WASHINGTON INSIGHT

DUFFER-IN-CHIEF: President Clinton has finally found a profession to engage him after he leaves the White House. Early Monday morning, before their official meetings, Clinton and Prime Minister Tony Blair headed out to a golf course across from the British leader’s country estate, Chequers. Blair, who insisted he had never hit a golf ball before, had a lesson from the president. “I told him how to hold the club, how to stand, how to swing,” Clinton told reporters. “And it was embarrassing how good he was.” After some help from Clinton getting off the tees, Blair two-putted every green. “Either he is an unbelievable athlete, or I have a career as a golf instructor after I leave the White House,” the president added. Blair, looking slightly embarrassed, suggested humbly: “We will put it down to beginner’s luck--a bit like politics.”

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SYSTEMS DOWN: Atty. Gen. Janet Reno has made it clear she has no conflict of interest in the Justice Department’s antitrust action against Microsoft. In a light moment with reporters, Reno was asked if she is computer-literate. “Well, I was doing OK with the office computer in Miami [where she was a state prosecutor],” she replied. “And then I came to Washington and had to learn anew. I didn’t do a very good job of it. And then it got so confusing, as to what was on the computer or what wasn’t on the computer, what was on the hard drive, what was on the soft drive, that it made it easier for me just to do my work with paper and pencil so I could figure out what I had and what I didn’t have. So at this moment, I do not have a personal relationship with a computer.”

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TRADING PLACES: Rep. David Dreier (R-San Dimas) says he decided not to run for the Senate in hopes that he would become chairman of the House Rules Committee, a dream that will come true next year when Rep. Gerald B. H. Solomon (R-N.Y.) retires (assuming the GOP keeps control of the House). But he was surprised when Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), whom some see as the most powerful person in Washington, told Dreier he’d like to switch jobs. Turns out Lott’s been itching to run the rules panel, which acts as traffic cop for every piece of legislation in the House, since he was an aide to its then-chairman, Bill Colmer, in 1968. Of course, things were different then: The Democrats controlled the House, and Lott was a Democrat. Dreier nixed the switch: ditch California for Mississippi?

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GUN INDEX: The Immigration and Naturalization Service now has more armed personnel than any other federal law enforcement agency. The tally, according to the Justice Department: INS, 12,403; Bureau of Prisons, 11,329; FBI, 10,389; Customs, 9,749. The military still has more.

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NO FLASH, LOTSA CASH: Was that baby John D. “Jay” Rockefeller IV on the lap of his great-grandfather in a photograph that appears in a new biography of the founder of Standard Oil? That was what Sen. John B. Breaux (D-La.) asked the lanky scion of one of America’s most famous families as they rode the Senate subway the other day. No, the West Virginia senator said. “I missed out on the picture but got the result,” Rockefeller added with a smile.

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ONLY AN HOUR? It may just be the best news to hit White House staffers since a federal judge dismissed Paula Corbin Jones’ sexual harassment lawsuit against the president. The White House Medical Unit will sponsor a wellness seminar next Wednesday from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on “Stress Management and Behavioral Relaxation Techniques.”