Kay Graham would have appreciated her sudden exit, at age 84. Attending a meeting of executives in Sun Valley, Idaho, she tripped and banged her head Sunday, fell into a coma and died Tuesday, without languishing and putting anyone through a long period of keening or handwringing. It was a quick, uncomplicated parting.

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At that moment D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams was about to speak at the Faith Based Conference on Economic Development and Neighborhood Revitalization in the basement of the Washington Hilton Hotel, known locally as the "Hinckley Hilton," the place where John Hinckley shot Ronald Reagan. Williams didn't find out about the pooping of the avenue for three hours -- after the conference, after a few meetings, after lunch.

But if Williams were not the mayor, he might have been driving the truck of manure, an appetizer leading up to the massive demonstrations planned this weekend and Monday to disrupt the meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

"The protests as they relate to debt are well placed," Williams says. "Our own economic interests are at stake. These debts are punishing on developing nations. I do have some sympathy for what the protesters are saying."

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If scientists at the forefront of federal research on drug treatment have their way, methadone and other drugs used to treat heroin addicts will move out of clinics and into doctor's offices and pharmacies. It's possible that buprenorphine, the latest drug for treatment of addiction to heroin and other opiates, will be in pharmacies by this summer, according to one leading researcher.

"Office-based methadone treatment would represent an enormous step forward in treating heroin addiction," says Alan Leshner, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), in response to a new report in the Journal of Urban Health: Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine. "This study shows that practitioners understand that their addicted patients are suffering from a treatable disease, and they are willing to provide that treatment."

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At this stage the Clinton campaign is shaping up as "Primary Colors" II, with loyalists from her husband's 1992 presidential campaign forming the nucleus of her growing New York team.

Clinton is in constant touch with 1992 and 1996 veterans Harold Ickes and Mandy Grunwald, who do triple duty as Clinton loyalists, political knife fighters and New Yorkers. She's also counting on Clinton spinmeister/attack dog James Carville as well as fund-raiser Terence McAuliffe, the principal money-man for the 1996 campaign. All that's missing is Betsy Wright and her bimbo patrol, and Clinton loyalist turned critic George Stephanopolous, who severed the last of his tenuous ties to the Clintons with his self-serving memoir, "All Too Human: A Political Education."

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So far, there's been a striking political role reversal: Republicans, who used to be reliable defenders of U.S. military initiatives, are doing most of the criticizing, while normally dovish Democrats defend President Clinton's actions in Yugoslavia. Defense Secretary William Cohen was caught in a political pincer Thursday morning when he testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee, where Republican members are normally pro-military. But Oklahoma Sen. James Imhofe scolded Cohen, insisting the United States had no business getting involved in an air or ground war in the Balkans. And for the first time Cohen acknowledged that American casualties are not a "possibility but a probability."

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Sounded as if he were calling for a truce in America's 30-year cultural wars.

Over the next few weeks, hard-core conservative columnist Cal Thomas came out with "Blinded By Might," a book suggesting that Christians had been seduced by power and politics. Then Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition, blessed George W. Bush's squishy position on abortion, which wasn't pro-life enough for the true believers. It seemed as if Robertson were willing to hold his nose and support the Texas governor who Republicans see as their best chance for retaking the White House in 2000.

In the space of a few weeks, three pillars of the church of Christian politics had started to crumble. "Some members of the Christian right have awakened to the fact that they're nowhere near a moral majority," says Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Governmental Studies at the University of Virginia. "They're one wing of one party."

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But Wednesday, when Rep. James E. Rogan questions Clinton advisor Sidney Blumenthal, the heat of the Republican right will meet the guile of the Democratic left -- with potentially combustible consequences.

Both Rogan and Blumenthal are true believers; they are political and personal opposites. And neither is on very solid ground in the current mess.

Blumenthal is a well-known character here in the capital and now on the national stage, where the Clinton-Lewinsky affair has been playing for more than a year. He's been a member of the journalistic and political elite since the 1980s, first as a writer for the Washington Post, then for the New Yorker and the New Republic. He's a playwright. In the Clinton White House, he's known as a loyal political knife fighter who would use whatever means necessary to protect Bill and Hillary.

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Perhaps it's because he appears to be so innocuous in his physical presence that Ruff can put the knife into the Republicans without coming off as mean and vindictive. How can a man slumped in a wheelchair be mean-spirited? Compare this to the platoon of Republicans who pranced and prattled in the Senate well for three days. For example, Lindsey Graham was folksy in his attempt to demolish Clinton, but it was a forced folksiness, the charm of a practiced politician. Ruff managed to come off as neither a lawyer nor a politician.

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It might have made decent TV, but live under the white Capitol dome it felt as if the 435 members were dulled down on lithium. There were rarely more than 60 representatives at a time on the House floor. The Republicans, almost exclusively white men in suits, sat quiet and content, knowing they had the votes to nail President Clinton. The Democrats, who come in both genders and many colors, chatted and argued and cheered a few times. It was all so rehearsed, so desultory.

"Like they were debating a sewer bill," said Andrew Ferguson of the New Statesman.

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And, by the way, on Saturday Clinton became the second president ever to be impeached by the House of Representatives.

For public consumption, the White House will carry on. And on and on. On message, on point, on with the holiday celebrations. Expect Clinton to keep saying what he's been saying as he's moved from diplomatic trips to the Middle East to fund-raisers in the Midwest: "I'm just coming to work."

The question becomes whether Clinton's uncanny skill at compartmentalizing will keep him sane and in office for the next few months. Surviving as the energetic president carrying out his duties on one hand and as the embattled president fighting an impeachment trial in the Senate on the other might save Clinton's hide. Or it might turn him into a nutcase.

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"Perhaps it will take an epiphany so we don't go off a cliff," the liberal Democrat from Detroit and ranking minority member said in his pleading, plaintive tones. "Is that too optimistic?"

But as the week of hearings came to a blessed end and President Clinton once again tried to mollify his critics with a brief speech to the nation Friday afternoon, religious awakenings were not on the minds of political operatives in the White House and on Capitol Hill. Nor were points of law and definitions of perjury.

"Law has very little to do with this now," said a White House aide. "We're running a boiler room, trying to get votes."

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Republicans and Democrats rose to Hyde's defense and blamed the White House for planting the report in an effort to deflect attention from the impeachment investigation arising from President Clinton's affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

"These intimidation efforts amount to a direct assault on the United States House of Representatives," House Majority Whip Tom DeLay told reporters as he released a letter asking the FBI to investigate allegations that the White House is orchestrating a campaign to intimidate congressmen.

Late Thursday the FBI said it would look into the matter and promised "appropriate steps will be taken to determine if a violation of federal law has occurred."

Meanwhile, Salon came under a withering assault from journalists who argued that the story was not worthy of publication.

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"We're not doing much more than making ourselves feel good," says Bernard Reich, professor of international affairs at George Washington University. "It could very well have the reverse effect, especially in Sudan, where there are plenty of wonderful people that want good relations with the United States."

Thursday's attacks were directed against targets associated with Osama bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi Arabian who's been financing terrorist attacks since the early 1980s. U.S. investigators have concluded that bin Laden was behind the recent bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa. The air strikes carried out yesterday were direct retaliation, but they may have been futile.

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Sen. John Ashcroft -- the Missouri Republican, gospel singer and
lay preacher who would be president -- called for Clinton to resign. "The
country cannot and should not be forced to engage issues with a discredited
president who cannot be completely trusted," said the Christian right's point man in the Senate.

Gary Bauer, head of the Family Research Council, berated Clinton
for "abuse of a White House intern, disregard for the dignity of his
office," and suggested, "It is time for the president to finally act
honorably by leaving the stage."

It might be tempting to dismiss these comments as predictable
rants from conservative extremists. But the fact is that the right wing has
been gaining political muscle on Capitol Hill and across the country, and
Clinton's sexual infidelities and dissemblings are certain to give it new
strength. Wednesday morning, in fact, House Majority Whip Tom DeLay joined his voice with the right-wing chorus, calling for Clinton's resignation, a call that was echoed for the first time by a Democrat, Rep. Paul McHale of Pennsylvania.

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The GOP whisper campaign halted dead in its tracks.

A decade later, as Kenneth Starr moves to wrap up his investigation of the Monica Lewinsky scandal and submit his final report to Congress on his four-year-long criminal probe of the president, the lessons of that confrontation have not been lost on some Clinton allies. While Republican and Democratic lawmakers, pundits and supporters urge the president to apologize for a sexual relation with Lewinsky to avoid impeachment, these die-hard Clinton loyalists are spreading the word that a long-ignored but fearsome tactic has now resurfaced as an element in the president's survival strategy: The threat of exposing the sexual improprieties of Republican critics, both in Congress and beyond, should they demand impeachment hearings in the House.

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It may be the season of jingle bells and sleigh rides, but in many parts of the country it's also hunting season, and herds of white-tailed deer are exploding out of the forests, with bad tidings for deer and Homo sapiens alike. Suburban roads from coast to coast are littered with deer carcasses. Sometimes, humans are on the losing end of thousands of car wrecks involving our antlered friends.

Rather than joyously extolling the color and size of Rudolph's nose, animal rights activists and hunters are at each others' throats about the deer situation. The former advocate birth control; the latter, backed by local governments, are for shooting the buggers into January and February. Shocked by my own bloodthirsty instinct, I got home one morning last week, steadied myself with a bowl of high-fiber cereal, called the Humane Society and spoke to Dr. Allen Rutberg, the expert in charge of the national society's birth control program for deer.

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Sure, the Post remains a great newspaper by any measure. On a daily basis it breaks stories and covers the process of government well. Its cultural critics are consistently pungent, especially Stephen Hunter, the film critic recently plucked from the Baltimore Sun. But at the leading edge of journalism in the capital, in the arena of national politics and the eternal search for corruption, the Post is dropping back in the pack. The loss of Duffy, who begins work at the Wall Street Journal this week, is another setback.

An award-winning reporter and author, Duffy had been at U.S. News & World Report for years when the Post grabbed him and made him an editor in charge of investigative reporting. Duffy soon felt constrained by the desk job, however, and began to report and break stories, which upset reporters and other editors. Duffy let it be known he was once again up for grabs. He entertained calls from U.S. News publisher Mort Zuckerman, then the Wall Street Journal offered Duffy a job running its investigative coverage. He gave notice and walked out of the newsroom.

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Silence.

That's what the president would have heard if he had walked into the empty public school buildings in Washington, D.C. While bright-eyed children all across the nation began a new school year after Labor Day, here in Bill Clinton's 'hood, the capital city of the most powerful nation in the world, 78,000 public school students are barred from their schools because the buildings are unsafe.

Kids are disappointed. Parents, including myself, eat their rage and scramble to home-school their children. The pols play the blame game.

"Not my fault," said House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who fingered the city government for holding back funds that Congress had made available. Julius Becton, the retired Army general appointed to run the schools, blamed the judge who ruled that school roofs had to be fixed before students arrived. Mayor Marion Barry, our very own two-bit despot, tried to play the local hero by keeping city pools open while blaming Becton for taking so long to repair the roofs.

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