate is physically present at the debates but is already
mentally off at the Bush Library in Texas or on the links in
Kennebunkport.

    The White House is not the only place infected by fin de
regime gloom. It looks as if much of the government has been
left Home Alone, without an adult in sight, making do at best,
wreaking havoc at worst and squabbling like children over who
is to blame. FBI Director William Sessions finds himself under
investigation for ethical violations -- the victim, says his
wife, of a smear campaign by his enemies within the bureau.
Meanwhile the Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of
Justice are engaged in an unseemly fight over which one of them
issued misleading information about an investigation of $4
billion in illegal loans to Saddam Hussein.

    Over at the State Department, officials initially insisted
that there was nothing unusual about their efforts to speed up
Freedom of Information Act requests for records of Arkansas
Governor Bill Clinton's youthful travels to Oslo and London --
even though such requests routinely take many months to process.
Last week department spokesman Richard Boucher reversed himself,
admitting that deviating from standard procedure was "clearly
a mistake." But he blamed it on several unidentified "low-level
people" and denied that political pressure had anything to do
with the requests. That claim would be more convincing had it
not followed another incident involving Clinton's State
Department records. Two weeks ago, the Bush campaign spread
rumors about alleged deletions from the Governor's passport
file. An investigation by the FBI found no evidence of
tampering.

    Even the President's attempt to focus on the economy sends
a mixed message: 1) The economy is doing far better than the
Democrats say it is; 2) My economic team is working hard to make
it better still; 3) But I'm firing all of them anyway, effective
the day after the election. Not only has Bush let it be known
that Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady, budget director Richard
Darman and economic adviser Michael Boskin will be shown the
door; he has also asked all presidential appointees to prepare
letters of resignation.

    If this isn't confusing enough, consider the shifting
target of former miracle worker James Baker. Yanked from the
State Department to the White House last August to try to
salvage his best friend's flagging re-election campaign, Baker
did not come to the Republican Convention until midweek because
he was on vacation. Initially, Bush promised that his successful
Secretary of State would return to his diplomatic post right
after the election; then, to almost everyone's amazement, he
reversed himself in the middle of the first debate and announced
that no, Baker would become "economic coordinator of all the
domestic side." As the inevitable Co-President Baker talk
started bubbling, Clinton's communications director George
Stephanopoulos joked, "I wonder whether Baker will be able to
find a role for Bush in a second term."

    Whoever Baker is these days, he is secretive about it. He
abruptly canceled a speech last week that was supposed to
explain exactly what a coordinator would do. And when former
Reagan adviser Edward Rollins ran into Baker and asked whether
he was going to stay on through 1993, Baker replied
enigmatically, "I'm going to Wyoming." Known for coveting face
time on television, he has rarely been captured on camera in
recent months. When Baker emerged briefly for spin-control duty
after the first debate, his main concern seemed to be distancing
himself from the sinking ship. "The White House chief of staff,"
he volunteered, "is not the campaign chairman."

    The man who does hold that title, Robert Teeter, has also
gone underground. Teeter won't appear on the talk shows, says
an aide, because "he's afraid of getting pounded." Republican
National Committee chairman Rich Bond, who seemed to be
everywhere last summer peddling his line "Those other people are
not America" to anyone who stuck a microphone in his face, is
also missing in action. With disaster looming, Bond has become
fair game: last week former Delaware Governor Pete du Pont broke
with tradition and openly began to lobby for the job.

    If Bush does lose, thousands of Republican officials may
get an up-close look at the unemployment problem. In power for
12 years, they have decried the public sector while doing well
enough in it to live in big houses and drive expensive cars. As
they return to the private sector they profess to love, they may
find that the free market is not as great in reality as it is
in theory. With both the White House and Congress controlled by
the Democrats, there will not be much demand for G.O.P.
veterans. And it will take a unique kind of resume inflation to
get a job touting your experience as a Bush adviser on the
economy when many might hold you responsible for wrecking it.

    Richard Darman, the architect of the Bush economic policy,
has found a unique way to job hunt. One of the more bizarre
spectacles of the Administration's endgame has been the
Washington Post series on the economic meltdown. The series
combined an exoneration of Darman and a tarring of others with
sufficient Darman biographical material to make for an
eye-catching resume. Guess who the main source was.

    Those relegated to the Post's classified section rather
than its front page may find it tougher going. Former Nixon
appointee Ron Walker, managing director of the executive-search
firm Korn/Ferry in Washington, says his office is getting "tons
of calls. People want to be prepared," he says. "No one wants
to be the last one out of the chute." Think tanks are hanging
out NO VACANCY signs. "We just laid off five people," says
Christopher DeMuth, president of the American Enterprise
Institute. Although Housing and Urban Development Secretary Jack
Kemp is said to be guaranteed a job with the conservative
Heritage Foundation, it claims there is no more room at that
traditionally Republican inn.

    Others remain intensely loyal. Deputy campaign manager
Mary Matalin is everywhere, spinning, pontificating, attack
faxing and fuming. Of those worried about life after Nov. 3, she
says, "Resume writers are the lowest form of life. Once we win
this election, I'd like to wipe all those people out of office."

    The voters may do that for her. In the second debate, Bush
lamented that Barbara wasn't running, for she would surely win.
"But . . . it's too late," he added plaintively. As he looked
at his watch for the third time, it was hard to avoid the
conclusion that he was thinking about his own diminishing
chances.