Ed Rollins

Washington - THE TELEVISED images from Tokyo of an ashen-faced, inert George Bush, looking comatose as a KO'd prize fighter or a swimmer hauled from the surf, were the most frightening pictures of the Bush presidency.Reporters on the scene noted that Bush's physician, Dr. Burton Lee, was "laughing" as he revived the groggy president.I can't account for Lee's peculiar attack of merriment. But I doubt if other Americans gaping at their supine president shared the doc's strange hilarity.For many, perhaps, the sight of Bush seemingly down for the 10-count sent two words flashing across their minds like a neon sign:"President Quayle?

HOUSTON -- This year's thundering voice on the right, news media commentator turned presidential candidate Patrick J. Buchanan, gave the most conservative elements of his Republican Party plenty of red meat to chew on here last night.He took out after the conservatives' favorite whipping boy, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, asking, "How many other 60-year-olds do you know who still go to Florida for spring break?" He railed against "the failed liberalism of the 1960s and '70s" and those who engage in the "cheap political rhetoric" of politicians who build themselves up "by tearing America down."

HOUSTON -- Vice President Dan Quayle made his convention debut at a "God and Country" rally yesterday, extolling traditional values, the power of prayer and a newly adopted platform so socially conservative that one Christian leader said it could have been written by the religious right.For this hard-core family values crowd, Mr. Quayle and the platform are only the opening act. All week, the Bush team will be doing its best to court religious conservatives, a voting bloc crucial to its success in November, but one that is not unanimous this year in its support for President Bush.

HOUSTON -- Ross Perot may have lost all credibility, respectability, and surely all electability, but if he waltzes back into the campaign spotlight, as he's hinted at this week, he still has the power to topple this dizzying election year.A number of strategists, including former Perot campaign adviser Ed Rollins, believe the Texas billionaire will somehow reinvigorate his presidential bid as November grows nearer."I don't think he wants to have his epitaph being that he was a quitter," Mr. Rollins said earlier this week in a CBS News interview.

Alook at Ross Perot's diary:July 17 -- Know what would be neat? Running for president. Living in the White House. Padding around in your jammies through the same office Lincoln used. Sitting in the cockpit of Air Force One and pretending you're firing a 30-cal. machine gun at an Iraqi jet fighter. Having the Secret Service boys shoot you to the front of the line to see "La Cage Aux Folles."Maybe someday this ol' Texas boy'll think about running for. . . oh, that's right. I just suspended my campaign yesterday.

YOU have attacked my patriotism," counterpunched Bill Clinton, in the most dramatic moment of the first presidential debate of 1992.President Bush had carefully said that Mr. Clinton's organizing anti-war demonstrations abroad as a youth was "a question of character and judgment," and claimed not to be impugning his patriotism.Mr. Clinton was well prepared. He defined the president's attack as a low blow, and delivered the cry of foul he had rehearsed: "When Joe McCarthy went around this country attacking people's patriotism, he was wrong . . . and a senator from Connecticut stood up to him named Prescott Bush.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush ended his term -- and the most painful year of his political life -- in a burst of statesmanly glory, producing a sweeping new arms-control treaty with Russia and highlighting American aid to famine-stricken Somalia.How odd that a man so comfortable, so knowledgeable, so adroit and graceful on the world stage was intellectually homeless in his own country.For Mr. Bush, the tragedy of his administration was told in full on a raw, snowy afternoon last Feb. 18. In that day's New Hampshire presidential primary, the first test of the Bush re-election effort, 37 percent of Republicans voted against their president.

We live in an era of redundancy, which is the only way you can possibly explain Disney's plan to place an amusement park near Washington.Don't we already have Congress there?I mean, if Disney introduces Senator Goofy, is there any way to tell him from the real thing?Quickie quiz: Is Newt Gingrich A) The House minority whip; B) an obnoxious cartoon character; C) Yosemite Sam's illegitimate son; D) all of the above?You can find out in about five years when they open the gates to something called Disney America, a $2 billion theme park based on people's perceived need to see re-enactments of historical events, as imagined by the folks who brought you Mickey Mouse and Son of Flubber.

I'VE GOT an idea for a modification to the North American Free Trade Agreement: We'll send Ross Perot to Mexico, and in return we'll give the Mexicans anything they want as the gift of a grateful nation.After Tuesday's NAFTA debate with Vice President Al Gore, Mr. Perot's career as a pundit without portfolio -- and without specifics -- should be over for good.During that 90 minutes, in a charmless version of his old cracker-barrel act, dogs didn't hunt, lines in the sand were drawn and the tooth fairy was mentioned twice.

The idea seems so simple that I don't know why anyone didn't think of it before.You're a liberal (this is just a hypothetical).You think talk radio is ruining America (this may be less hypothetical than it sounds).You keep listening for your point of view, and you don't hear it unless you're tuned in to certain secular-humanist, rock and roll stations.Then, one night, while you're surfing the 'Net, looking for the latest from the conspiracy front -- and you thought the Internet was just a place to download Playboy centerfolds -- you find an answer.