Oliver North

In August 1993, independent counsel Lawrence Walsh issued his final report on the Iran-contra scandal. His ultimate findings made the front page of many newspapers, but by no means all, for journalists and citizens alike were weary of the story after seven years of partisan finger-pointing, fragmentary reporting, internecine recrimination and never-ending attempts at spin control. The Walsh report, in theory, should have put Iran-contra to rest, allowing the participants in the scandal and the public to get on with their lives.

In recent days, five potential candidates for president in 1996 have hinted of their ambitions. And that's just among the Democrats. There are 19 -- count 'em -- 19 Republicans mentioned as possible presidential nominees in the next election.It's clear why Democrats are so restless and Republicans so eager. President Clinton, who in 1992 got the smallest share (43 percent) of the popular vote of any successful Democratic presidential candidate in 80 years, has now led his party through an election in which its candidates for Congress got the smallest share of the popular vote (49 percent)

Unfortunately for pundits like me, there is no such thing as quality control. We predict things with the most serene condidence and, when proven dead wrong, sail on to the next issue, unchastened and unapologetic.Well, I would like to take a turn eating humble pie about my wrong predictions for this past election. I wrote, nine days before the election, that "the passionate conservatives -- (Rick) Santorum, Jeb Bush, John Kyl and many others will not suffer [Mitt] Romney's fate. Oliver North will win by a comfortable margin -- the quaking of liberal Republicans notwithstanding."

THIS IS NOT the end of the world -- it's the end of a campaign," said a wise woman, Ann Richards, in conceding defeat Tuesday night.Others on the losing side in this most recent election should follow her example and take a reality check. The world didn't end, the news isn't all bad, and, in any case, Wednesday was the first day of the rest of the next campaign.Herewith a determined look at the election's bright side by one voter who woke up the morning after feeling more intrigued than despondent about the GOP's Brave New World.

Boston -- IF YOU LIKED the 1992 Republican National Convention, with its bashing of the un-Christian and the un-straight, you'll love the 1996 convention. Assuming, that is, that the party wins as big as it expects in tomorrow's midterm elections. Last time we had Pat Robertson and Pat Buchanan. We had the Republican chairman, Rich Bond, warning that if Bill Clinton was elected, Jane Fonda would be sleeping in the White House "as guest of honor at a state dinner for Fidel Castro."Next time the powerful new committee chairmen in a Republican-controlled Senate will surely be featured.

RICHMOND, Va. -- Former Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, a 1996 Republican presidential hopeful, told about 400 party faithful here the other night that the Senate race in Virginia between Democratic incumbent Chuck Robb and GOP challenger Oliver North "is not about personalities, it's not about Ollie North. It's about the principles he stands for."But if Cheney were right in that assessment, the campaign would be all over now and Robb would be thinking about new employment. The fact that the polls indicate that the race is going down to the wire is attributable directly to personalities, and specifically the personality of Oliver North.

Bill is taking Hillary off health care. She told him to.A wave of religious righteousness is infusing the election. Oliver North in Virginia and Marion Barry in Washington are its principal spokesmen.

MOUNT VERNON, Va. -- The ostensible task for former Secretary of State James Baker here the other night was to tout the candidacy of Republican senatorial nominee Oliver North at a fat-cat reception at the palatial home of a Virginia developer. But his performance demonstrated why he continues to be mentioned as a possible 1996 presidential candidate.Baker's appearance for North was in itself an eyebrow-raiser, inasmuch as Baker's old boss, former President Ronald Reagan, tried to derail North's nomination with a letter saying that North was lying about what he knew about the Iran-contra affair and about "private meetings" North claimed he had with Reagan that "just didn't happen."

Washington.--The reactionaries in Congress, the elitists in the media and the pecksniffs in the State Department have been snickering at Jimmy Carter for almost two decades.When the Georgia peanut farmer was elected president in 1976, some wrote of him as a hayseed who could not drawl out a decent speech and could not possibly deal effectively with more ''sophisticated'' world leaders.Mr. Carter was dubbed ''weak'' and ''bumbling'' when he failed to negotiate the release of American hostages held by Iran and when a military effort to rescue them turned into a Keystone Cops failure.

Alexandria, Virginia. -- Tomorrow is Constitution Day, but you'd hardly know it. There will be no parades, no firework, no speeches -- not even any department-store sales. When just about every occasion in American life has an accompanying Hallmark card, what happened to the Constitution?The Fourth of July is our biggest national holiday. Local orators read the Declaration of Independence aloud in town squares across the country, and tots ride their bunting-bedecked tricycles in the streets.