By Belinda Luscombe

ROSIE ANNOYS THE PRESS, AGAIN

In a world where Sonny Bono legislates and Naomi Campbell writes novels, why can't ROSEANNE help guest-edit an issue of the New Yorker? Editor Tina Brown's decision to ask the vernacular star to mix it up with the venerable magazine's staff for an issue on the American woman was a cocktail some writers found hard to swallow. Longtime New Yorker writer Ian Frazier faxed in his resignation. "It's a theological issue," says Frazier, meaning not that Roseanne is God but that writing is spiritual. "The New Yorker is about writing. Is writing sitting in a room pitching ideas to some tyrannical TV star?" Other alarmed writers were soothed by assurances that the woman who had expressed a fondness for the F word in their own magazine would not actually be editing their work.

'NOPOULOS NABBED

To get a top job at the Clinton White House, you need brains, guts, vision--and may be a chauffeur. Three months after former press secretary Dee Dee Myers' drunk-driving infraction, White House senior adviser GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS was in handcuffs after he twice bumped a car and cops discovered that his license had expired. "It was an oversight on my part," he said. Within a day, the police were apologetic as well. One told the Washington Post, "The officer just made bad decisions." SEEN & HEARD

Salman Rushdie made a rare pre-announced public appearance when he spoke at a Writers Against the State forum in London. "This is a very important moment for me, and I hope it will be the first of more such moments," the writer said. Then again, maybe not. The Moor's Last Sigh, Rushdie's new novel, has infuriated Hindu militants in India.

The long arm of litigiousness has reached out and touched Barbara Bush. Former CIA operative and current agency scold Philip Agee is claiming Babs' 1994 autobiography, A Memoir, falsely blames him for the murder of Richard Welch, the CIA's chief operative in Athens. He's suing for $4 million. Ex-First Dog Millie, who wrote a book with Bush, is not named in the suit.

THE OTHER MICHELANGELO

MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI, director of such quintessentially serious European art films as L'Avventura and Blowup, has said he has "things to show rather than things to say." Thus, despite suffering a stroke eight years ago that left him unable to speak, the 83-year-old was able to direct Beyond the Clouds with the help of WIM WENDERS, himself a director of serious European art films. Instead of talking on the set, Antonioni gesticulated and sketched ideas for shots with one hand. Despite lukewarm reviews, the Oscar nominee's first film in 13 years drew standing ovations last week at the Venice Film Festival. Encouraged, he's undertaken a new movie.