Nude Jogging? NOT! Bush Proves He Can Take a Joke : White House: He teams with comedian Dana Carvey for shenanigans that seem to chase rumors of a downbeat mood.

The President of the United States picked up the phone in the family quarters of the White House Sunday night and delivered this message to his Secret Service detail, which is ever ready to escort and protect him: “Feel like going jogging tonight. In the nude.”

NOT!

Not the President, that is. The call did come from the Lincoln Bedroom and it did sound just like the President. But it was Dana Carvey of “Saturday Night Live.”

The comedian, whose imitations of George Bush were a highlight of the NBC program for four years, performed his hand-waving, goofy-grin routine Monday morning in the White House East Room--and he kept President Bush, his target week after week, in stitches. The performance was, after all, Bush’s idea.

Carvey and his wife, Paula, were house guests of the President and Barbara Bush at the White House Sunday night and Carvey stuck around Monday morning to perform his routine for the President, Mrs. Bush and members of the White House staff. That’s when he told of the telephone call that he said he placed to the Secret Service.

“I was staying in the Lincoln Bedroom last night and I couldn’t resist getting on the phone and I called up the Secret Service as the President,” he said in his own voice. Then he repeated his characterization of the gesticulating President telling the Secret Service about his jogging plans. Both the real President and Carvey showed wide-mouthed grins.

Staff members had been summoned to the East Room for what they had been told would be a message of Christmas cheer from the President. Once the staff was assembled at the appointed hour--9:30 a.m.--the Marine Band convincingly heralded the President’s arrival by playing “Hail to the Chief.” And in walked the comedian--followed a step or two later by the President and Mrs. Bush.

The shenanigans, arranged by the President, suggested that Bush has seemingly swung into the spirit of the season and the remaining demands of his job with an esprit that contrasts with the downbeat reports that emerged in the weeks after his election defeat.

“He’s a very resilient man. He holds no grudges. He has no regrets,” said Mrs. Bush later in the morning as she conducted her fourth and final tour of the White House Christmas decorations for reporters.

“He was not despondent,” she said, responding to accounts of Bush’s response to his loss. “Of course he wasn’t happy about losing. But he was not despondent. And he doesn’t look unhappy.”

Indeed, at least in public, he does not.

The President said that he had invited the comedian to the White House in a recent telephone call.

“Dana’s given me a lot of laughs. He said to me on the phone: ‘Are you sure you really want me to come there?’ And I said: ‘Yes.’ And he said: ‘I hope I’ve never crossed the line.’ And I knew exactly what he meant. And as far as I’m concerned, he never has.”

Demonstrating how he is approaching his remaining days in the White House, the President--the real President--also made plans to meet with Middle East negotiators next week. He wants to make sure, Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said, that whatever progress the diplomats are making will continue until the moment Bush leaves office on Jan. 20.

And on Sunday he spoke by telephone from Camp David, Md., with Boris N. Yeltsin--and, just possibly, officials said Monday, is making plans for one more summit with the Russian president.

And Barbara Bush, bouncing back from the angry tone of her warning to Hillary Clinton to avoid the press “like the plague,” instead talked warmly about her Christmas plans. A gaggle of children, grandchildren, and other family members numbering “24 and a half”--daughter Dorothy Koch is pregnant--are coming to visit and then, when her husband goes hunting, she will stay home.

“I’m going to be packing,” she said.