DEFYING ODDS, GUNNING FOR ASHCROFT

Never say die:

* In 1996 Lance Armstrong was given a 3 percent chance of beating testicular cancer that had spread into his lungs and brain. In 2000 Armstrong won cycling's torturous Tour de France for the second consecutive year.

* John Miller of Poughkeepsie, N.Y., flew a 200-mph plane, a Beech Bonanza V35, to Portland, Ore., and back last summer. For giggles he also pilots a 300-mph Beech Baron 56TC that he calls his "hot rod." Miller is 98.

* Hillary Clinton dropped $100 million, counting soft money, to win her Senate seat in New York. Her spree accounts for 3 percent of all electioneering costs nationwide -- from president to local judge -- in the Nov. 7 election. -- Digital Rules

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Gunning for Ashcroft: No partisans are more eager to derail the Bush nomination of John Ashcroft than high officials of the Clinton Justice Department. They much prefer someone who will not flip over the flat rock of the blocked prosecution of heavy Clinton contributors.

Janet Reno is reluctant to be remembered for aborting the potential prosecution of James Riady and other sources of illegal funds. Nervous Justice officials are hoping a Senate confirmation delay will bring about the naming of a malleable careerist as interim attorney general. He could then shut off investigations into political influence within Justice before "an incorruptible stiff" like Ashcroft takes charge.

Evidence of panic within Reno's coterie came in a stormy meeting held Dec. 20, soon after Al Gore's concession. Three top aides, including an assistant attorney general, summoned David Barrett, one of the last of the independent counsels, to order him to shut down his grand jury forthwith.

Barrett was appointed more than five years ago to look into the misleading of the FBI by Clinton appointee Henry Cisneros about payments to a former mistress. That struck most of us as no big deal, and the former San Antonio mayor copped a plea for a misdemeanor, paid a fine and is rebuilding his life.

But when this independent counsel wondered where the unrich public servant obtained substantial money for his friend, Reno Justice told the Internal Revenue Service not to let him see more than a single year's tax returns.

That must have struck Barrett as fishy. Since his court assignment included obstruction of justice, and because his office was grandfathered when the Independent Counsel Act lapsed, he stayed in business to ask: Was Justice colluding with the IRS in protecting any Clinton appointees or heavy contributors from charges of tax fraud?

Then-Sen. William Roth and Pat Moynihan asked the IRS about this a year ago. David Williams, Treasury's inspector general for tax administration, replied that he was providing "investigative support" to Barrett's team. Late last summer, the independent counsel began to present evidence to a grand jury.

On Oct. 3, in an article most of us overlooked in the heat of the campaign, Wall Street Journal reporter David Cloud revealed that an IRS official, after receiving immunity from prosecution, had testified several times about his work on the Cisneros case. Other IRS officials, not immunized, were also testifying.

Subsequent scuttlebutt is that in addition to a mid-level whistleblower, the immunized IRS employee is "singing like a birdie" (hardly an original metaphor). At least one Justice official has been talking to the independent investigators, though he or she has not yet been subpoenaed.

Lee Radek of Justice's "Public Integrity" has surely heard what I've been hearing. He must be worried that the grand jury is asking about pressure that Justice may have put on IRS officials to avert tax-fraud prosecution of prominent campaign contributors.

Panicked, the Reno crew summoned the independent counsel and told him to close up or be fired. They may have been bluffing, or hoping they could get one of the friendly D.C. federal judges appointed by Clinton to rule that he had overstepped his bounds.

However, an independent counsel reports to, and his jurisdiction is decided by, a special three-judge panel that has been inclined to let investigators follow leads to wrongdoing by officeholders, Reno's aides, accustomed to having their cease-and-desist orders being obeyed when prosecutors like Charles LaBella were getting too close to paydirt, were stunned when Barrett told them he'd see them in court.

The issue is nonpartisan: Was political power used to shield the administration's friends? Equal justice demands the law to move in, not to "move on."

Until an attorney general appears who is corrupt or timorous, Congress will not authorize independent counsels. When credible evidence appears that the president or a Cabinet member has broken the law, we must trust Justice for impartial justice.

Amidst the coming confirmation circus, I hope one lonely Democrat will ask the nominee: Will you empower outside counsel when obvious conflicts of interest arise? And if Ashcroft's appointment is delayed, my sources at Justice hope that Bush crosses up Reno and her partisan crew by naming FBI director Louis Freeh to be interim attorney general. That should provide a lively few weeks. -- William Safire, The New York Times

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Matt Drudge has been right 95 percent of the time. I have no verification of this report, but I found it interesting if accurate:

MTV snubs Bush; no inaugural party planned after Clinton blowouts: After hosting two consecutive inauguration celebrations for the Clinton presidency, MTV Networks has decided to snub George W. Bush when he takes the oath in Washington later this month.

The final decision not to celebrate the new president was made by Sumner Redstone, CEO of Viacom, MTV's parent company, according to sources.

Repeated calls to Redstone, whose company recently awarded an $8 million book deal to first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, went unreturned.

When asked why MTV was not holding a Bush event this year, one MTV staffer in New York laughed: "He's not a Democrat."

The Bush snub raises questions about MTV's claim that its "Choose or Lose" and "Rock the Vote" campaigns are nonpartisan efforts to increase voter participation with the nation's youth.

"The Bush family is in to the real thing, country-western." -- Drudge Report

~Gary Rust is president of Rust Communications.