WASHINGTON INSIGHT

LIFE IMITATES ART, IMITATES . . . Reporters staked out on the perimeter of the first family’s vacation home on Martha’s Vineyard had just started watching a video when they were summoned to a briefing. Only three days after declaring to the world his “not appropriate” relationship with an intern, President Clinton was announcing U.S. missile strikes against suspected terrorist bases in Afghanistan and Sudan. The press film? “Wag the Dog.”

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NOTHING MUCH: An employee in the White House travel office returned to the Vineyard from a trip to Nantucket on Thursday, the day of the strikes, and asked if anything had happened all day.

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SARTORIAL SIGNAL: If the terrorists had been tuned to the news, they might have seen a tip-off of the impending U.S. missile strikes against them. The hint: white shirts. An unofficial Clintonian dress code dictates that at moments of national security crisis, senior administration officials must replace colored or striped shirts with white garments to appear more dignified. By the time he announced the strikes from Edgartown, Mass., Clinton had replaced his customary vacation polo shirt with a sober straight-collar white shirt. Exempt from the administration policy are generals, admirals and women.

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REACHING: Perhaps thinking that scandal-weary voters would welcome more partisan politics, the Republican National Committee is running an ad on the Vineyard’s cable TV system. It accuses Clinton and the Democrats of wanting to shut down the government over a budget stalemate. In the ad, RNC Chairman Jim Nicholson calls on Clinton to “put down the sunscreen” and makes a no-shutdown pledge. It was the GOP’s government shutdowns in late 1995 and 1996 that sent the party’s congressional fortunes into a sharp nose dive.

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RAPID RESPONSE: Washington’s latest “rapid-response tool” is a loose-leaf binder being circulated by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee as “A Guide to Right Wing Third Party Groups.” It is a primer on organizations that purport to have no affiliation with Democrats or Republicans but whose often-negative television and radio ads about “issues” clearly are intended to sway voters’ views about particular candidates or parties. The groups are not required to publicly disclose their activities, and their names--American Cause and Brighter Future are two--may not reveal their agendas. The Democratic group aims to help its candidates, state parties, journalists and others identify the organizations when they hit the airwaves this fall.

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POLITICS IS RELATIVE: What do Hillary Rodham Clinton, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Mary Bono, Monica S. Lewinsky and Venus Williams have in common? They’re among the 20 most fascinating women in politics, according to George magazine. “It’s certainly justified,” said Frank Cullen, spokesman for Rep. Bono (R-Palm Springs). “Beyond that, what can I say?” Before she was sworn in to replace her late husband, Sonny, who was killed in a winter skiing accident, Mary Bono said that she was never very political. What about Buffy? Or Venus, the teenage tennis star? Bono is listed third, after Elizabeth Hanford Dole and Buffy (actress Sarah Michelle Gellar), way ahead of former New Yorker editor Tina Brown, activist-actress Jane Fonda and Secretary of Labor Alexis M. Herman. And there’s a full-page photo of Bono in a zippered vest decorated with swords. “I think there was a question of whose photos came out best,” Cullen said. “She looks like kind of a cross between Linda Hamilton and Mary Matalin--though prettier than both.”