THE WEEK: DECEMBER 10-16

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NATION

OPEN AND SHUT CASE, PART 2

For the second time in a month, the Federal Government was forced into a partial shutdown after budget talks between congressional Republicans and the White House collapsed. President Clinton accused the G.O.P. of wanting to make "deep and unconscionable cuts in Medicare and Medicaid." Senator Robert Dole retorted, "I don't think he's telling the American people the truth." The two sides could not agree on when to restart negotiations.

ALAS! COUNT US IN

Sidelined, as it has customarily been whenever the Commander in Chief has decided to commit U.S. troops abroad, a deeply ambivalent Congress voted on a jumble of Bosnia resolutions. The net effect of the House and Senate actions was to express full support for the U.S. troops who will be sent on the nato peacekeeping mission but to register deep reservations about the deployment.

A HARDY CONSTITUTION

It's not easy to tinker with the work of the nation's founders. For the third time this year, Congress failed to pass a Republican-sponsored amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Senate fell three votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to approve an amendment banning physical desecration of the U.S. flag, which opponents argued was antithetical to free speech. Proposed amendments requiring a balanced budget and congressional term limits have also failed.

WHITEWATER IMPASSE

The confrontation sharpened between the Senate Whitewater committee and the White House over access to the notes of a 1993 Whitewater meeting attended by White House lawyers and Bill Clinton's personal lawyers. Rejecting a last-minute White House compromise, the committee voted along partisan lines to ask the full Senate to enforce a subpoena for the notes. Unless one side or the other blinks (Clinton is asserting attorney-client privilege), the issue could soon be headed for the courts.

A ROYALTY PAIN

The House ethics committee, which has been investigating the finances of Speaker Newt Gingrich, proposed altering the chamber's rules to bring book royalties under the $20,040-a-year limit on members' outside income. The G.O.P. leadership wants the change vetted in hearings, which will give Gingrich more time to collect possible multimillion-dollar revenues from his 1995 book To Renew America.

NO AVERAGE JOE

Utah Representative Enid Greene Waldholtz held a five-hour press conference to explain the soap-opera saga that has sent her skyrocketing political career into the tailspin of a financial and marital scandal. A tearful Waldholtz claimed she was conned by her husband Joe, who she said improperly manipulated both their personal finances and her 1994 campaign funds. Waldholtz insisted she would not resign, though only 39% of surveyed Utah voters believed her version of events.

ELECTION RESULTS

As expected, Jesse Jackson Jr., son of the civil rights activist, handily beat his G.O.P. opponent for the Chicago-area House seat vacated by scandal-tainted Mel Reynolds. In California, Republican Tom Campbell turned back a Democratic attempt to link him to Speaker Newt Gingrich and won a San Jose House seat, and former Democratic state assembly speaker Willie Brown was elected mayor of San Francisco.

AN ARMY PROBE