MR. CLINTON IS LUCKY BOBBY RAY INMAN RESIGNED...

In one of the most bizarre news conferences since Ross Perot disappeared from national attention, President Clinton's appointee for Secretary of Defense, Bobby Ray Inman, withdrew from the nomination that would have put him in charge of the world's most powerful military arsenal.

We can only sigh in relief -- and disbelief.

Not that Mr. Inman hasn't served this country admirably in the past; his 30 years of public service have been quite remarkable. But his performance on Tuesday was so awfully ... well, weird.

We don't know if you bothered to watch the proceedings on C-Span, but we had difficulty turning away. As one Administration official said afterward, "It was like he (Inman) had decided to burn his reputation in order to save it." Another called it "a meltdown." We found it sad and puzzling -- and worrisome, that President Clinton had made such a selection in the first place.

We don't intend to dredge up here all that Mr. Inman said at his conference. The man has resigned; why pile on? But a few of the topics he discussed received such wide play the first two days that we believe they should be addressed.

First, Mr. Inman attacked the news coverage of his nomination, saying that the media began to "spin" against him within days of President Clinton's announcement. While we might agree that the national news media often gets out of hand, when it comes to media mistreatment of an appointee Mr. Inman is no poster boy (for this, see: Bork, Tower, Thomas and Guinier). Even Mr. Inman admitted that the daily news coverage was "very balanced and very fair to me, notwithstanding a few jibes, some of which I probably deserved."

Ultimately, according to his own admission, his complaint was aimed at one New York Times article, which reported that he had drawn one million dollars in salary while taking a business into bankruptcy, and three newspaper columns, one by Ellen Goodman of the Boston Globe that appeared in this newspaper.

But most of Mr. Inman's wrath was directed at William Safire, a columnist for the New York Times. Just after saying a "New McCarthyism" had come to Washington, Mr. Inman charged Mr. Safire for hiding a case of plagiarism from the public for over 30 years.

In fact, Mr. Inman's charge was totally false, and he later apologized.

Connected to his description of a "New McCarthyism" was also the charge that Mr. Safire had worked a quid pro quo deal with Senate minority leader Robert Dole that would have the New York Times intensify its look at President Clinton's burgeoning scandal, Whitewater, if Sen. Dole would orchestrate partisan attacks against Inman during his senate hearings. It was a charge dismissed by every senator, New York Times staffer and White House official who has been interviewed in the past four days.

Moreover, the charge made no sense.

As Mr. Inman himself pointed out in his news conference: "I have no doubt that had I elected to go forward, I would have been handily confirmed by the Senate, probably with a good shot at a unanimous vote out of the Senate Armed Services Committee."

Mr. Inman now admits that he might have been wrong about Sen. Dole.

So why did Mr. Inman resign? It doesn't really matter to us at this point. As Democratic Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said: "It's better that he bail out now ... than to hang in there and do a terrible job."

But what is troubling is that Mr. Inman got as far as he did. Contrary to Mr. Inman's charge that a "New McCarthyism" had done him in, we think his is a case where the news media did too little, and asked too little. The same criticism could be made of President Clinton and the White House staff in their selection process.

Bobby Ray Inman had a dazzling reputation when he left government ten years ago, in large part because he was a favorite of the very media he now disdains. Since then, however, we have learned that he has been less than a grand success, and some of his dealings have come under question.

Mr. Inman has also been known for having a high I.Q. and strong political credentials. But he has always been an "inside" man, practicing in secret information traded far from the bright lights of public discourse.

Just as Michael Jordan's reputation in basketball doesn't mean that he will make it as a baseball player, someone should have been asking if Mr. Inman had the vision, common sense and stamina to serve as Secretary of Defense. But nobody did, except for Mr. Inman himself. Even after the Austin resident said that he would maintain his homes in Texas and Colorado and spend many weekends there, even after he said that he needed to get a "comfort level with the president," even after he said for weeks that he didn't really want the job, only a handful of journalists actually questioned his nomination.

Thankfully, Mr. Inman himself realized he wasn't the right person for the job and he withdrew. The Department of Defense position is not right for a person without the desire to commit.

Since Friday, the White House has asked Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn and former New Hampshire Sen. Warren Rudman if they would be interested in being Secretary of Defense. Both have declined.

Unquestionably, serving as the head of the United States military is one of the toughest jobs in today's post-cold war world, perhaps only second in difficulty to the presidency. It is also one of the most critical.

Mr. Clinton has had his troubles within the Defense Department. With new problems in Russia, North Korea and the former Yugoslavia, as well as the challenges of paring the size of the U.S. military, it is imperative he gets his national security team in order.

This time the president was lucky. Next time, he should be the one asking the tough questions.