WASHINGTON INSIGHT

GOLF WIDOW? What has First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton been doing while President Clinton has been out playing golf day after day during his vacation on Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.? Asked that question Tuesday, White House spokesman Barry Toiv replied that she “has spent most of her time at the residence,” reading. “She’s been doing a lot of walking on the residence grounds and just basically relaxing,” Toiv said. Has she gone on any outings of her own? Only once, Toiv recalled. “Two days ago she went for a walk around [nearby] Oak Bluffs, and I think she did a little shopping there. I think she had one staffer with her,” he said.

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AND SPEAKING OF GOLF: Smokers, gun enthusiasts, Latvians, environmentalists, animal lovers, migrant laborers . . . you name it--just about every conceivable constituency has someone pushing their agenda on Capitol Hill. But what about those hardy souls who lug heavy golf clubs on their backs in the hot sun? Why is there no one working the halls of Congress on behalf of the lowly caddie? Actually, someone is--and he’s not just another Gucci-loafered lobbyist. When word got out recently that the Internal Revenue Service was considering an anti-caddie tax change, Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), who caddied as a boy at the same Indianapolis country club where he now plays, came to the rescue. Burton’s “Caddie Relief Act of 1997” would prevent the IRS from changing the tax definition of caddies from independent contractor to employee. Such a switch would force golf clubs to withhold Social Security and income taxes from caddies--even though it is usually golfers themselves who pay caddies’ salaries. Burton, one of Congress’ top golfers, thinks the IRS change could prompt country clubs to eliminate caddies altogether, replacing them with motorized carts. At the very least, the tax change would reduce caddies’ take-home pay. “Having been a caddie himself, he was outraged at the idea of the federal government sticking its hands in the pockets of 13-year-old kids,” said Burton spokesman John Williams.

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A BONE TO PICK?: House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) takes a break this week from his largely political cross-country tour to indulge one of his side interests: dinosaurs. He plans to stop in Bozeman, Mont., to tour the Museum of the Rockies with paleontologist Jack Horner and to participate in a discussion on the pressing question: Was the Tyrannosaurus rex a scavenger or a hunter? Gingrich then will join Horner for a tour of an excavation site--the same place where scientists found the T. rex skull now proudly displayed in Gingrich’s Capitol Hill office suite.

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TIMING IS EVERYTHING: Never mind that the event itself isn’t until Sept. 18. The upbeat invitation--complete with a festive balloon--to a “Beefday Party” in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the National Cattleman’s Beef Assn. arrived last Friday. That’s the same day newspapers all across the country were plastered with “burger recall” headlines.

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ASPHALT REVOLUTION: Yale-educated Jesus Silva-Herzog, the popular Mexican ambassador to the United States, often displays a clever wit that catches his audiences off guard. Asked at a recent breakfast with American reporters what he thought about the phenomenon of an ever-increasing Latino population in the United States, especially in California, Texas and the Southwest, Herzog replied without missing a beat: “We are recuperating our lost territories. We are doing it slowly, of course, but with a tremendous advantage--all the land is now paved.”