A Bride, a Corpse . . .

WHITE HOUSE OFFICIALS ARE UNDER ORDERS TO SPEAK NO ILL of Ross Perot: no point in generating more TV sound bites. But by last week political strategist Paul Begala could no longer contain himself. Perot, said Begala, "will say anything to get attention. He is just one of those folks who, when he goes to a wedding, he wants to be the bride. When he goes to a funeral, he wants to be the corpse."

Which testifies to how deep Perot is getting under the presidential skin. Not just because of the personal nature of his needling either -- although that is getting extreme. Sample insults from his latest round of TV interviews: Clinton is "still doing things the Arkansas way, like trying to give the travel business as a political payoff . . . the President ((is)) . . . trying to flimflam the American people." All this in addition to % Perot's now celebrated crack that he would not hire Clinton for any job above middle management.

The White House cannot just shrug off such barbs; it takes Perot seriously as a political threat. In the latest TIME/CNN poll, 52% of the respondents have a generally favorable opinion of Perot, while only 50% have a similar opinion of Clinton personally (and many fewer approve of the job he is doing as President). On Perot's current major bugbear, the North American Free Trade Agreement, 63% agree with him that it will result in a loss of American jobs, vs. only 25% who believe with Clinton that it will create jobs.

The Administration is beginning to . . . well, not shoot but talk back. Clinton, pressed by reporters for a response to Perot, said, "Well, we know he doesn't like my state . . . but that doesn't have much to do with America." Three senior officials -- Trade Representative Mickey Kantor, Labor Secretary Robert Reich and Council of Economic Advisers chairwoman Laura Tyson -- appeared at a press briefing to answer in advance the attacks on NAFTA Perot was preparing to make in a TV speech Sunday night.

Administration officials are also trying to set up a special task force charged with further monitoring and answering Perot's assaults on NAFTA, but it is not staffed yet. Even so, the Administration seems stumped. Suffering in silence or making restrained replies when unavoidable plainly is not working. But trading raspberry for raspberry with Perot might only lower Clinton's presidential dignity without being very effective either; it is Perot's natural style but hardly Clinton's. The White House has not yet found a way out of that dilemma.