THE BUDGET IMPASSE : In Showdown Over Shutdown, Bush Seeks the Winner’s Image : Politics: Facing the worst domestic defeat of his presidency, he admits ‘you’ve got to take a little heat.’ But he seeks to focus the blame on Congress. : NEWS ANALYSIS

President Bush does not like to lose--nor look like a loser. And so, challenged by a recalcitrant Congress and surrounded by symbols of a government shutdown, he did his best Saturday to come out looking like a winner.

Over and over, with the anger in his voice rising dramatically, the President--who portrayed himself during the 1988 campaign as a Washington insider capable of working with Congress--insisted he can no longer tolerate “business as usual” in dealing with the budget crisis.

Working in front of a partially darkened White House, which sent home domestic workers and canceled public tours as part of the shutdown, with a chorus of senior White House officials standing to the side, the President delivered a performance worthy of, well, Ronald Reagan.

With his voice rising in dramatic irritation, he declared: “I’m very sorry if people are inconvenienced, but I am not going to be a part of business as usual by the United States Congress.

“The average American knows what’s going on. I think they know that the Congress has continued to kick this can down the road, and they think they ought to act,” Bush said.

But even as he sought to focus the blame on Congress, the President presented the image of a leader ready to follow Harry S. Truman’s advice that those who can’t stand the heat should get out of the kitchen.

“You’ve got to take a little heat,” Bush said. “You have to take some hits.”

Maybe, he seemed to suggest, Congress should heed that advice, too.

“A lot of these congressmen can jump up without any responsibility for running the country, or even cooperating with their leaders, and make a point that’s very happy for the home folks,” Bush said, referring to the pressure many lawmakers said they felt from voters concerned about increased Medicare costs or higher taxes on gasoline or home heating oil.

Still, what the President faces is the worst domestic defeat of his presidency. It came early Friday, when the House resoundingly rejected a budget compromise blessed by the President after its intricate details were negotiated by congressional leaders and, for the White House, Chief of Staff John H. Sununu and Budget Director Richard G. Darman.

The President met with the most senior members of the House and Senate for about an hour and a half Saturday morning, and told them he would veto any new measure to continue government funding for a week while a new attempt was made to resolve the budget impasse.

Afterward, the President walked out the front door of the White House West Wing, where the Oval Office is situated, and told reporters that despite the protestations of the Democratic leaders, he would stick by his veto plan.

While his talk was tough, it did not necessarily befit the man at the top, said presidential scholar Stephen Hess of the Brookings Institution, a Washington public policy and research organization. “To start posturing on this after he took a defeat is the opposite of presidential--it’s not George Bush at his finest hour,” Hess said.

“He’s angry, and that’s not always the best posture for a President,” said Hess, whose association with the presidency goes back to his days as a member of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s White House staff.

In vetoing a measure designed to keep the government functioning for another week, Hess said, Bush was demonstrating “a certain pettiness.” He said the President had “set up a straw man” by, in effect, seeking to create the impression that he was the only person worried about running the country.

“The truth of the matter is, he and his minions bear a large share of responsibility for what happened. There is a little scapegoat-ism in that one,” Hess said.

White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater, commenting on Bush’s get-tough approach, said that after the Administration lost the budget vote in the House early Friday, “the question was how to turn it around and get the ball back in Congress’ court.”

To do that, Bush needed not only to send the veto back to Congress, but to do it with a quick and forceful display of presidential dissatisfaction.

“The longer we held it, the harder it would be to get that focus on Congress,” he said.

For Bush, this was to be a long weekend spent in Kennebunkport, Me., preparing the old family home for the winds and frosts of coastal Maine’s winter. Instead, First Lady Barbara Bush headed home to Maine and the President remained in the White House, meeting in the morning with the Democratic and Republican leaders of the House and Senate.

But if he was unable to wear the winner’s mantle in the morning, there was always the opportunity for a comeback of sorts in the afternoon.

And so, looking for a challenge--if not an easy mark--he summoned his stout but speedy press secretary, Fitzwater, half an hour after the veto message was signed.

The conversation had nothing to do with Congress or the closed government. Budget or none, the presidential tennis court remained open, the President reminded his press secretary--said to be considerably more able with a racquet than his physique would suggest. Could he find a partner to take on Bush and his brother John?

Fitzwater was confident he could find a doubles partner. When last seen by reporters he was dashing off to get his racket and shoes after grumbling to the President: “We’d lose to you and John.”

The tennis match couldn’t have turned out better for the President.

“They killed us,” Fitzwater said.