WHITEWATER'S WEB SPREADS

Tuesday's verdicts out of Arkansas were stunning: After days of careful deliberation, 12 jurors declared President Clinton's two business partners and his hand-picked successor as governor to be guilty of 24 out of 30 felony counts. They are headed for the penitentiary for looting a federally guaranteed savings and loan as well as a fund set aside for helping minorities, then sticking the taxpayers with the tab.

White House spin doctors were faced with the arduous task of explaining how none of this taints the Clintons. Consider just two facts: Felons Jim and Susan McDougal were Clinton partners, not just in the distant past, but all the way through the 1992 presidential campaign of "The Man from Hope." And who was counsel to the savings and loan thus looted? Hillary Rodham Clinton, of course. No wonder this White House has fought disclosure, even invoking the executive privilege claim Dick Nixon took to the Supreme Court and lost 8-0.