WASHINGTON INSIGHT

PARTING ON RIGHT: Conservative luminaries Jack Kemp and William J. Bennett, who joined forces to oppose Proposition 187 last year, are splitting on the proposed ballot initiative to ban policies of racial preference in California. Former Education Secretary Bennett, who wrote a book nearly 20 years ago criticizing affirmative action programs, strongly supports the measure. Former HUD Secretary Kemp has refused to endorse the California Civil Rights Initiative. He says affirmative action shouldn’t be eliminated until Republicans replace it with policies, such as enterprise zones and vouchers, to improve opportunity in inner cities. Of Bennett’s support, Kemp quipped: “Sometimes the right hand doesn’t know what the far-right hand is doing.”

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LAST HURRAH: Embattled Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary isn’t about to resign, aides say, but she says this will be her last go-round in government. The secretary, a veteran of the Gerald R. Ford and Jimmy Carter administrations, was buffeted last month by disclosure of heavy-handed efforts to improve news coverage of herself and her department. Faced last week with the prospect of a critical story about her extensive and expensive foreign trips, O’Leary expressed weariness with the scrutiny. “I can tell you this, it’s my last run” in public service, O’Leary said. “I’ll never do this again. It ain’t worth it. It upsets my mother. And that’s the thing that bothers me most.”

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FAMILY VALUES: Adding to the recent snippets of good news for President Clinton’s political fortunes was Tuesday’s special election victory of Democrat Jesse L. Jackson Jr. in an Illinois congressional race. Clinton’s strategists see that vote as a mark against Jesse Jackson Sr.’s possible third-party presidential candidacy. By their wishful reasoning, the elder Jackson would not run as an independent and thereby hurt the party of Rep. Jackson--blood being thicker than even the heady wine of presidential ambition. But others think that an independent presidential bid by Jesse Sr., while possibly hurting Clinton’s reelection prospects, would help Jesse Jr. and other black candidates by generating a bigger turnout of African American and liberal voters on election day.

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STILL WAITING: The 1992 Ruby Ridge, Ida., tragedy has proved difficult for the FBI to get beyond. Now it seems to be giving fits to the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on terrorism. The panel held high-profile hearings this fall on the case in which a deputy U.S. marshal and an anti-government fugitive’s wife and 14-year-old son died. The subcommittee had promised its report by Thanksgiving. But the panel is struggling to arrive at conclusions supported by senators from both parties. The report is now due to be issued before the Senate recesses for the holidays next week.

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PIONEERING SPEAKER: Whether House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) makes an impact on history books, he surely appears headed for a place in dictionaries. That was clear when Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) berated himself recently for displaying his annoyance with televised images of a bevy of American troops escorting Clinton to the podium at a U.S. military base in Germany. The show struck McCain, a Navy veteran who spent years in a North Vietnam prison camp, as phony and staged. After he complained to reporters, however, McCain had second thoughts. His complaint began to seem petty. “I shouldn’t have practiced a ‘newtism,’ ” he told reporters.