Mr. Kroft looked over his shoulder, raised an eyebrow, and accepted the congratulations. He had been worried at the time, he said, that the cave might collapse.

Speaking of collapse, Mr. Kroft had to go. It was time to talk about the state of the media.

On Tuesday morning, Steve Kroft stood on the second floor of the W hotel on Lexington Avenue and poured himself a cup of coffee. A man walked by, recognized the 60 Minutes correspondent, and paused to congratulate him on a recent story from Pakistan. "That was really ballsy going in that cave," said the well-wisher.

Mr. Kroft looked over his shoulder, raised an eyebrow, and accepted the congratulations. He had been worried at the time, he said, that the cave might collapse.

Speaking of collapse, Mr. Kroft had to go. It was time to talk about the state of the media. A few minutes later, he was seated comfortably on a raised platform at the front of the W's Forest Ballroom. To his left on the stage sat ABC's Barbara Walters and, next to her, The New Yorker's Ken Auletta.

They had gathered to take part in a semi-regular series of morning media powwows sponsored by the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. The topic du jour: The Art of the Interview.

Mr. Auletta was moderating. What's the dumbest question, he wanted to know, that you ever asked?

Mr. Kroft said that sometimes the dumbest questions get the best answers. The topic of stupid but effective questions made him think of Sam Donaldson, the longtime ABC News correspondent, who had announced his retirement the day before in an article in The Washington Post.

"Sam Donaldson made a career out of that, standing on the rope lines, yelling things at Ronald Reagan," said Mr. Kroft. "Reagan would always answer something back to Sam. I think you've got to take chances sometimes and ask a goofy question... I think you've got be willing as an interviewer to ask the dumb question every now and then."

Mr. Auletta asked Ms. Walters about her infamous "tree question." Ms. Walters sighed. She'd told that story a million times, she said. But, okay, she'd tell it once more.

Ms. Walters said that years earlier she had been interviewing Katharine Hepburn. At one point during the interview, Ms. Hepburn said that she felt like an old tree. Ms. Walters followed up. What kind of tree?

Somewhere along the line "What kind of tree?" had grown into a "Baba Wawa" punch line. But Ms. Walters defended the question. "If somebody said 'I'm like an old tree,' wouldn't you say, what kind of a tree?" she asked Mr. Kroft.

Mr. Kroft nodded and smiled.

"I rest my case," said Ms. Walters.

She turned back and faced Mr. Auletta. "That's your dumbest question," she said to him.

The crowd laughed.

Eventually, like every media panel currently convened no matter what the ostensible subject, the conversation drifted towards the dire fate of the media. In ten years, Mr. Auletta asked the panelists, will even a single evening newscast exist on broadcast television?

Mr. Kroft gave a nod to the importance of cable news and said he was more worried about newspapers. Ms. Walters pondered the question. She said she was unsure about the evening. But the onetime host of the Today show said she had faith in the perpetual appeal of one genre of broadcast news.

The morning news shows, she felt confident, would survive.

One of the clips was of ABC News' Sam Donaldson saying, "It's better to have them inside the tent peeing out, then outside the tent peeing in."

This line got a huge laugh from Mr. Stewart's presumably 20- and 30-something studio audience. The host then pretended to call his assistant and say, "Yeah, Carol? It's Mr. S. Cancel this weekend's camping trip Sam Donaldson."

He went on, "Are those really our only two options? Pissing in the tent or pissing out? You know what Americans want? We want a government that pees very far away from the tent, into some kind of... urine holder-fixture type deal."

Of course, Mr. Donaldson wasn't just indulging in salty language: He was paraphrasing President Lyndon B. Johnson's description of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. According to the late David Halberstam, writing in The New York Times on October 31, 1971, President Johnson said, "Well, it's probably better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in."

Wherever President Johnson's spirit is right now, he's probably pretty pissed.

One fun moment from the piece: ABC News' Sam Donaldson, who is 74, questions why Mr. Hume, who is 65, would be winding things down.

From the article:

Mr. Donaldson was standing on a stage at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., yesterday morning, quoting the Bible. Like the hundred or so mourners who had gathered in the large auditorium, Mr. Donaldson was struggling to make sense of the sudden recent death of his friend and former colleague, John "Jack" McWethy.

A week earlier, on Feb. 6, Mr. McWethy had been skiing with his wife Laurie at a resort in Keystone, Colo. He was cruising down an intermediate slope, when suddenly the accomplished, veteran skier lost control and slid chest first into a tree. The fluke crash proved to be fatal. He was 61.

The crowd of mourners, who had gathered for the memorial service at the shimmering glass building on Pennsylvania Avenue a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol, listened to the veteran ABC newsman, and nodded their heads.

Mr. Donaldson recalled how Mr. McWethy had first come to join ABC News back in the late 70's. At the time, Mr. McWethy was a print journalist, covering the White House, for U.S. News & World Report. Sometime around 1979, the pioneering broadcaster Roone Arledge caught a glimpse of the young reporter in action at a presidential press conference. Back in New York, according to legend, the "bat phone" in the ABC News control room began ringing off the hook. It was Mr. Arledge. 'Get me that kid.'" When I found out that Roone had hired Jack," said Mr. Donaldson. "I was jealous ... Jack was intuitive. Jack was fair. Jack was"—here, he paused and raised an eyebrow—"not a showboater." Everyone laughed.

A few years after joining ABC News, Mr. McWethy became the network’s national security correspondent—a position he went on to help define for all of TV news until his retirement in 2003. Along the way, Mr. McWethy reported on the U.S. military from hot spots around the world, racked up myriad awards for excellency in journalism and became revered among his competitors as the dean of the Pentagon press pool.

Half an hour into the service, David Martin, the longtime national security correspondent for CBS News, took the stage.

"I listen to all these wonderful things about Jack and I think, that’s easy for you guys to say," he began. "You didn’t have to compete with him."

Mr. Martin recounted how in the early 90's the CBS brass had grown exasperated at getting beat on story after story coming out of the Pentagon. They decided to bring in the hard-charging Mr. Martin to "take Jack down" and "turn off his water."

On his first day, Mr. Martin strode into the Pentagon press room, cocksure and spoiling for a fight. Mr. McWethy greeted him with a smile and a handshake. The graciousness continued. Eventually, Mr. Martin changed tactics. Rather than trying to fight with his competitor, he decided to emulate him. He began wearing the same style suits as Mr. McWethy and carrying around a skinny reporter’s notebook in his back pocket, à la Jack. "I realized I was never going to take Jack down," said Mr. Martin. "But I could let him pull me up."

Mr. Martin recalled how well respected Mr. McWethy was among the soldiers, and the bureaucrats and generals, they reported on. Nothing happened in the U.S. military without Jack knowing about it. There was one time many years ago, Mr. Martin recalled, when Mr. McWethy was about to leave town on vacation. Mr. Martin’s office phone rang. It was Ollie North, asking for Mr. McWethy’s home phone number. The U.S. was about to bomb Libya, he explained, and the lieutenant colonel was hoping to catch Mr. McWethy before he left town.

When Mr. McWethy retired in 2003, Mr. Martin joked that he felt like the guy in the Paul Simon song: Who will be my role model now that my role model is gone? "It’s not funny anymore," he said.

On Thursday, many members of the military came out to pay their respects. Throughout the auditorium, men and women in military uniform could be seen here and there among the dark suits. The U.S. Army String Quartet played softly now and again from one side of the stage. A barrel-chested Army singer belted out melancholy songs in a mournful baritone. And Lt. Gen. Gregory S. Newbold delivered a glowing speech, in part, on behalf of what he deemed Mr. McWethy’s largest fan club—that is, members of the U.S. Armed Services.

Throughout the morning, speaker after speaker recalled Mr. McWethy’s integrity as a family man, his perspicacity as a reporter and his constant bemused grin through it all.

"We will remember his smile," said ABC News president David Westin. "And let’s be honest, sometimes his smile bordered on a smirk."

"When I think of Jack … I always see that grin," said anchor Charles Gibson. "That lopsided, enigmatic, infectious, amused grin, so often on Jack’s face. What is he thinking?"

Toward the end of the ceremony, a "video remembrance" played on the large screen at the front of the room. There was Jack in action. Dodging bullets in the streets of Liberia. Grilling Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Crankily fighting with producers for two extra seconds of airtime. And flying shotgun in a B2 stealth bomber.

At one point in the video, a colleague recalled Mr. McWethy’s "very, very dry sense of humor." That observation was followed by a clip of Mr. McWethy, grappling with a growling German shepherd that was savagely biting and tearing at a layer of protective padding wrapped around the reporter’s arm. Mr. McWethy, deadpan, to an onlooker: "That’s a strong dog."

After the ceremony, the guests filed out of the auditorium and offered condolences to Mr. McWethy’s two sons, Adam and Ian. Everyone then gathered in a spacious foyer nearby to munch on sandwiches, sip sparkling water and share memories of Jack.

Members of TV news establishment mingled with military brass. Rick Kaplan, executive producer of the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, towered over a semi-circle of guests, and told stories about how he recently fractured his hip. Howard Rosenberg, a producer at Nightline, accepted congratulations for helping to put together the remembrance video. A bespectacled Bob Schieffer shuffled through the crowd. Cokie Roberts patted a friend on the back.

A reporter from Air Force Magazine stood near the bar and surveyed the crowd. For years, he had worked alongside Mr. McWethy at the Pentagon, sharing information, and becoming friends. "Lots of familiar faces," he said, looking around. "Looks like the Pentagon, circa 1991."

The conversation looped back to a commencement speech that Mr. McWethy had delivered years earlier at his alma mater DePauw University. Earlier, during the ceremony, several people on stage had referenced Mr. McWethy’s speech, which seemed to capture a certain quality of his—perhaps, the way in which he spent life alternating between flashes of wry levity and observations of genuine emotional depth.

At DePauw, the Pentagon correspondent had laid out the McWethy rules of life, which were at times silly (never take a laxative and a sleeping pill at the same time) and, at times, heartfelt (never confuse your career with your life).

During his time onstage, ABC’s Charles Gibson noted that Mr. McWethy had told the DePauw graduates that "why" is the most important word in the English language.

"Jack did die far too young," said Mr. Gibson. "None of us can understand why."

"People ask me, 'Do you wish you were back at the White House?'" Mr. Donaldson said. "And I say, 'No, not really.'" But, said Mr. Donaldson, inflating his supersized larynx up to indignant, mega-bass proportions, "there are moments like Thursday night when- yeah -I want to be there!"

It wasn't just Sam. Somewhere Mike Deaver, Ronald Reagan's media-fixing P.R. king, was smiling. But reporters on-site were alternately flabbergasted, flailing and embarrassed by the experience. None seemed to have the legs to get into the game. Mr. Bush ran out the clock on his hour of prime time, using it with the focus of Jimmy Dean selling sausage, snubbing tough reporters while calling on buddies, issuing one-size-fits-all talking points to all comers, giving the answers he wanted to the questions he didn't. He even openly taunted one correspondent, CNN's John King, for daring to ask a multi-part question.

"I don't think he was sufficiently challenged," said ABC News White House correspondent Terry Moran. He said Mr. Bush's hyper-management left the press corps "looking like zombies."

Mr. Bush worked from a podium-pasted pre-determined list of acceptable reporters to call upon. USA Today 's Larry McQuillan, on the White House beat since Jimmy Carter, said Mr. Bush's homeroom-proctor sheet of preferred questioners managed to insult those didn't appear on it-and make those who did seem like Karl Rove's brown-nosers, the camp kids who got the best desserts. "The process in some ways demeaned the reporters who were called on as much as those who weren't," Mr. McQuillan said.

"They completely played us," added a correspondent for a major daily newspaper. "What's the point of having a press conference if you're not going to answer questions? It was calculated on so many different levels."

But to what extent where the reporters themselves to blame? Although some asked reasonably pointed questions, most did with a tone of extreme deference-"Mr. President, sir …. Thank you, sir …. Mr. President, good evening"-that suggested a skittishness, to which they will admit, about being seen as unpatriotic or disrespectful of a commander in chief on the eve of war. Few made any effort to follow up their questions after Mr. Bush's recitation of arguments that were more speech-like than extemporaneous: Saddam Hussein is a threat to America, Iraq has not disarmed, Sept. 11 must never happen again.

It was a missed opportunity. From the media's perspective, the purpose of a press conference is to hold a President accountable, to see him work on his feet, to understand his priorities, to give viewers insight into his character, to make a little news, or to allow the President to speak to the people in a responsive and human voice that a formal address doesn't allow.

That didn't happen. On Thursday night, Mr. Bush reinforced an image of a scripted man on a tightrope who followed his handlers' cue cards:

Here's a synopsis of the event:

Question: Why not give Iraq more time to disarm?

Bush: "This issue has been before the Security Council … for 12 long years."

Question: Why don't our allies want war?

Bush: "Saddam Hussein has had 12 years to disarm … Saddam Hussein is a threat … Sept. 11 changed the strategic thinking … Sept. 11 should say to the American people that we're now a battlefield …. "

Question: Why has world opinion turned on you?

Bush: "Saddam Hussein is a threat … 12 years of denial and defiance …. "

Question: How is your faith guiding you?

Bush: " … the tragedy of September the 11th … the lesson of September the 11th …. "

Question: How much will war cost?

Bush: "Three thousand people died."

And so on. One suspects the reporters could have informed the President that his daughters had appeared on Girls Gone Wild! and still gotten some answer interchanging the lessons of 9/11 and Saddam's years of defiance. Former Clinton press secretary Joe Lockhart later called the event "a perfectly acceptable performance for a re-election press conference."

In other words: They … wuz … used! The press corps seemed mainly to serve as a prop, providing Mr. Bush with an opportunity to deliver another pro-war speech while appearing to bravely face the music. The White House sprung it on them at the last minute: The press conference was announced that very day, giving reporters little time to prepare.

That's fair; after all, if it's a game, and Mr. Bush is in charge of the playbook, he doesn't need to reveal it. But nevertheless, there was still a faint whiff of Marshall Tito about the whole thing. When the time came, reporters were escorted into the East Room in pairs, apparently to ensure they adhered to a careful seating chart. During his appearance, Mr. Bush answered what he wanted, no matter what the questions were, and there were no follow-ups. When Mr. King of CNN asked a somewhat multilayered but utterly reasonable question about the costs of war, Mr. Bush scoffed in the midst of his response: "The rest of your six-point question?"

In fact, the event's only moment of candor may have come when Mr. Bush admitted during the conference that he was calling on reporters according to his pre-arranged list of names, which his press secretary, Ari Fleischer, later copped to preparing.

"This is scripted," Mr. Bush joked.

Strangely, many reporters laughed at this remarkable joke, which had the additional benefit of being true.

They then buckled in for a happy hour of snubs. Correspondents there were particularly startled by two. Mr. Bush failed to call on Washington Post White House correspondent Mike Allen in the front row. Given that it was the second straight news conference in which the hometown paper of record-both Mr.Allen and the other Post White House correspondent, Dana Milbank, have particularly irritated the West Wing-was chilled and chopped, it was hard not to see it as punitive.

Mr. Bush also passed over Helen Thomas, the 82-year-old Hearst News writer who has customarily asked the opening question at White House press briefings since John F. Kennedy was President. It is true that Ms. Thomas has become something of a crank in recent years-Fox News' Brit Hume recently referred to her as "the nutty aunt in the attic of the Washington press corps"-and that she may have made the impolitic mistake of telling one newspaper that Mr. Bush is the worst President in her lifetime or American history (whichever, as Ronald Reagan said, is longer)-and that, as the White House notes, she is now a columnist and no longer a wire reporter.

Nevertheless, plenty of people-including Mr. Donaldson-considered this a particularly gratuitous break with tradition. "If I'm the President and I can't handle reporters' questions, I don't have any business being in the office," he said.

A call to Ms. Thomas found her uncharacteristically subdued. "That was his privilege, I guess," Ms. Thomas said. "I think he had a right to do that." Ms. Thomas' prepared question: to ask Mr. Bush "if there's any way to preserve peace and not kill thousands of people in their own country."

Those granted the opportunity to ask questions seldom seemed to raise the President's blood pressure. For every pointed query, there were several softballs that could have been capably handled by a press-office deputy. There was a question about Mr. Bush's faith, which allowed him to hold the floor on the topic of prayer-a good topic for another day-and another reporter asked whether Mr. Bush would allow journalists and arms inspectors time to get out of Baghdad before the hostilities began, a question that allowed the President to assure the public that his war plan would not cause the death of Hans Blix or Geraldo Rivera. It should also be noted that no one asked Mr. Bush about anything besides Iraq and North Korea-crucial topics both, but a question about the struggling economy might have taken Mr. Bush at least temporarily off-message.

A lack of follow-ups was also problematic. "In that room, one of the things a questioner has to do is create a moment, a confrontation with the President," said Mr. Moran, who got in a question about world opinion-but now regrets not following up more forcefully. "Not to showboat, not to draw attention to yourself, but to bring the President back down to what he is: a citizen President who needs to be engaged in a normal, ordinary conversation about these issues. So you almost have to issue a challenge to him up there. The point is to get them to answer questions, not just to stand up there and use all the majesty of the Presidency to amplify his image."

Some correspondents said they had a fear, for all their desire of "the moment," of appearing disrespectful-even unpatriotic-by confronting a President about to lead troops into battle. Reporters also said that Mr. Bush, for all his locker-room jocularity-referring to reporters by last names or nicknames-subtly intimidates them on a personal level. His aides let it be known that Mr. Bush sneers at the way reporters sculpt their hair and apply makeup for their prime-time appearances, a disdain that shows. "He'll laugh at your questions," said a White House newspaper correspondent who has suffered that fate.

Others said Mr. Bush will glare at a reporter whom he likes personally for asking an unexpectedly tough question, as if it were a betrayal. Viewers of Alexandra Pelosi's 2000 campaign documentary, Journeys with George , will recall Mr. Bush icily, if briefly, turning on her after a grilling about the death penalty.

Of course, Mr. Bush is not the first to exploit press conferences for his own ends. Even when Franklin Roosevelt was gathering reporters around his desk for freewheeling chats, he was buying their good will. John F. Kennedy began to have press conferences televised at least in part to show off his looks and charm.

But Ronald Reagan set the previous standard for demeaning White House reporters. His media adviser, Mr. Deaver, tried to phase them out. And he infantilized the press corps by instituting the so-called Deaver Rule, which held that anyone jumping up and down with his hand in the air would be passed over for the polite correspondent quietly awaiting his turn.

Mr. Reagan's conferences were so scripted, Mr. Donaldson recalled, that he would choose questioners based on a seating chart. "One night he called on someone who wasn't there-Joe Ferguson," Mr. Donaldson recalls. "He didn't come, and someone had taken his place. 'Joe, Joe Ferguson,' the President said. Well, of course it wasn't Joe!"

But it's not as if a leader on the eve of war can't risk departing from his script. Just look at how British Prime Minister Tony Blair does it across the Atlantic. At a Downing Street presser in January, Mr. Blair took one blunt question after another, including this killer: What he would say to a mother who has just waved her young son goodbye, knowing he may never return from Iraq? Yet rather than retreat into dogma, the Prime Minister spoke like a real-yet intelligent-person. "I understand, of course, my people think it's a very remote threat, and it's far away, and why does it bother us…. Now I simply say to you, it is a matter of time, unless we act and take a stand, before terrorism and weapons of mass destruction come together. And I regard them as two sides of the same coin." Mr. Blair was so intellectually honest that he even raised the complicating question of North Korea unprompted. Mr. Bush probably would have insulted the reporter.

But in keeping with tradition, Mr. Bush's conference last week was of a piece with his Presidency, which has always been a masterful exercise in message control.

"They're very strict and disciplined," says one wire-service reporter who was present. "But it's not normally that galling."

Partly it's his look: those bushy, angular eyebrows, bent upward like a jack-o'-lantern's; those halfback shoulders and spindly arms; that swirly chestnut … mane. Partly it's his manic body tics-the jerky shoulder shrugs, the flailing hands that chop-chop-chop down on each articulated point, like an angry chef mincing mushrooms.

But mostly it's the Voice. Everyone knows Mr. Donaldson's Beltway belt-forceful enough to petrify a President, sharp enough to pierce the buzz of Air Force One. The Voice can be sing-songy, like a Mel Blanc character's-it swings up and down, from gentle to loud, with extra emphasis and pauses for critical points … and … words . It's a happy madman's voice: Quiet for one moment, it singes the hair on your neck the next.

"This North Korea thing is heating up ," Mr. Donaldson said. It was a cold-as-a-mother January morning in New York, and Mr. Donaldson was sitting, in a crisp white shirt and red tie, inside a studio at WABC Radio in Times Square, where he was broadcasting his upstart talk show, The Sam Donaldson Show: Live in America .

You may not have heard it in a while, but the Voice is still kicking.

"George Bush is turning his attention to something he didn't want to deal with ," Mr. Donaldson said gravely. "North Korea says that it is withdrawing from this treaty immediately . It's supposed to be a 90-day withdrawal period, but it says, 'Forget the 90 days-we're out of here .'"

After a lifetime in television, radio looks to be Mr. Donaldson's epilogue. At 68, he's a famous television newsman without a channel. Jettisoned by his network, ABC, which released him and Cokie Roberts from This Week in favor of a young Sunday-morning anchor named … George Stephanopoulos, he now unleashes the Voice upon Joes and Jills in pickups and S.U.V.'s. Live in America was launched shortly after Sept. 11.

Mr. Donaldson's show, usually broadcast from Washington, has displayed promising growth, but is not a mega-hit. It airs in 42 cities, the host said, a fraction compared to Rush Limbaugh's 600 or so. Live in America is on in places like Houston and Syracuse and Monterey, Calif. It is not on in places like Chicago, Los Angeles or New York City.

Mr. Donaldson remains enthused, but for a man who spent much of his life grilling heads of state, talk radio is an adjustment. This morning, the subject was North Korea; Mr. Donaldson was talking not to Kim Jong Il, but to a woman named Mickey.

"I'm not sure what we should do," Mickey said. "I think this military has been gutted and that's a very bad thing." It was Bill Clinton's fault, she said.

Mr. Donaldson made a face, as if he sensed the Clinton swipe coming from a mile away.

"I used to be a Democrat," Mickey said. "But eight years of the Clintons and their shenanigans-that was enough for me."

"Mickey, thanks for your call," Mr. Donaldson said. "Thanks for your view."

It was like this a lot, radio. Though Mr. Donaldson began his career as a teenage disk jockey, the radio wave he surfs today is largely the domain of conservative howlers and their, well, Mickeys. Mr. Donaldson, by contrast, is moderate, if a tad liberal. If he shares his point of view, it's usually a thick, yellow stripe down the middle of the road.

"I'm not right-wing, I'm not left-wing," Mr. Donaldson said during a commercial break. "My job ultimately is to have a civil discourse. I'm not rude to the callers; I don't hang up on them."

This was apparently a competitive problem, and it felt strange. People used to complain that Mr. Donaldson was too mean for television. Now they worry he's not mean enough for radio.

"Some stations have resisted putting me on because they don't think I'm hot enough," he said. "The outrage level isn't there. One guy said to me, 'You don't sound as outraged as you should!'"

Mr. Donaldson's boosters believe there's a place for him in the talk-radio universe. He could be an antidote, they believe, a centrist neo-liberal answer to the hyperbolic Rushes and Sean Hannitys. Not NPR … but not Fox News, either. "I think Sam's in the right place at the right time doing the right thing," said his friend Ted Koppel. Mr. Donaldson's boss, WMAL Washington president and general manager Chris Berry, called Mr. Donaldson on radio a "home run."

Well, maybe it was a nice single. Mr. Donaldson was determined, but not as certain he'd prevail. "I'm not sure it's going to work," he said. "But what you are hearing is what I feel."

He swiveled around in his seat; Live in America 's commercial break had concluded. Now Mr. Donaldson was hearing and feeling a guy named Jim, who had some thoughts on North Korea, too.

"We are the 800-pound gorilla," Jim said. "We ought to act like an 800-pound gorilla. We've got to stop screwing around with these people."

Then there was Don, who didn't have much of a problem with vaporizing Pyongyang.

"Are you advocating we use atomic weapons against North Korea?" Mr. Donaldson asked.

"Why, certainly," Don said. "That's what they're advocating."

Like a scientist handling uranium, Mr. Donaldson was able to delicately swing Don to the idea that diplomacy might be a good idea first. It was a mild victory, the kind the former co-host of PrimeTime Live -Mr. Donaldson always shouted "Live!" like his pants were on fire-took comfort in these days.

"Don starts out saying, 'Nuke 'em-drop the bomb!' and all that," Mr. Donaldson said during another break. "But if I talk to him, he comes around to the fact that no, you've got to talk about this." He sounded like an instructor teaching a 6-year-old how to swim.

Mr. Donaldson said he didn't miss television. But, of course, he did a little. "If you come to me tomorrow and said, 'Hey, you want you to do this on television?', I'll probably do it. As long as it doesn't interfere with this . If you come to me tomorrow and say, 'O.K., we want you to do television but give up the radio,' I'd say, 'No-I love this.'"

The radio job did have its perks. Mr. Donaldson was still working five days a week-he was up by 5 a.m. reading papers, but he was finished by noon. Thanks to new technology, he could do his show from his ranch in New Mexico if he wanted.

"I could do this broadcast anywhere," he said. "Do you want to go to Honolulu with me?"

But he remained a stranger on the scene. A giant of one news format, he'd gone from the top to somewhere in the low to middle in another. It could be humbling. Mr. Donaldson could remember the days Rush Limbaugh was just a chatty guy out in Kansas City, not the 600-station giant who loomed over all radio like a balloon at the Macy's parade. There was also the rise of a former ABC correspondent Mr. Donaldson remembered as "good," but "nothing special."

"His name is Bill O'Reilly," Mr. Donaldson said of the Fox News champ, who has also joined the radio ranks.

Mr. Donaldson will never have the reach of Mr. O'Reilly or Mr. Limbaugh. But he wasn't going to try and cop their style. Nor would he mail it in. This morning he was fired up, fussing with his producers to get him updated news, better interview subjects, crisper segues to commercial breaks. This would not be an old anchor's slide toward retirement. He wanted this thing to work.

"This break is going on interminably !" Mr. Donaldson said during a commercial interlude, to no one in particular. "I hope it means we are all making a lot of money ! There could be no other excuse for depriving people of my …. "

Mr. Donaldson stopped himself. "Now I sound like Bill O'Reilly," he said. "My brilliance, I started to say."

Mr. Donaldson joked that he hoped his microphone wasn't on. Then he did an impression of Ronald Reagan doing his infamous microphone-check gaffe. It felt like listening Bob Woodward do Nixon's "I am not a crook" speech.

"I've just outlawed the Soviet Union," Mr. Donaldson said in a light voice. "The bombing begins in five minutes."

Mr. Donaldson and Mr. Reagan are linked forever, of course. Mr. Donaldson arrived in Washington in 1961, but rose to national celebrity during Mr. Reagan's Presidency. To some, the ABC News star was a grandstander and a ham, but to colleagues he was a wonder. Mr. Donaldson's queries were so persistent, said Mr. Koppel, that the White House would turn on the helicopter motors on the South Lawn "so President Reagan could cup his hand to his deaf ear and pretend not to be able to hear what Sam was yelling at him."

"Sam's great ability was to just kind of cut through the horseshit," said CBS's Bob Schieffer, the host of Face the Nation . "He and Ronald Reagan were made for each other."

Mr. Donaldson deflected credit for his rise to his old boss, the late Roone Arledge, who let him be himself. "He always backed me," Mr. Donaldson said. "Whether he backed me out of a sense of journalistic integrity or he saw me as the Howard Cosell of the news division … I don't know. It doesn't matter."

Indeed, no one gets the joke of Sam Donaldson more than Mr. Donaldson himself. He knows that audiences found him a little cartoony, a larger-than-life caricature on the White House lawn. He embraces the image, and people love him for it. His old colleague at Prime Time Live , Diane Sawyer, recalled a train trip down to Washington, D.C., where Mr. Donaldson wandered up and down the cars arguing with passengers. It was like Michael Jordan hosting a pick-up game. "By the end of it, he had every car on the train engaged in some political argument about Ronald Reagan or something," Ms. Sawyer said. "They all wanted to talk to him."

As his career progressed, Mr. Donaldson reveled in playing against type. He became one of David Letterman's favorite guests, because although he was stiff, he was funny, not at all the tight-ass people expected. Not long ago, Mr. Donaldson hosted a Webcast on ABCnews.com, where he interviewed people like Carson Daly, the dudes in Metallica and the Rock. That was half the joke-someone like Sam Donaldson gamely interviewing the dudes in Metallica.

"He was never afraid to make fun of the Sam Donaldson you saw on TV," said Mr. Schieffer.

But he always considered himself a journalist first. Now outside the White House looking in, Mr. Donaldson said he thought the reporters covering George W. Bush were generally doing a "good job," though he felt they were generally "too chummy with power."

"I watched a news conference a few weeks back when the North Korean thing bubbled up, and thank God for Helen Thomas," Mr. Donaldson said. "I don't care what you say about her-she was the only one who tried to require him to say what's the difference [between North Korea and Iraq]."

Indeed, Mr. Donaldson-a man who may have been the consummate Washington insider, but also asked Bill Clinton about Juanita Broaddrick-felt today's press could use a little bit of toughening up. "There are some curmudgeons today who still do it-Christopher Hitchens is one-but not many people do," he said.

Though he exited television perhaps earlier than he'd planned, Mr. Donaldson said he didn't feel too upset when his This Week run ended last year . He said he knew his time on This Week would probably end when Ms. Roberts signed a one-year contract and told him she would depart when it was up.

"I didn't have any illusions that somehow ABC would reconstitute the show and I would stay although she would go," Mr. Donaldson said. "It was neither a shock nor a terribly bitter experience when it became a reality."

Mr. Donaldson said that he is in frequent touch with Ms. Roberts, who is undergoing treatment for breast cancer. He said she was doing "very well" and that the reports from her doctors had been upbeat.

As for Mr. Stephanopoulos, who is currently third in the ratings behind Tim Russert's Meet the Press and Mr. Schieffer's Face, Mr. Donaldson was complimentary but crisp.

"I think he's doing a good job," he said. He added that Mr. Stephanopoulos was hampered by the problems that ailed the preceding version of This Week , chief among them lead-in programming. Mr. Donaldson maintained that This Week 's lead-in programming on Sunday mornings was considerably weaker than Mr. Russert's on NBC.

Mr. Stephanopoulos deserved time to prove himself, he said.

"People who are my friends come over to me and they say, 'Oh, Sam, we miss you-it's not nearly the show it was,'" Mr. Donaldson said. "I say, give George a chance. First of all, he has to find the men's room, get comfortable. Second, he has to settle in."

Mr. Donaldson said that he, too, was still settling in. "I think I'm better today on this radio program than I was the first week, or the second week, or the first month," he said.

"Remember, in our business, it's momentum that counts," Sam Donaldson said. "I sent Rush a memo the other day that said, 'Hey, you have plateaued. I'm still on the upswing.'"

Uh-oh.

"This is a curious case, Al Gore and television," said CBS anchorman Dan Rather. "I think however the campaign turns out, he may turn out to be a case study. Whatever you think of him and his policies, he's smart–I'm not saying he's brilliant–but he's a smart guy. But intelligent people with a mission usually become close-enough students of television to become at least reasonably good at it. And the question I don't have an answer to is why Al Gore, who is an intelligent person, and does have a mission, and does care … why he is not better at it."

No group of professionals may be more opinionated about the Vice President's chronically dreadful television performances than people in the television news business. While many agreed he's not as bad as his worst critics say, name one of Mr. Gore's TV afflictions, and they were discussing it this week in the newsroom trailers surrounding the Staples Center. He's too stiff. He's too flat. He's too condescending. He's too talky. He's too earnest.

"Not a natural," said CNN political correspondent Bill Schneider.

"Doesn't turn people on," said John Seigenthaler of NBC.

"Supercilious," said Bill Kristol of Fox.

Sam Donaldson offered this directive: "Don't jump around and shout at me!"

Such criticism is daunting, considering the crucial importance of Mr. Gore's television performances between now and the November election. "He needs to be more likable, and he also needs to establish how different he is from Bush," said ABC News political director Mark Halperin. "The way he will try and achieve those twin goals is almost exclusively through television."

No one's expecting him to be Bill Clinton, of course. TV news pros have long given up on the prospect of Mr. Gore replicating the telegenic performances of his predecessor. The master unleashed another symphony the night of Aug. 14, delivering a rollicking speech that immediately made the rest of the convention speaker list feel like open-mike night at Chuckle's. "Nobody in the history of the republic has been as good on TV as Bill Clinton," said Fox's Bill O'Reilly. "He makes Kennedy look bad."

So between now and November, Mr. Gore must get more realistic, the news guys said. First of all, work on the TV appearance. George W. lost his smirk in time for his acceptance speech in Philadelphia; likewise, Mr. Gore must abandon his adopted casual appearance, with the open shirts and khakis with cowboy boots. Stop projecting what Mr. Rather termed a "kind of Eddie Bauer-meets-UPS style."

"Come dressed in a suit and a tie!" barked Mr. Donaldson.

And then–sincerity. The talking heads working the convention said they can see through some of Mr. Gore's TV performances as if he were the Kevin Bacon villain in Hollow Man . Don't be fake down-home, they said. Don't be fake working class. Just don't be fake.

Mr. Gore must also keep it simple, the TV newspeople said, something he has struggled with throughout his career, both on TV and off. "I think his dilemma is that he's studious, and he's thoughtful, and he likes to deal with complex ideas–and indeed, to be a leader he must deal with complex ideas," Mr. Rather said. "[But] television does not lend itself to thoughtfulness and complexity, and that presents a real dilemma for him."

And as Mr. Donaldson noted, there's also Mr. Gore's little angry-voice issue. The news pros gave the Vice President high marks for being a pit bull in a television showdown–his verbal disembowelment of Ross Perot on Larry King Live still conjures up memories, and they've all but conceded the upcoming debates to him–but that tone must be softened in a Presidential campaign.

"He starts yelling and growling and getting nasty," Mr. Schneider said. "He does that, and he's always done that, and sometimes it works, but most of the time it's just really irritating when he growls."

"The one thing he must do," said Mr. Donaldson, "is don't shout!"

Tonight, live coverage of the Democratic National Convention all day on CNN, Fox News, C-SPAN and MSNBC, as well as prime-time coverage on ABC, CBS and NBC beginning at 10 p.m. Or hey, just watch The West Wing instead. That Martin Sheen is pretty loose on TV. [WNBC, 4, 9 p.m.]

Thursday, Aug. 17

Think they're going to miss Bubba in this TV town? Here's what one television executive, who asked to remain nameless, had to say about Mr. Clinton's convention-week denouement:

"It was very hard for all of us, especially those of us who had some sort of personal relationship with him. But by the way, it's not really saying goodbye, because I feel like he's going to be one of us for a long time."

No, not this rumor again. Bill Clinton, studio prexy?

"It's certainly possible," the television executive said. But then he hedged: "Not so literally, as much as he really belongs here. He feels very comfortable in this environment."

Maybe Bill Clinton, on-screen star, then. "He was a star," the executive said. "He was a movie star. I have never seen anybody one-on-one, or in front of 2,000 people, who had the kind of charisma Bill Clinton did. Ever, ever, ever–be it movie star or personality. He was phenomenal."

Maybe that's it–Mr. Clinton does a reverse Reagan and becomes a movie actor after he leaves the Presidency.

So, does that make Al Gore the presidential equivalent of Shelley Hack, who tried and failed to replace the peerless brunette Kate Jackson on Charlie's Angels ? No, the executive said, Mr. Gore is going to get his Hollywood close-up, too.

"Gore is still charismatic," the executive said. "He is still liked by this community. This is a Democratic town. The Lieberman selection, although he has been anti-Hollywood, is still well-received. [There are] a lot of Jews in this community. So I think you are going to still find this town voting 90 percent Democratic."

Well, let's see if anyone changes their mind after watching Mr. Gore's acceptance speech tonight. Coverage of the Democratic National Convention begins at 9 p.m. on ABC, CBS, and NBC. Those looking for more three-dimensional performances are urged to flip to the Flintstones and Scooby-Doo on the Cartoon Network. [CAR, 22, 10 p.m.]

Friday, Aug. 18

Since this is the Hollywood convention, of course, the hottest chair in town this week wasn't at the Staples Center, but across town at the Tonight Show with Jay Leno . Hillary Clinton made a Tonight Show appearance on Friday, Aug. 11, which was decidedly more relaxed than her robotic bow on the Late Show with David Letterman this winter. Then on Monday, Aug. 12, Gore gals Karenna and Kristin spent time on Mr. Leno's couch alongside Daily Show comic Jon Stewart, who butted in so many times that Karenna looked like she wanted to grab some goggles herself and smash him with a hammer. Mom Tipper was scheduled to drop by on Wednesday, Aug. 16.

Tonight Show talent coordinator Scott Atwell spent his evening traipsing around the Staples Center with breathtakingly inane Tonight Show correspondent Angela Ramos. Ms. Ramos, who has a laugh that would make Fran Drescher cringe, got kind of famous for going up to Presidential candidates and trying to get hugs from them. Tonight she was dashing around with Mr. Atwell and a camera crew, asking celebrities to eat a piece of cake for a Tonight Show segment for Mr. Clinton's birthday.

The idea was to have Mr. Clinton in the segment, too. Mr. Atwell said negotiations with the White House were still ongoing, but he was hopeful.

"That's been quite a task," he said. "But he is the President of the United States."

Tonight, Mr. Leno hosts Jennifer Lopez and Sisqó. Now that's a Presidential ticket. [WNBC, 4, 11:30 p.m.]

Saturday, Aug. 19

West Wing, West Wing, West Wing , blah, blah, blah. A party for the hyper-earnest NBC drama and Clinton administration fetish-porn was one of the hottest invites in town this week, as White House hotshots gathered with their television doppelgangers Sunday for a group hug at the show's set.

Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala was at the party, and the self-professed West Wing fanatic couldn't stop gushing later that night when she arrived for a New York delegation jamboree at the Westin Century Plaza.

"It [ The West Wing ] has a moral fiber that other shows don't," the former Hunter College president said. "They struggle with the fundamental issues of public policy that most people think are cut-and-dry. And often they are gut-wrenching issues, where you're actually deciding whether justice will prevail and how people are going to be treated, whether they live in one part of the country or versus another. And they have caught that in a very unusual way."

Sheesh! Are those Clintonites going to fast-track West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin for the Kennedy Center Honors, or what?

"The way guys talk about the football games on Monday morning, we [White House cabinet and staff] talk about the show," Ms. Shalala said.

Ms. Shalala did say she had one bone to pick with West Wing , however.

"My only criticism of the show is that they don't integrate in Cabinet members. They act like the White House staff makes all these major policy decisions when it actually is the Cabinet member and the White House staff working through the issue for the President."

Yeah, so there! The West Wing is about as realistic as Don Johnson's police badge on Nash Bridges .

Tonight, a man who admitted to smoking actual dope on the roof of the actual White House, Willie Nelson, hosts a live-by-request show on A&E. [A&E, 16, 9 p.m.]

Sunday, Aug. 20

Sam Donaldson was on the Late Show with David Letterman Aug.11, and he was ranting this week that the Indianan comic has returned to top form.

"David is back!" Mr. Donaldson announced, unleashing one of his signature herky-jerky arm-flails in the Los Angeles Convention Center. "There was that period there, where he was going through some hard times, and I think he would admit he lost the spark and the interest. During that time, I was on his show a couple of times, and I thought he'd lost his spark and interest. But now he's really back."

Mr. Donaldson was on the Late Show to plug his new Webcast on ABCNews.com.

The sharp-eyebrowed newsman has become a kind of Crocodile Dundee on the Web–that is to say, a popular misfit–sitting down with the likes of MTV's Carson Daly and hard-rockers Metallica with the passion he usually reserves for candidates and Cabinet members.

In fact, during his Late Show appearance, Mr. Donaldson kicked it in the green room with Kid Rock! "The Rock and I talked about music," Mr. Donaldson said. "I learned the names of some of his songs–'American Bad Ass' and all that. But I did think that 'Early Morning' … what's the middle word?"

Mr. Donaldson asked his assistants to give him the missing third word in the title of the Kid Rock album Early Mornin' Stoned Pimp . No one knew.

"Well, 'Early Morning Something Pimp' was a little too much," Mr. Donaldson said.

Speaking of early morning stoned pimps, Mr. Donaldson and Cokie Roberts join Georges Will and Stephanopoulos for This Week today at 9 a.m. [WABC, 7, 9 a.m.]

Monday, Aug. 21

John Lithgow touched down at the Staples Center Monday evening for President Clinton's speech, and the tall-foreheaded thespian had zero clue that a repeat of his show, Third Rock From the Sun , had beat out opening-night coverage of the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia on ABC and CBS.

"Is that true?" Mr. Lithgow said, craning his neck above the crowd meandering in the convention hall. "I had no idea! That just shows how smart NBC is–that's all."

Tonight, the smart NBC runs a repeat of the smart crime drama Law & Order to try and slap the smarty-pantsed Dennis Miller and Monday Night Football on ABC. [NBC, 4, 9 p.m.]

Tuesday, Aug. 22

Perhaps the strangest sight in all of Los Angeles this week was the scene outside of CBS News' skybox inside the Staples Center. Outside the skybox door, network staffers placed a color television with a flashing red light on its top, to warn passersby when CBS News is on the air. The monitor gave a feed of the CBS newscast, but the sound was turned off. Still, every day, dozens of people gathered in the corridor to watch Dan Rather and other assorted personalities silently move their lips as that red, ominous warning light spun round and round.

People really will watch anything on television, won't they? Well, maybe not everything: Tonight, Fox hosts the Second Annual Teen Choice Awards . [FOX, 5, 8 p.m.]

Since 1996, when an analyst from the Gartner Group Inc. issued a report describing a massive year 2000 computer problem that could cost $300 billion to $600 billion, a small group of information technology consultants have traveled the globe, warning of impending disaster. They were popular, well-compensated speakers, yet often the objects of derision. Now that their moment is nigh, some are planning very public last hurrahs. But others are headed for the hills.

Stephanie Moore, an analyst with Giga Information Group Inc., will be at ground zero of the media feeding frenzy. She has been publishing and consulting about Y2K for most of the last four years. So as the year 2000 rolls across the globe, Ms. Moore will be part of a marathon broadcast with Sam Donaldson of ABC News. The unlikely duo, Ms. Moore, an attractive, thirtysomething blonde and, well, Mr. Donaldson, will be crammed together for 23 hours in an 8-by-6-foot plot at the Federal Government's Y2K Command Center. They will watch the new millennium roll from the Marshall Islands all the way back to Hawaii.

According to Ms. Moore, 91 news media organizations were slugging it out for prime real estate at this former Secret Service command center on G Street in Washington, D.C. "We'll be checking with correspondents and contacts all over the world," Ms. Moore said. "And there will be officials from 67 government agencies to give us progress reports. My role will be to say Yes or No, or 'Given what I know about this situation, I find it hard to believe what that government official is saying.'"

But other Y2K criers, after years of seeking the spotlight, are now slinking off into the wings. "The last place you're going to find me is on television," said one prominent Y2K consultant in Silicon Valley. "If nothing happens, you're gonna look like Geraldo with the safe. How'd you like to be etched in people's memory as the guy standing there when nothing happened? You'd never get another consulting gig in your life."

The so-called Y2K bug was caused by an old shortcut: Computer programmers recorded years in two digit fields. The near universal practice was started in the 50's and 60's, when computer memory was a precious commodity and 19's couldn't be spared. But putting them back in has been a difficult and imperfect task.

Peter De Jager might have yelled loudest on the Y2K issue. Corybantic self-promotion from his eponymous Vancouver-based consulting firm landed him on Nightline with Ted Koppel and got him quoted in news media all over the world. The American Stock Exchange launched a De Jager Year 2000 Index Fund (which is up 141 percent since its April 1997 inception). And it propelled the heavy-set, bearded Mr. De Jager onto a global rubber chicken circuit, where he charged $12,000 for a one-hour speech. From this pulpit, Mr. De Jager has warned that if Y2K was not addressed, there was potential for bank runs, power failures or worse. But as time went by and corporations seemed to heed Mr. De Jager's warnings, he scaled back talk of a disaster.

As such, he got used to the questions of skeptical journalists. "It went like this: They'd say, 'Will it be safe to fly?'" said Mr. De Jager. "And I'd say, I believe so. And they'd ask where I planned to be on New Year's Eve, so I'd say I plan to be with my family in my favorite Irish pub. And they'd say, 'Aha! So despite the fact that you say it's safe to fly on New Year's Eve, you won't be anywhere near an airplane.'"

So Mr. De Jager has decided to drop his plans to be with his family on Dec. 31, 1999. Instead, he will be on United Airlines Flight 928 at 5 P.M., from Chicago's O'Hare International Airport to London Heathrow Airport. "This is not a publicity stunt," Mr. De Jager said. "United is not paying me. No one is paying me to do this. I'll be making phone calls from the flight and traveling with a reporter." Mr. De Jager said he has turned down requests to appear on any number of networks.

The year 2000 crisis, of course, happened. Total expenditures by governments and corporations approached $311 billion, according to a study by the International Data Corporation, not far off the Gartner Group's original wild guess. There is even talk of a Y2K dividend, now that companies will be relieved of this expense.

Mr. De Jager, for one, has a Y2K dividend of his own in mind. "Enough of the work got done that we're going to get through this," he said. "I will take a year off. I honestly feel as if I'm up for parole for good behavior in about three weeks' time."

Cory Johnson is the editor-at-large at TheStreet.com.

"Governor Clinton has no character problem," Mr. Stephanopoulos shot back. Then he went into attack mode: "Bill Clinton has passed his character test throughout his life and this campaign, and he's shown what he's going to do in this campaign is focus on what's important to real people." Even Mr. Donaldson, the Sunday morning pit bull, was quiet for a moment. In fiercely defending Mr. Clinton's image, the young Mr. Stephanopoulos was building his own: He was cocky, charming, loyal and hardheaded in the best ways.

On Feb. 8, in those same ABC studios in Washington, D.C., with Sam Donaldson again at his side, Mr. Stephanopoulos appeared an inversion of his former self. His hair a little poofier, his gaunt face showing the wear of the five stressed-out years since that early performance on This Week , Mr. Stephanopoulos, in his new role as an ABC News "analyst," was telling the audience that the White House was preparing a new defense in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. "What I'll call the Ellen Rometsch strategy," he said.

"She was a girlfriend of John F. Kennedy who also happened to be an East German spy," Mr. Stephanopoulos explained. "And Robert Kennedy was charged with getting her out of the country and also getting John Edgar Hoover to go to the Congress and say, don't investigate this because if you do, we're going to open up everybody's closets."

Even George Will had to laugh: "Monica Lewinsky is an East German spy?"

Mr. Stephanopoulos came back with a theory. "The President said he would never resign," he said gravely. "And I think some around him are willing to take everybody down with him."

This was the latest in a series of dire on-air pronouncements by Mr. Stephanopoulos. On the set of This Week With Sam and Cokie , he has described himself as "heartbroken by the evidence that is coming out"; declared Mr. Clinton "in big trouble"; and predicted that the President would "have to either apologize or admit mistakes." And it was Mr. Stephanopoulos, in an early appearance on Good Morning America , who was among the first commentators to mention the I-word-impeachment-giving urgency to a murky story. Taken as a whole, Mr. Stephanopoulos' performance in the last weeks has been a kind of media-age Oedipus story-he seems unable to create a new identity without destroying every vestige of the old.

The extended family of Clinton loyalists are divided in their judgments of their wayward son "Georgie," as they like to call him. A longtime adviser to the Clintons said that the President and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton "are taken aback and unhappy" about Mr. Stephanopoulos' commentary. Another stated unequivocally that Mr. Stephanopoulos has "cashed in" his connections to the President and is telling his new masters at ABC exactly what they want to hear. "It's all about George," the Clinton partisan said.

Even as Mr. Stephanopoulos' close friends in the Clinton camp-Paul Begala, James Carville, Rahm Emanuel-defend him, they admit that he has caused consternation.

"Some of the comments have caused pain, there's no two ways about it," Mr. Begala said. "I've loved him before and I'll love him after, it's just getting harder to do."

"Let me put it this way," said Mr. Carville. "He's been saying some things that I wouldn't say."

"Some people in the White House haven't come to fully understand that George has a much different role," said Harold Ickes, the President's former deputy chief of staff who was summoned back to the White House to assist in the Lewinsky matter, and who is a longtime ally of Mr. Stephanopoulos. "I think those people, because they saw George as he was, as a very close colleague in the White House, look at those comments much more personally than if a Cokie [Roberts] or a Sam Donaldson had said exactly the same thing … But it seems to me that he almost has an obligation to raise all possible issues, which is all I saw him do."

Mr. Stephanopoulos' colleagues at ABC say they are pleased with his transformation into a television commentator. "I like the guy," said Mr. Donaldson. "I think he's a plus on our broadcast." On air, Mr. Stephanopoulos seems to have come to the realization that he can't support the President anymore. Though he speaks to 4 million viewers every Sunday on ABC, he said he cannot answer reporters' queries because of obligations to his publisher, Little, Brown & Company, which paid a $2.85 million advance for his memoir.

"I have to let my work stand for itself," he said.

Though some inside the White House are calling for Mr. Stephanopoulos' head, the operating strategy has been more deferential. Within a few days of his first apocalyptic utterances, Mr. Carville asked his former sidekick to meet him for a chat at the Palm, Washington's testosterone-fueled media lunch spot. Mr. Emanuel got wind of the lunch and at the last minute rushed over from his office in the West Wing. All three denied that it was an attempt to strong-arm Mr. Stephanopoulos. "We're three friends, and we were flipping shit to each other like we always do," said Mr. Emanuel. But in these tense times, the high-profile lunch in a restaurant crowded with media types seemed an orchestrated effort to convey an image of peace. Sure enough, the meeting got a mention in the next day's Washington Post . But by the following Sunday, Mr. Stephanopoulos was at it again, disparaging the White House's game plan.

So Mr. Clinton's supporters have fallen back on a strategy they're much more comfortable with: spinning. Mr. Emanuel told The New York Times that Mr. Stephanopoulos was "on a fast-speed train to darkness." And Mr. Begala and former Clinton campaign consultant Mandy Grunwald trotted out the new party line to The Observer .

"Georgie goes dark," Mr. Begala explained. "That's the way he deals with troubling news, to presume the worst … It was a legendary thing in the campaign in '92. Every time something would happen, Georgie would say, 'It's over, it's over."

"I think that George was always a pessimist," Ms. Grunwald said. "He woke up early during most of the campaign and said to the rest of us, 'It's over. We're dead.' But it's different when you have several million viewers listening."

Hearing the suddenly popular "darkness theory," it's hard not to think of the scene in The War Room in which Mr. Stephanopoulos instructs his campaign staff to "keep saying 'Bush was on the defensive,'" after a Clinton-Bush debate in 1992. In the next scene, the spin doctors repeat the mantra endlessly to the gathered media, who gobble it up and dutifully rebroadcast it. The goal in spinning the "darkness theory" in this case seems clear: By attributing "Georgie's" commentary to a benign neurosis, Clinton stalwarts can downplay it without insulting or further provoking him. The darkness theory is an affectionate way of saying, "George is full of shit."

According to friends of both men, the bonds between Mr. Clinton and Mr. Stephanopoulos have weakened over time. Their relationship was always primarily professional; Mr. Stephanopoulos did not know the Clintons before he joined the campaign in 1991. But early on, he had the President's ear. When Mr. Clinton was considering Mickey Kantor for the position of chief of staff, Mr. Stephanopoulos argued against it, according to those close to the discussions, and Mr. Clinton offered the job to Thomas F. (Mack) McLarty. (Mr. Stephanopoulos' critics make much of this power play now: "It's ironic that Mickey was cast out and he's now there for the President to defend him, and George is out there trashing him," one angry former campaign staff member said.)

Mr. Stephanopoulos has endured much as well. For six years, he has suppressed his opinions, at least in public, on the Welfare Reform Bill and the North American Free Trade Agreement, both of which he bitterly opposed and Mr. Clinton signed. Mr. Stephanopoulos had to endure the humiliation of Mr. Clinton's decision to hire former Reagan adviser David Gergen, and he was compelled to work with Dick Morris, a man he felt was beneath him in every way. Discussing Mr. Morris' downfall in a profile in The New Yorker , Mr. Stephanopoulos offered insight into what he may be feeling about the President today. At first he felt sympathy for the man, then changed his mind, he said, because "That he was willing to risk so much is upsetting…. You have a responsibility not to embarrass the President. It hurts the country."

Mr. Stephanopoulos is said to have a strong moral streak; his father is a Greek Orthodox priest, Mr. Stephanopoulos studied theology at Oxford, and he has named Bill Moyers, the minister-turned-political aide-turned-television journalist, as his hero.

Mr. Stephanopoulos left in late 1996, and the President's friends say that his relationship with the Clintons eroded soon after, when he signed his book deal. The Clintons felt betrayed when former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich published a book soon after leaving the Cabinet, and were upset to learn that Mr. Stephanopoulos planned to write one as well.

"Signing the book contract before the Clinton Administration was over raised a lot of eyebrows," said one friend of the President. "You're clearly profiting off your proximity to the President … and it's inherently compromising. The pressure from the publisher is to tell some secrets that are going to be embarrassing." Mr. Stephanopoulos' ghostwriter is William Novak, who also ghostwrote Oliver North's memoir, another irony Mr. Stephanopoulos' detractors have latched onto. "I'm surprised Lucianne Goldberg wasn't his agent," said the friend.

Mr. Clinton and Mr. Stephanopoulos haven't spoken since before the Lewinsky affair broke. And according to Mr. Begala, "The President has never mentioned George or his comments to me ever, and he knows how close we are."

Mr. Stephanopoulos is, to a degree, a victim of bad timing. His position at ABC was supposed to be cushy, maybe even pleasantly dull. And it would certainly provide ennobling exposure for, say, a future political candidate. Instead, in a very public forum, he has had to work through a painful identity crisis. His personal hell has made great television in a Montel sort of way. And to the delight of his producers at ABC, his Sunday-morning comments are readily picked up by the print media to fill the Monday news hole.

Some of Mr. Stephanopoulos' detractors have speculated that he is being intentionally provocative with his comments, to draw attention to himself. His colleague Sam Donaldson disagrees. "I think it's a genuine expression of what George really thinks rather than some calculated effort to change his image," said Mr. Donaldson. "If his image changes … it may be a benefit to George, and it surely will be if he wants to stay in the business."

Lost in the obsession over the Lewinsky affair is the question of whether Mr. Stephanopoulos should be a paid ABC analyst at all, especially in light of the fact that he has testified before the grand jury convened by independent counsel Ken Starr.

"Would you have John Dean commenting on Ehrlichman?" asked Stuart Stevens, a conservative media consultant. "He's a player in the proceedings and should be interviewed as such." Mr. Stephanopoulos' role is even more complicated because ABC staff members say he has been helping them with their reporting on the Lewinsky matter, filling in details and helping them flush out scoops, which essentially makes him a paid source.

"I would assume any reporter who works for us … might call George and ask [for assistance], and in that sense I'm sure he'd help," said Dick Wald, senior vice president of ABC News and the network's "ethics czar" who approved Mr. Stephanopoulos' appearance on This Week after his grand jury testimony. "Is he acting as a reporter? The answer is No."

Clarence Page, the Chicago Tribune columnist who along with Mr. Stephanopoulos is a regular on ABC's This Week , explained his colleague's role this way: "He's a newsmaker and a news analyst. He testifies before a grand jury, then goes to ABC to talk about it."

"It's strange," Mr. Page said. "But these are strange times."

"Dear Lanny," Mr. Simpson intoned. "You motherfucking asshole son of a bitch. Sincerely, Harold Ickes."

The party guests laughed like hell. And there, milling about the hummus and crudités, were CNN's Washington bureau chief, Frank Sesno; its Capitol Hill correspondent, Bob Franken; Wall Street Journal editorial page writer John Fund; CBS's White House correspondent Bill Plante and the New York Daily News ' Washington correspondent, Tom Galvin, among others. The gang got ready for the next zinger and Mr. Simpson obliged, reading from a note he attributed to "a certain Newsweek reporter" (meaning, of course, Sexgate newsbreaker Michael Isikoff):

"Dear Lanny, Thanks for steering me off that Lippo piece-the other tip you gave me ended up being a really great story!"

Another blast of laughter. This gathering captured the peculiar relationship between the Washington press corps and the public officials they cover-even as that relationship was melting down. Mr. Davis was famous for stonewalling journalists during the campaign finance scandal; Maureen Dowd dubbed him the "Special Assistant for Obstruction." Yet the roast in his honor was organized and heavily attended by the very Washington journalists he had stonewalled.

The implicit understanding between the guests and the honoree was that they were all playing the Game. The only rule of the Game is that the players not take the hits personally. The relationship resembles the one between Wile E. Coyote and the sheep dog in the old Looney Tunes cartoons. When on duty, the hapless coyote works hard to catch the sheep, while at every turn, the dog thwarts him and usually pummels him for good measure. At quitting time, the coyote and the sheep dog punch out, pick up their lunch pails and head back home, the best of chums.

In Washington, the coyote, with a little help from Linda Tripp and Lucianne Goldberg, recently got his sheep, and the old social order came undone. The press corps went mad with unsubstantiated tales of semen-stained dresses and Secret Service witnesses, and tallied Mr. Clinton's lovers in the "hundreds." The White House responded with charges that the press had fallen for a vast "right-wing conspiracy."

A sympton of the confusion: Sidney Blumenthal, the former New Republic and New Yorker journalist, has been spinning his conspiracy theory so vigorously that even his colleagues at the White House have nicknamed him "G.K."-short for "grassy knoll." Meanwhile, the Washington reporters at ABC have a new respect for George Stephanopoulos, the former-Clinton spin doctor turned ABC commentator; he was not only one of the first to utter the word "impeachment," but he has also been working sources, helping his new masters to nail down facts in an effort to keep ABC on top of the story.

It's hard to play the Game when the old cozy relationships are in chaos. A few hardened reporters at the National Press Club party confessed to feeling uneasy. They may have been laughing at the rude toast for the departing Mr. Davis, but the mood was off. It was the wrong party at the wrong time.

'President O.J.'

At 9:30 A.M. on Friday, Jan. 30, nine days after the Lewinsky scandal broke, the White House press corps was attending "the gaggle," a daily off-the-record briefing session in the office of spokesman Mike McCurry. They were getting the usual stuff-the President's schedule for the day and a dose of spin.

Mr. McCurry told them Mr. Clinton would be addressing the Conference of Mayors in the East Room of the White House that morning and, later in the day, would be hosting a reception for the Detroit Red Wings, last year's Stanley Cup champions. Mr. McCurry made it clear that he wouldn't go into the Lewinsky matter, prompting the first shout of the day from Sam Donaldson: "What do the Red Wings know about Monica Lewinsky!"

By this time, almost no one in the press corps believed that Mr. Clinton would lose his job over Monica Lewinsky, and almost no one believed his denials. Some in the press corps got into the habit of calling Mr. Clinton "President O.J." As one reporter explained, "He's guilty but free."

Another journalist said you could tell that Mr. Clinton's job was never really in danger, because he didn't yet have a book contract with Random House.

As White House correspondents raced by-CNN's Wolf Blitzer, NBC's John Palmer, NBC's Claire Shipman, NPR's Mara Liason, who works in a basement office the size of a veal crate-bored cameramen ripped through a couple Clinton jokes:

Q: Did you hear what Bill Clinton said about the abortion bill?

A: "I thought I paid it!"

And this one:

Q: Did you hear what the President said about the Iraqi position?

A: He said he likes it, but Monica says it hurts her knees.

CNN's Mr. Blitzer confessed his dismay over his latest assignment. "I've been a journalist for 25 years and I've never found myself discussing such sexually explicit material," Mr. Blitzer said. "It's hard."

Fun With Sam and Ti-Hua

A few minutes before 1:30 P.M., Sam Donaldson got hot again. "We've got the smoking gun!" he yelled toward Mr. McCurry's office. The daily press conference in the White House briefing room was about to get under way. Mr. Donaldson, who was recently sent back into the field after enjoying armchair status at ABC, started performing for the weary troops.

"Somebody called me a sorry son of a bitch," he told his colleagues. "I said, 'Thank you, it's an honor.'" Then, slipping into his television voice, he said, "Good evening. This is the sorry son of a bitch, reporting from the White House."

Mr. McCurry emerged from his office and the reporters took their seats. When asked if Miss Lewinsky had called Mr. Clinton when he was in Bosnia in late December, Mr. McCurry replied, "I'll refer you to my transcript yesterday, which referred to my transcript the day before." (The original transcript contained a no comment.)

The reporters had a case of journalistic blue balls-worked into a lather by all the naughty talk and come-ons (i.e., leaks) early in the story, then denied gratification.

WNBC-TV's all-purpose man Ti-Hua Chang asked Mr. McCurry if having no sexual relations was the same as having no sexual contact. "Asked and answered," was Mr. McCurry's reply. Later, Mr. Chang noted on the air that he was at the While House asking "the same question I asked Joey Buttafuoco."

After the press conference, Mr. Donaldson was hot again. "Yesterday the story was: Questions they won't answer. What do we do today-more questions they won't answer?"

The Stakeouts

The real action was unfolding at roughly a dozen media stakeouts in the Washington area: Crews had set up at the three exits around the Watergate apartment building where Ms. Lewinsky lives; at independent counsel Kenneth Starr's office on Pennsylvania Avenue and at his home in McLean, Va.; at the Cosmos Club near Dupont Circle, where William Ginsburg, Ms. Lewinsky's attorney, is staying, and at his temporary office downtown; at the home and office of the President's attorney, Robert Bennett; and at the home of Mr. Clinton's well-connected pal, Vernon Jordan.

The stakeouts yield more in the way of mishaps than actual news. The most frenzied scene was in front of the Federal Courthouse where Mr. Starr's grand jury convenes-the place where Mr. Clinton's personal secretary, Betty Currie, was mobbed after her testimony, and where a black-haired Monica Lewinsky look-alike caused a stampede by putting a coat over her head and sprinting from the building.

Fox News cameraman Jim Shule was injured when his foot was run over by Ms. Lewinsky's limousine. Work boots prevented any broken bones, but he injured his back when he fell. He was hospitalized for a short time and sent home. An NBC crew had its cameras stolen at the Watergate-the work of a far-reaching Chinese electronics smuggling ring, they hypothesized, sounding a little like Mr. Blumenthal. Other crews have been harrassed by people on the street.

"I've been called idiot, scumbag, vulture and told to get a real job," said a cameraman at the Watergate who wouldn't give his name.

Skirmishes have broken out between local crews and journalists flown in to cover the story. At the Cosmos Club, a dozen camera crews had agreed to line up and pan together, so everyone would get a shot of Mr. Ginsburg leaving in his car. But when Mr. Ginsberg drove by, an out-of-towner from the Associated Press charged Mr. Ginsburg's window, ruining the shot for everyone else. The crews surrounded the rogue from the A.P. and demanded his film. "It was a lynching situation," said Gary Demoss, a Washington cameraman.

Another blooper: An ABC crew at the Watergate gave chase when Mr. Ginsburg left the building and tailed him all the way across town to … an ABC studio, where he was scheduled to give an interview.

And when Paula Jones took a cab to her attorney's office, she was instantly mobbed by camera crews, and fled without paying her cab fare. The cab driver had to settle for a few minutes of fame, as camera crews interviewed him about the experience.

The Chelsea Factor

Late on the afternoon of Jan. 30, Mr. Clinton was due to leave the White House in Marine One for Camp David, and reporters gathered on the South Lawn as darkness fell. Mr. Donaldson called the gathering "a protective stakeout."

"In case anything happens to the helicopter, God forbid, we better be here," he said.

The press corps crammed themselves between a thorny hedge and a rope barrier. The air was thick with the jet fuel exhaust from the helicopter, which shrieked like a vaccuum cleaner, even idling. Of all the journalists on the South Lawn, only Mr. Donaldson had a voice powerful enough to cut through the din. "I have a question in mind!" he said. He looked especially fiendish.

But then the helicopter engines shut down, a sign that the President would not be coming out soon after all. The cameramen and reporters in the press corps turned to the White House and shouted "Thanks, Bill!"-a sarcastic refrain they use whenever the President's schedule isn't convenient for them.

"That's a bad sign," Mr. Donaldson said. "We could be here all night."

ABC's Ann Compton, on a cellular phone with a source in the West Wing, reported the cause for the delay: Mr. Clinton was on the phone in the Oval Office with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. From the South Lawn, Mr. Clinton could be seen pacing about his office, a tall blue shade. After about 20 minutes, the President emerged from the Oval Office with deputy White House counsel Bruce Lindsay, and walked down the colonnade and into the White House. Still, the helicopter engines didn't restart, which meant Mr. Clinton's departure was not imminent.

"He's got to change into his country gentlemen attire," a reporter said.

By now, the reporters were shivering and bored.

"I've always thought this part was demeaning," Mr. Donaldson said, almost to himself. He'd gone from scrub reporter to media celebrity, and now, at 63, was back on the beat and having his doubts. "I can't imagine what 20/20 wants me to do tonight, unless they just want me to B.S.," he said. He slipped into his television voice again: "The news is- There is no news . Barbara." Then he turned toward the White House living quarters: "All right!" he cried, exasperated. "We have dinner plans!"

A Presidential aide on a cell phone baited Mr. Donaldson. "The President said you could leave, Sam," he said.

"If it's silence you want, I'm not your man!" Mr. Donaldson retorted. "You've successfully stonewalled us into the ground!" Mr. Donaldson turned to address his peers: "As the late Emperor Hirohito said to his people, 'The trends of the war have not necessarily developed in our favor!'"

A young military attaché to the President emerged from the White House and approached the press corps. "I want you to know about a great event we have coming up," he announced earnestly.

"What's that-bombing Iraq?" Mr. Donaldson said. He was on a roll. "Where is the President?"

"He left out the front door," a White House aide said.

"Yep, rolled up in a rug!" shouted Mr. Donaldson.

The press corps had been waiting in the cold for about an hour, when, out of nowhere, Mr. Donaldson howled in praise of ABC's corporate owner: "Disney hit 106 and three quarters today! Hellooooooo, Michael Eisner! My hero. I love you!"

The helicopter engine fired up again. The lights went on, and Mr. Donaldson barged to the front of the pack. The back door of the White House opened, and the President appeared, bathed in bone-white halogen generated light, his daughter Chelsea under his arm.

Chelsea! Sacred Chelsea! Off-limits Chelsea! Her presence put Mr. Donaldson in a quandary: How could he ask the indecorous question required by the sleaziest scandal ever to hit Washington? He had about three seconds to decide what would come out of his mouth. Mr. Donaldson leaned over the rope, and with an artery-bulging intensity he shouted over the howl of the helicopter engine, "What was the subject of the Albright phone call?"

Mr. Clinton and Chelsea turned. The President shrugged, smiled and said nothing. The next morning the image was on the front page of The Washington Post .

The Lewinsky Tour

Washington is small enough that it's possible to take a short walk and tour the entire Lewinsky scandal. A stop at the Palm around 1 P.M. on Feb. 2 revealed the vast right-wing conspiracy on its lunch break. William Bennett sat with Charles Murray, co-author of The Bell Curve and syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer at one table. In another corner, conservative pundette Kelly Anne Fitzpatrick was eating with a friend, as was bow tie-wearing Weekly Standard writer Tucker Carlson.

Just a few blocks away, at a soup joint on Pennsylvania Avenue, Newsweek writer Michael Isikoff-the man who broke open the whole mess-was grabbing a snack. He was asked if he had been back to the White House since his story.

"I'm not sure I could get in," Mr. Isikoff said. "But I still get phone calls returned from my White House sources."

What about the appearance on Late Show With David Letterman ?

Mr. Isikoff took a step back. "I had qualms....but [my editors] encouraged it," he said. "I didn't want to be seen yucking it up... but you only get one chance to be on Letterman.... So I have my 15 minutes. So what?"

Inside the White House press room moments later, the Lewinsky story seemed as distant a memory as President Clinton's first term. Reporters were back to the old hackwork-retyping press releases and sending out updates on the wires about the President's travel plans. The mood was weary and depressed. Reporters who recently had become part of the news themselves were just reporters again. And that mood carried over into the goodbye for Lanny Davis at the National Press Club that evening. No one was drinking much, and the guests started leaving early. Standing over the hors d'oeuvres table, a young man asked a gathering of other guests, "Do you know the difference between Bill Clinton and the Titanic ?"

"Heard it," they said.