Attribution

This is supposed to be the time for bipartisan, uniter-not-divider, working-together
reaching-out in Washington. But have you noticed that it's beginning with a whole lot of
discussion about which senator's going to die next?

Once again, we are in territory that you could not possibly sell as a pilot for a UPN TV
series. It was a pretty good plot twist to have the Senate divided 50-50, but would anybody
believe the part about the 98-year-old president pro tem? And a vice president with a bad
heart who has to break all the ties?

The Democrats are only one seat away from taking control. No wonder they're looking with
intense interest every time a Republican from a state with a Democratic governor sneezes.
The Republicans would have every right to be offended if their own majority leader had not
playfully suggested that Hillary Clinton might be hit by lightning before she took her seat.

(President Clinton has been telling people that he called Trent Lott to take exception to the
lightning comment, and that Mr. Lott claimed it was taken out of context. Mr. Clinton
expressed his doubts with a one-word rejoinder that we do not print in this newspaper.)

(I'll bet that "rejoinder" started with mother.)

The senators regard Mr. Lott's remarks as unfortunate, but not as bad as the speculation
about whether Senator Strom Thurmond is long for this world. Mr. Thurmond is said to be
in good health, except for the fact that he is 98. Since the Senate is full of aging politicians
who have no intention of leaving, ever, many members are extremely offended by the
suggestion that all of them cannot expect to serve until they're 100 as a matter of course.

As president pro tem, Mr. Thurmond (who has twin sisters in their mid-90's) is third in line
of succession to the presidency after the vice president and speaker of the House. In a
phone interview with a South Carolina paper on his 98th birthday, the senator had to be
corrected when he told the reporter he was turning 88. He told another interviewer that he
might quit the Senate early and turn his seat over to his wife, Nancy, from whom he's been
separated since 1991. He apparently overlooked the fact that the Democratic governor of
South Carolina might have different ideas about whom to appoint to the job, and the next
day his office issued a retraction. One aide said the senator was moved by the deluge of
protests from loyal constituents. Another blamed the whole thing on a failing memory.

Nervous Nellies might be troubled by the connection between the phrases "failing memory"
and "third in line to the presidency." But there's obviously no real danger that Mr. Thurmond
would ever have to take charge. That would require a mind- boggling series of utterly improbable
coincidences, like the presidential election being decided because a bunch of Jewish senior citizens
accidentally voted for Pat Buchanan.

ha ha
This lady is good!

Jesse Helms, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, has also been getting a
larger-than-usual number of solicitous inquiries about his health. At 79, Mr. Helms is
practically a stripling, but he has had cancer, heart surgery and other assorted ailments
that force him to travel around the Capitol in a motorized scooter. Still, reports of his
demise, collapse or fading away are incorrect, and his staff is so tired of denying them
that they recently issued a news bulletin announcing he was not sick.

A more upbeat question about Mr. Helms's future is whether he might be thinking about
shucking the trappings of power and prestige and high- tailing it off to Africa to work with
starving children. The senator apparently made some comment along that line a few
months ago, but his aides say he inserted a caveat about how he would do it only if he
believed he could do more good for humanity there than in the Senate.
"Which, of course, he can't," said a staffer. "It was a rhetorical point."

This is a relatively new Jesse Helms. The old one was given to saying that foreign aid to
underdeveloped countries was like pouring money down a rat hole; the current version
got weepy listening to the rock singer Bono testify about third-world debt.

ha ha

We certainly do not want to do anything to slow down this transformation. Perhaps in the
spirit of bipartisanship, Mr. Helms could quit and go to Africa, opening the way for the Democrats.
Then the governor of South Carolina could appoint Mr. Thurmond's wife to his seat.
And Mr. Lott could give Mrs. Clinton a lightning rod.