HEEEE'S BACK (WELL, SORT OF)

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"Talk of a comeback is overblown," says a chary White House aide, but there's no doubt the patented Dick Morris patter is seeping its way into Clinton II, the Sequel. Aides to communications director Don Baer have taken dictation from Morris as he suggested language for a presidential press conference. He calls other senior aides to promote ideas based on national polls he pays for himself. His former chief aide, Tom Freedman, just joined the White House Domestic Policy Council to do for it what he did for Morris: scour the country for promising ideas to turn into federal initiatives. Morris' clout is nothing like what it used to be, but he is said by a knowledgeable source to be talking to the President monthly. Clinton has recently dismissed some Morrisiana as worthless--but he often did that during Dick's heyday. Nevertheless, by constantly giving advice to Clinton on TV, as well as hinting that he occasionally has the President's ear, Morris is helping to rehabilitate himself. "He's got something to say," notes one White House aide, and "he's so manipulatively suggestive about his contacts with us" that he may just be turning the appearance of influence into some measure of the real thing.

--By J.F.O. McAllister