WASHINGTON WATCH: GOP FRESHMEN HAIL CAPE NATIVE

Rush Limbaugh, Cape Girardeau's $18,000 tourist attraction, made a triumphant appearance at an orientation for congressional freshmen-elect over the weekend. Greeted by a prolonged ovation of whoops and hollers, he delivered a rousing keynote address and was later awarded an honorary membership in the class. Admiration flowed both ways throughout the evening."I'm in awe of you," the Cape Girardeau bus stop told the 73 GOP freshmen-elect. "You took the risks. You are the ones who engaged the opposition. ... You actually went out and did the work."Limbaugh also warned the newcomers not to be fooled by the liberal media or to be seduced by Washington."Everybody thinks that because you're a conservative, you're an extremist. It's just in the Bible inside the Beltway," said Rush, whose boyhood church -- and Bible -- may soon become a detour for many of the millions of wholesome people heading to Branson. "If you stay rock-ribbed focused in almost a militant way to your principles, you will continue to be sent back here until you're term-limited out," he predicted.

Rep.-elect Jon Christensen of Nebraska was typical in his praise of the area tourism fixture, giving him credit for leading Republicans to national victory in November."He was a majority-maker as much as any of the candidates or the campaign workers. He fueled the debate. He was a national sounding board for conservatives," said Christensen, who also recounted how he instructed his campaign workers to place voter pamphlets on cars with "Rush Was Right" stickers. The stickers are available for a slight fee at several sites in Cape Girardeau, including the Chamber of Commerce and KZIM Radio.

GOP freshmen-elect are not the only ones attributing a large part of the 1994 Republican blowout to Limbaugh. Democrats, too, have been obsessed lately with the Conservative Megahorn, who got his radio start on KGMO. Rarely does a strategy session go by in the White House without someone mentioning him by name or some other endearment. "The Devil" is one favorite term, used most recently by defeated-Rep. Jack Brooks of Texas, in the company of the president. Others, like White House political adviser Paul Begala, simply suggest the Democrats find and promote their "own Limbaugh."That won't be an easy thing to do. With the controversial costs involved in promoting tourism, Cape Girardeau might not be willing to give up any of the others. (Bold) With Friends Like These (Unbold.

Not surprisingly, some of Rush Limbaugh's biggest applause lines at the congressional orientation were barbs directed at President Clinton and his White House staff."I've heard they've come up with a new nominee for surgeon general," Limbaugh deadpanned. "Pee-wee Herman." At another point, he held up a white sheet of paper and asked: "Did you know the White House drug test is multiple choice?"While some Missourian readers may deem these comments harsh, they pale beside what many Democrats and usually pro-Clinton journalists are saying these days.

Particularly stinging criticism came recently from Rep. Dave McCurdy, Oklahoma Democrat and chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, which Clinton helped found. In a speech nationally televised on C-SPAN last week, McCurdy blamed his November loss in a race for an open Senate seat squarely on the president. He warned other Democrats not to align themselves too closely to Clinton in the future."Bill Clinton won election as a moderate Democrat, a new Democrat, a DLC Democrat, but he governed as something else," McCurdy said. "While Bill Clinton has the mind of a new Democrat, he retains the heart of an old Democrat. It is time to put aside our role as cheerleaders for the second stringers."Meanwhile, long-time Arkansas journalist John Brummett lit into Clinton in a just-published book, portraying the president as prone to temper tantrums, slippery with the truth, indecisive, disorganized and possessed of an overwhelming desire to please. As for the rest of those in the Clinton White House? Brummett describes them as "youthful, expressive, self-absorbed, contemptuous of critics, and megalomaniacal. ..."Meg Greenfield, the venerable editorial page editor of the Washington Post, also joined in bashing the White House last week. In a Washington Post column, reprinted in the Dec. 5 Newsweek, she writes: "First ... I would have gotten rid of the aides themselves, but Clinton, at least up to now, has shown no will to kick out or even discipline the army of in-house braggarts and burblers who have done and continue to do him so much harm."Even some of the White House staffers themselves -- Greenfield's "braggarts and burblers" -- don't take a backseat to Limbaugh in derision of their colleagues. Several recently wrote a memo to Chief of Staff Leon Panetta, wherein they decried a White House plagued by "utter haplessness." In a line that would make Limbaugh proud, the aides wrote: The president "is still saddled with a staff better suited for employment with Disney's America than the executive office of the president."Finally, usually stanch Clinton-supporter Rep. Patricia Schroeder, D.-Colo., told a TV interviewer Friday: "It's been a very bad last year and a half for the president. Who knows, maybe he'll decide not to run" in 1996.

Et tu, Brute.

With friends like these, President Clinton might wonder, who needs Rush Limbaugh.

Jon K. Rust is a Washington-based writer for the Southeast Missourian.