THE MOST UNKINDEST CUT

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Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich didn't quite expect the table to be turned. Their prey had been the President, even though they spoke in statesmanlike tones at a press conference last week. "Come to the Capitol, sit down and visit with Republicans and see if we can't work this out," said Dole in an open invitation to Clinton. Such a summit would tackle the volatile subject of Medicare. Shouldn't the President start handling the crisis? Indeed, as Dole spoke, Gingrich pointed to a precipitous slope indicating Medicare insolvency by the year 2002. And then the questions began. Why, reporters asked, didn't Dole and Gingrich do anything about Medicare in the past when the situation was equally dire? "He wasn't the majority leader, and I wasn't the Speaker," Gingrich said defensively. Would Republicans use Medicare cuts to balance the budget? Said Gingrich: "Some people in this city have a budget psychosis." Less than 15 minutes after they started, the duo fled from the Senate broadcasting studio. Said Dole dryly as he left: "We certainly welcome these questions. We didn't know we would have any."

Welcome to the second 100 Days. The confrontation was merely a taste of what Dole and Gingrich can expect as they begin the hardest part of their agenda: facing the enormous political risks involved in slashing Medicare and an array of other sacred-cow government programs to balance the budget and pay for the tax cuts Gingrich has termed the "crowning jewel" of the Contract with America. Indeed, there was cold sweat at a no-press-allowed retreat in suburban Virginia at week's end, where G.O.P. House members had to go to secure conference rooms to read numbered copies of House budget chief John Kasich's blueprint for slicing an astonishing $1.4 trillion from federal spending over the next seven years. The plan would eliminate the departments of Energy, Commerce and Education, cut cost-of-living increases for federal pensioners, slash foreign aid sharply, and zero out Clinton's pet achievement, the national-service program. Even during the retreat, House members were forming "rump groups" to contest specific cuts, particularly the farm subsidies that Kasich has slated for major reductions. The hysteria will mount this week when Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici makes his plan public-a plan without the salve of tax cuts.

The G.O.P.'s panic contrasted markedly with the steady-handedness that characterized the new congressional majority's first 100 days. There were smiles, however, in the White House. For six months the President and his aides watched haplessly as the Republicans marched all over the political landscape. Senior Clinton adviser George Stephanopoulos, however, foresaw Democratic opportunity. Looking over the Republican agenda last fall, Stephanopoulos, economic adviser Gene Sperling and First Lady Hillary Clinton predicted that the G.O.P. would become vulnerable when the time came to make the painful choices necessary to balance the federal budget by 2002. And they laid an ambush line down at Medicare, the $176 billion health-care program for the elderly that is among the budget's most politically sensitive items.