WASHINGTON INSIGHT

DOUBLE PLAY: There’s nothing like turning the ashes of a debacle into a political coup. That appears to be what top Clinton Administration officials pulled off in the wake of the bungled raid on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Tex. . . . The stage was set when a critical report on the raid forced the resignation of Stephen E. Higgins, director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. John Magaw was quickly named to fill the spot--solving two problems. . . . Magaw had been the Secret Service director, a post to which he was named by former President George Bush. Sources say the White House was uncomfortable with a holdover monitoring the personal life of President Clinton and his family, but did not have any reason for removing the career Secret Service agent. Moving him over to the troubled ATF created the opening for Clinton to put in his own Secret Service chief and gave ATF a law enforcement agent with an unblemished record and management experience. . . . So who orchestrated the move? Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen and his assistant secretary for enforcement, Ron Noble. Both the ATF and Secret Service are Treasury Department units.

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BACK TO THE FUTURE: Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has brought back Hadley Roff, her chief of staff when she was San Francisco’s mayor, to help defuse a land mine imperiling her road to reelection next year: staff instability. Feinstein’s first year in the Senate has been marred by a rash of staff firings (3) and resignations (11), including her top administrative and legislative aides. Roff, who is running her Northern California office in San Francisco, should give a needed steady hand to the operation.

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STRANGE BEDFELLOWS: In the wake of last month’s signing of the Israel-PLO peace agreement, Washington’s long-cherished “conventional wisdom” on Middle East animosity is in tatters. . . . At the State Department, where diplomats used to be disciplined for making cocktail party chit-chat with PLO functionaries, Secretary of State Warren Christopher welcomed Farouk Kaddoumi, the PLO’s hard-line “foreign minister,” to talks in the secretary’s private office. . . . On the same day, across town, an Arab-oriented group being addressed by Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Sharah served refreshments of decidedly Jewish bagels and cream cheese. And, perhaps most astonishing of all, the Lion of Judah conference, sponsored by the women’s auxiliary of the United Jewish Appeal, heard a speech by Nabil Shaath, a high-ranking PLO official.

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SHORT TAKES: Former California governor Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. says he may take on Clinton again in the ’96 primaries, while deposed Vice President Dan Quayle says he too wants to run for President--without specifying when. . . . The latest National Enquirer sports the byline of Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove), who writes (with minimal attribution) about “greedy doctors . . . ripping off taxpayers for $200 million a year” by charging Medicare for unnecessary cataract surgery. . . . Rep. Jane Harman (D-Marina del Rey), whose long friendship with Defense Secretary Les Aspin helped land her a seat on the Armed Services Committee, got another boost when Aspin’s successor as committee chairman, Rep. Ronald V. Dellums (D-Oakland), made her the first freshman ever named to a House/Senate conference committee on a defense authorization bill.