WASHINGTON INSIGHT

THIS JUST IN: As first daughter Chelsea Clinton prepares to choose a college, Stanford University has emerged as a top contender. She visited the campus for the second time last weekend, staying in a dorm. By one account, a fight broke out at a fraternity party she dropped in on (good thing she had those Secret Service agents in tow). Whatever Chelsea’s choice, her mom and dad clearly are saddened at the departure of their only child, who’s also received offers from Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Brown and Wellesley. Still, the president has tried to look on the bright side. As he quipped to the White House Correspondents’ Assn. dinner Saturday: “The good news is, opens up another bedroom.”

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KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE: So packed was the Washington Hilton ballroom--site of the correspondents’ dinner--that awkward encounters were inevitable. The pleasantries exchanged by William “Mr. Virtue” Bennett and National Endowment for the Arts champion Alec Baldwin would have impressed Miss Manners. But talking-headmeister John McLaughlin was wearing that “get me out of here” look while being introduced to the recently self-outed Ellen DeGeneres and her noticeably attached date, actress Anne Heche. But leave it to Bill Clinton to remember that there were more than a few journalists in the room. So when the president appeared to digress from his comic monologue to divulge “real news” about the federal budget, one could almost hear hundreds of dessert forks being exchanged for pens. Talks with Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott were proving fruitful, he said, and the two sides would be able to produce a budget without new taxes or program cuts. Noting the hush that had fallen over the room, Clinton piled on some dry details before delivering the punch line: The $56-billion gap was no longer a problem, he deadpanned, because Bob Dole had agreed to take care of it.

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MIXED MESSAGE: Throughout their three-day retreat at Florida’s Doral Golf Resort & Spa, Democratic National Committee leaders apologized to 120 large donors for any embarrassment caused by the party’s campaign finance controversy. But prolific fund-raiser Terry McAuliffe sang a different tune in a speech Sunday: “Let us not kid ourselves [about] what the Republicans are trying to do,” he said. “This is about 2000. . . . This is about them getting the White House. . . . If I ever hear another Democrat say mistakes were made, forget it, folks. This was a war that we fought! We did it right. We did it appropriately. We did it honestly and we did it within the law.” The fat cats ate it up.

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TOP DOGS: How much do big Washington lobbyists make? Never enough, apparently. In its annual survey, National Journal crowned a new king of influence-brokers: Jason S. Berman, chairman of the Recording Industry Assn. of America, whose 1995 salary was almost $1.1 million. Berman displaced the Motion Picture Assn. of America’s Jack Valenti, who collected only $921,377. Lobbyists being lobbyists, Valenti cried foul, telling the magazine that he’s back over $1 million this year. “I don’t think I am overpaid at all,” he added. “I think I am fairly paid.”

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IN THE KNOW? After Peruvian commandos staged their daring hostage rescue at the Japanese ambassador’s home, many wondered whether U.S. officials had been consulted beforehand. But the White House insists it learned of the drama like most people. Press Secretary Mike McCurry said he discovered it while gazing at MSNBC and CNN in his office--and then tipped off the deputy national security advisor. “And that, to my knowledge, is how senior members of our administration learned,” he said.