TRANSITION WATCH

THERE HE BLOWS AGAIN: Sources say Bill Clinton, who helped revive his flagging presidential campaign with a saxophone riff on the Arsenio Hall show, will be blowing his own horn again Sunday at an inaugural concert at the Lincoln Memorial. The President-elect will join a group of other renowned tootlers--shortly before a barge on the Potomac River becomes a huge “saxophone on fire” as part of a fireworks display. . . . Saxophones--on pins, earrings, T-shirts, etc.--are so in at the capital, they may be out by the time of the swearing-in.

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READY, SET, GO: Immediately after Clinton is sworn in, the Senate will meet to confirm as many Cabinet nominees as possible. . . . It’s part of a plan by Democratic congressional leaders to get the new Administration off to a fast start.

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TICKETS, PLEASE: Constituents are deluging congressional offices for tickets to Clinton’s inauguration. . . . Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.), hit with four times as many requests as tickets, is distributing most of his 350 by lottery “to be as fair as possible.” . . . Rep. Bart Gordon, who represents Vice President-elect Al Gore’s old district, has 600 requests for the 21 seats and 177 standing spots that he was allocated. “Many remember Gore as a child and want to come support a favorite son,” an aide said. Gordon wrote every colleague, begging for spares.

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JOB FRONT: Sen. Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.), who wields a big stick on federal law enforcement matters, is pushing for Clinton to put Pima County, Ariz., Sheriff Clarence Dupnik in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration. DeConcini once served as Pima’s county attorney. The DEA incumbent, Robert C. Bonner, has regarded the job as nonpolitical and apparently doesn’t realize he could be pushed off a cliff. . . . Emerging as a strong contender for U.S. solicitor general is Yale law professor Drew Days, who was former President Jimmy Carter’s assistant attorney general for civil rights. Duke’s Walter Dellinger and Harvard’s Laurence Tribe also are prospects but may lose out to Clinton’s diversity drive. They are white and Days is black. . . . In the hot battle for another major post--assistant secretary of state for human rights--a leading candidate is John H. Shattuck, a Harvard vice president and former head of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington office. He’s an F.O.B. (Friend of Bill, the President-elect) and is being promoted avidly by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.).

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WHALE TALE: Nervous laughter rolled across the Senate hearing room. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) had asked a witness if she were aware that “not very long ago” a Nantucket branch of the family of Sen. John H. Chafee (R-R.I.) “went out in sailing ships and murdered whales for money. . . . They thereafter took the bones and carved pagan images into them.” The witness--Carol Browner, who was testifying on her nomination to head the Environmental Protection Agency--went speechless. And Chafee, who was present, did not respond. Moynihan skipped merrily to another topic as observers wondered if there were something strange in his water glass. . . . A baffled Chafee later asked Moynihan what it was all about. “There’s a Chafee in ‘Moby Dick,’ ” Moynihan said impishly--making clear he had just been teasing the Rhode Island lawmaker.