Brother, can you spare my BMW: some of what's on Clinton's agenda - and a lot of what isn't - is a boon to yuppies.

• Author: Segal, David
• Position: Pres Bill Clinton's economic plan

Of the media's many renderings of Bill Clinton, the most interesting is the one that emerged shortly after his State of the Union address: Clinton the class traitor. "Here is the first yuppie president, and he almost immediately turns on his fellow yuppies," moaned Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen. The curious assumption here is that our new president is indeed a yuppie. It's a tougher call than Cohen thinks. Let's examine the evidence:

* Clinton is a yuppie. He jogs; his wife is Hillary Rodham Clinton; he sent Chelsea to a Washington private school without even looking at a public one; his household income while governor was $235,000; he wanted to appoint Zoe Baird; he vacations at Hilton Head; he attended Yale Law School; he likes diversity; he listens to Fleetwood Mac; he was never in the army.

* Clinton is not a yuppie. He eats Big Macs; his mother is Virginia Kelley; he

sent Chelsea to a Little Rock public school; his last job paid $35,000; his chief of staff is a man from Arkansas nicknamed Mack; he plays pinochle; he attended Hot Springs High School; he denounced "bean counters" who wanted more women in his cabinet; he listens to Jerry Jeff Walker; he was in Boys' Nation.

At minimum, we've got the makings of an argument here. What's beyond contention is that, unlike members of the Volvo set in his cabinet, Clinton presents a mixed pedigree of yuppie and working stiff, a few parts Hope, a few parts New Haven, equal measures of hardscrabble and suburbia, a little bit country and a little bit rock n' roll. This helps explain how Clinton can convincingly mingle with men in hard hats as well as why, during a speech demanding that the rich pay more taxes, he could seat his wife next to Apple executive John Scully without giving the impression that the man had been lured there so that Hillary could lift his wallet.

The Elvis and the Eli coexist in Clinton. No doubt a leader able to straddle both realms is a good idea and an improvement over a cosseted patrician whose idea of the common touch is carping about broccoli. But the new president's down-home credentials may have a downside. When Bush tried on a populist pose, it looked as fatuous and uncomfortable on him as a hula skirt. When Clinton is faking it, it's harder to spot.

Four months into his administration we've already gotten a sense of how tricky this can be. Clinton has taken some brave stands against a variety of groups (defense contractors and government workers come to mind) just as he has wisely courted a variety of others (Wall Street and Republican leaders, for instance). But Cohen's lament about a yuppie turning against his own occasionally gets it exactly backwards; sometimes Clinton is the middle American selling short middle America. But to understand when his Elvis is an impersonation and his populism a canard, you have to listen to what Clinton hasn't said as closely as to what he has.

Lawyers in love

There's been, for instance, nary a mention of two little words that would save us a fortune but tend to provoke knuckle-whitening fear in lawyers: legal reform. Clinton made it clear throughout the campaign that he thought our system wasn't broken, and the Progressive Policy Institute, the think tank created by the Democratic Leadership Council, has published nothing on the subject in any of its 50 policy papers. No one expected Clinton to be a convert to the cause once he got to the White House, but all hope was lost when he named to his cabinet 13 lawyers who never had expressed...