Potomac Watch

Bill Clinton can be hard on his foes but he's murder on his friends. Look at the way he's humiliating his supposed buddy and fellow New Democrat, Louisiana Sen. John Breaux.

Mr. Breaux is Mr. Clinton's own hand-picked chairman of the commission to reform Medicare. A year ago, in a private White House meeting, the president told Mr. Breaux he saw Medicare modernization as central to his legacy. He even talked up the federal-worker health insurance system as a model.

But now that the senator has gone out on a limb to do just that, Mr. Clinton is treating him like one of Ken Starr's prosecutors: The president suddenly doesn't know what the meaning of "reform" is.

Mr. Breaux has been trumped by Barney Frank. Over his last two years, Mr. Clinton could define his legacy as getting things done before he retires on a Geffen-Spielberg pension. But his Medicare turnabout shows that, in the wake of impeachment, he's defining it to mean electing Al Gore and a Democratic Congress in 2000. This would both repudiate his GOP impeachers and repay the Barney Frank liberals who saved him.

Mediscare II is the linchpin of this payback strategy: Repeat the demagoguery of 1995-96 and tattoo Republicans for putting "tax cuts for the rich" ahead of spending for seniors.

Never mind that this year Republicans aren't proposing to cut benefits by a single penny. Medicare is an entitlement, which means its benefits are paid automatically, whether or not taxes are cut. But cold facts don't matter when revenge is hot.

What counts is that Democrats would have retaken the House last year if their share of the senior vote hadn't fallen from 1996. Democrats hope to make up that ground next year by offering seniors "free" prescription drugs that would be affordable if only heartless Republicans didn't want to help taxpayers.

White House Chief of Staff John Podesta has told Democratic staff on Capitol Hill that this theme is the key to retaking the House. Mr. Clinton has heard the same from Democratic leader Dick Gephardt. Vice President Al Gore is also in the tank for Mr. Frank.

(Question: When will the media score Al Gore for pandering to the left the way it will George W. Bush if he bows to the right? Answer: Don't hold your breath.)

The only problem is that the big losers won't be Republicans. They'll find a way to blunt the issue. The losers will be seniors stuck with the same old Medicare jalopy driving toward insolvency and rationed care.

Without reform, says Mr. Breaux, "all you're doing is putting more money in it. But it's like putting more gas in a 1965 car. It still doesn't run any better."

Mr. Breaux knows that New Democrats are supposed to reform government, not merely grow it. That's the boast of the so-called Third Way between left and right. And the Breaux proposal comes out of the Progressive Policy Institute, which used to be Bill Clinton's think-tank. The wonks at Robert Rubin's Treasury also like it.

The idea is to remodel Medicare after the system that lets nine-million federal employees choose among dozens of plans offered by private insurers. Even government auditors leery of free-markets have estimated that this reform would save money and improve service over time. And the savings from competition would allow insurers to pay for drugs without robbing taxpayers.

"I think what we have on the table is classic Clinton-New Democrat reform. But there are entrenched people within the White House who don't want any change," says Mr. Breaux.

On his 17-member Commission, Mr. Breaux needs 11 votes for a formal endorsement. He has 10 -- all eight GOP appointees (including health-care experts Deborah Steelman and Tennessee surgeon and Sen. Bill Frist), himself and Democratic Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska. If only one of Mr. Clinton's four appointees came around, he'd have his bipartisan supermajority. But the president won't even follow, much less lead, so the commission is likely to collapse in disagreement next week.

In a larger sense, this Medicare betrayal marks the symbolic end of the New Democrat movement. Its ideas helped Mr. Clinton win in 1992 and outwit Newt Gingrich in 1996, but now they are losing out to the higher goal of uniting liberals for total victory in 2000.

The Third Way rhetoric of New Democrat Al From has thus been hijacked by Sidney Blumenthal and Mr. Gore to provide cover for expanding the entitlement state, not reforming it. We are back to the Clinton-Gore future of 1993-94.

Mr. Breaux, ever a team player, keeps calling Mr. Clinton on the phone and holds out hope the president will come around. But he's the last piano player in this brothel. I asked the senator if he felt used by the president on this. "Yes," he replied, "But I'm no virgin."

As everyone knows by now, neither is Bill Clinton.