Wash Post

By Marjorie Williams

Wednesday, March 28, 2001; Page A23

The papers are full of fresh bulletins about the nicknames conferred by the new president: Russian president Vladimir Putin, we now know, is called "Ostrich legs." The two Republican senators from Maine are "Sweet Susan" Collins and "Big O[lympia]" Snowe. But there's no sign of the information that inquiring minds really want to know: what President Bush sees fit to call his rival-tormentor, "White Hat" John McCain.

A spate of recent news stories suggests that the wounds of last year's Republican primary brawl are still fresh. On campaign finance reform, patient protection legislation, tax reduction, even on gun control, these stories argue, McCain stands ready to muck up the works -- either pushing legislation Bush has promised to resist, or opposing his priorities. But what's missing from these accounts is much sense of skepticism about the clever game McCain is playing at Bush's expense.

Blood feuds -- the rare cases in which top-level politicians genuinely act on animus, rather than self-interest -- make wonderful copy, and you can't blame journalists hoping for more of the late McCain campaign's marvelous willingness to set itself on fire in pure choler. (Who can forget McCain traveling to Virginia Beach to pick a fight with Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell in their own back yard?)

But the latest flare-up of the Bush-McCain enmity seems like a suspiciously calculated example of this incendiarism -- something close to political arson. McCain strategist and chief fire-bug John Weaver gave away the game in telling Ron Brownstein, of the Los Angeles Times, "We either have no relations on a good day or negative relations on a more routine day." Staffers rarely let themselves be seen pouring such fuel on a fire unless they're, well, working hard to start a fire.

Suggestions that McCain might challenge Bush in 2004 have to be read as similar gestures, red meat to keep the political press corps at his door. It's such a colorful idea, after last year's fascinating primary race, that it might be years before we get around to reminding readers of how implausible it is for a Republican to challenge an incumbent president in his party's primary by running to his left.

It's true that McCain is a loose cannon, from the administration's point of view. "Given what he's endured in his life," says a former Senate staffer, "getting pounded by the Republican leadership is child's play." It's a rare politician who gets to hurt his adversary by standing on principle, as McCain is doing in forcing campaign finance reform toward resolution, and McCain shows every sign of relishing the moment. The White House has no serious inducements through which it can control this willful senator of its own party; and McCain has no serious reasons to desist from playing havoc with Bush's agenda.

But can he? Here some caution is in order. "Once you get past campaign finance reform, which is uniquely his and [Democratic Sen. Russell] Feingold's, all the other issues are going to come down on where they would come down, with or without him," says a prominent Democratic lobbyist -- someone who can't be said to have any dog in this fight. "I don't think he can lead people in the Senate on issues beyond stuff that's in front of his committee, which is not anything the administration cares much about."

But as long as his aides are talking up the feud, he does have the front page of the New York Times, which isn't too shabby. "McCain's sway is not so much with his colleagues," says a student of the Senate. "It's going outside the Beltway, and with [the media]. To the extent he helps drive and shape a debate, he does have some power."

In particular, his standing as a renegade Republican invites the press to critique the Bush program in a way that all the Democratic denunciations in the world don't allow. "McCain is a constant reminder that the emperor has no clothes," says a delighted Democrat. "That all this towel snapping, and nicknaming, and inviting Teddy Kennedy to the White House isn't the real game: that [Bush] is going to govern as a hard-core conservative." But McCain's importance and ability to threaten Bush's program depend almost entirely on the perception that he is important, and bent on threatening Bush's program. "The Bush-McCain relationship now resembles that of the great powers in Europe in 1914, with armies and mistrust equally abundant," wrote Paul Gigot in last Friday's Wall Street Journal. "One spark, and who knows?"

If McCain and his promoters can keep up press coverage like this, they may be able to sustain the blissful Washington magic by which perception is made so powerful as to become substance. Just bear in mind, when you read these accounts, who stands to gain from this breathless fire watch.

© 2001 The Washington Post Company

-- Anonymous, March 28, 2001