STARR WARS

By MARGARET CARLSON

Sometimes, the capital's barometric pressure takes a sudden turn. One night you go to bed and independent counsel Kenneth Starr is a straight-shooting, courtly lawyer who can rise above politics. The next day you get up and Starr is Clinton's sworn enemy, with ties to the tobacco industry and right-wing foundations that would benefit greatly were Clinton to be crippled by Starr's findings on Whitewater and lose re-election. Clinton wouldn't touch a question about Starr until last Thursday. Then, asked whether Starr should step down, he said, "The facts are what they are, and they're plain for all to see now."

But why this? Why now? Starr's conflicts have long been known: at the time of his appointment, he represented the very company, International Paper, that helped cause the removal of the first special counsel because it had sold land to the Whitewater Development Corp.; he has ties to groups bent on defeating Clinton; and on the eve of his appointment, he was considering filing an amicus brief in support of Paula Jones' right to sue the President.

The simple answer is that a scandal gestating as long as Whitewater is bound to generate fresh subscandals to feed the ever growing appetite for drama. So convoluted is the scandal business that ethicsmeister Starr has hired his own ethics counselor, Sam Dash, which has in turn created its own spin-off controversy. The price for Dash's lingering aura of rectitude from his days as Watergate counsel--$3,200 weekly for eight hours of work--is almost as inflated as the $42,550 for 12 of Jackie O.'s ashtrays. Under questioning, Dash conceded that some of Starr's activities gave off an odor, but added later, to others, not to him. He told the Washington Post last Tuesday that he feared coming off "like a Mafia figure who's pleading the Fifth Amendment." Perhaps forestalling the need to hire a third ethics minder for the first two ethics counselors, Dash plans to leave on May 23 for a two-month teaching vacation.

For the first time, a witness took a piece out of Senator Alfonse D'Amato rather than the other way around. The Republican attack dog resumed his Whitewater hearings last week after a two-month hiatus during which the Senate slapped an absolute deadline of June 14 on him. With only seven weeks left to find a smoking gun, D'Amato called fresh prey to the stand: former Clinton chief of staff Betsey Wright. As Libby, the most vivid supporting character in Primary Colors, Wright was portrayed as a wild-eyed, foul-mouthed, daft Dustbuster, so excitable that much of her dialogue in the book is in capital letters. In real life, she was the inadvertent author of the memorable "bimbo eruptions" line and could often get emotional when defending her boss. But last Thursday Wright calmly turned the tables on her inquisitors. Asked about questionable campaign contributions, she said, "Senator D'Amato certainly had an experience with that in the not too distant past. Senator Dole is under scrutiny for it now. [Clinton] should receive the same benefit of the doubt Senator D'Amato and Senator Dole ask of the rest of us."

But watch for another change in the weather if the President's testimony in the Little Rock Whitewater trial falls into enemy hands. It was videotaped over the weekend at the White House, with all presidential atmospherics forbidden. Floyd Brown, author of George Bush's infamous Willie Horton ads, is salivating; he is threatening to sue to get the footage. Only a perp walk and an orange jumpsuit could excite Republicans more.