Slick Willie Meets Tricky Dick -- A White House Chat Sets Tongues Wagging

THEY only met for 40 minutes, but that conversation between Bill Clinton the Younger and Richard Nixon the Elder has fueled days of gossipy political chatter.

No wonder reporters, cartoonists, and editorial writers secretly love, miss and indulge the disgraced former president.

The meeting in the White House family quarters was ostensibly a courtesy visit by Nixon to offer a first-hand account of a recent visit to the former Soviet Union, and make a pitch for more economic aid to the old commie foe.

Don't whack us in the face with a fish to get our attention on this one. A Hall of Fame red-baiter is sitting knee to knee with an Arkansas yokel trying to prop up some Ruskie populist.

Nixon as elder statesman is a tough sell for his harshest critics, conservatives nursing a broken heart. He drank too many toasts in Peking and Moscow for their liking, and he was dumb enough to get caught in Watergate. Why didn't he just burn the damn tapes?

For right-wingers the meeting was just slime seeking its own level; two unctuous liars sharing their mutual respect for a pro.

Nixon can tally more political crises than Clinton, but they are both survivors; gifted campaigners who overcame adversity as candidates and won the Oval Office.

This was also a gathering of two policy wonks; two men who do not need three-by-five cards to move from opening pleasantries to substantive talking points.

Nixon knows foreign policy, and stressing that strength is the best way to burnish his reputation in the last years of his life. The campaign to rehabilitate his image includes extensive writing, courting the media and travel abroad.

Indeed, newspaper commentary by Nixon is credited with shaming a hesitant, feckless Bush administration into support of the first major round of aid to Russia.

Clinton needs all the advice he can get, from every credible source. Nixon may have fled Washington with four articles of impeachment nipping at his backside, but history will also record lasting achievements in foreign capitals.

Clinton the novice expressed his thanks with an invitation that by its very informality was guaranteed to amplify its significance. Nixon must think the kid is amazing.