PART-TIME PRESIDENT, FULL-TIME FUND RAISER

Friday was to have seen a fund-raising visit to St. Louis by President Bill Clinton. On Thursday, approximately 24 hours before the visit, the White House announced that while the president would be raising funds in Chicago for U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun earlier that day, he was canceling his participation in the St. Louis visit, leaving it to Vice President Al Gore and House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt. Somehow the $5,000-plate dinner, whose proceeds were split between the House and Senate Democratic Campaign Committees, went on without the president.

All this came during a milestone week for the embattled chief executive. This year, the president has had exactly two meetings with his Cabinet. There was the one in January, when he looked them all in the eye and lied to them about his relationship with a former intern before sending them out to repeat his lies. And there was the one in August, when he met again with them to apologize for those lies.

The reason this was a milestone is simple: It was this week that the president who has met with his Cabinet twice attended his 100th fund-raising event of this year. Think of it: We're in the 10th month, with 100 fund raisers so far and more to come. That's 10 per month, or an average of a trip somewhere for a fund raiser -- mostly to distant points outside the Washington area -- every three days all year. Oh, by the way, the president has spent 45 days this year visiting 13 foreign countries and 32 days vacationing in such spots as Martha's Vineyard, the Virgin Islands and Aspen. What a record to be proud of.

There is another aspect of the president's nearly full-time fund raising worth commenting upon. His visit this past week to New York was on behalf of U.S. Rep. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who is challenging Republican U.S. Sen. Al D'Amato. Many observers have questioned the propriety of a president facing an impeachment investigation actively raising funds for campaigns of Senate candidates who may soon sit as jurors in a Senate trial, should the process get that far.

Most previous American presidents of both parties would have recognized a difficulty here, but with Mr. Clinton's trademark shamelessness, what's the bother? He has violated yet another standard, established still another bad precedent. It was left to West Virginia's Democratic U.S. Sen. Robert Byrd, an 80-year-old moralist and guardian of Senate traditions and honor, to voice this stern warning to the White House from the Senate floor: "Don't tamper with this jury."

All this is the record of a part-time president and full-time fund raiser. This, too, will be another of the sad Clinton legacies.