Who's Who.

• Author: THREADGILL, SUSAN

One of the few failures to cloud Hillary Clinton's election day came when Peter Fitzgerald defeated Carol Moseley-Braun in Illinois. But Moseley-Braun's campaign manager Tony Podesta sees a silver lining for Hillary. "There's no doubt in my mind that she could beat Peter Fitzgerald in 2004." Doubtless Al Gore would be happy to learn that's all she's thinking about.

Here's the team with which John Podesta, the new chief of staff plans to run the White House: Maria Echaveste and Steve Ricchetti are deputy chiefs of staff, Paul Begala remains as counselor to the president, and Doug Sosnik as senior advisor to the president for policy and strategy. Karen Tramantano will serve as assistant to the president and counselor to the Chief of Staff. They have so many fancy titles at the White House these days!

We have to confess to having had the most modest regard for William Ginsburg, Monica, Lewinsky's former attorney. But did you hear this joke he delivered at a Washington nightclub recently? "What's the difference between a catfish and Ken Starr? One is a bottom-dwelling, scum-sucking scavenger. The other's just a fish."

Ken Starr was paid $1.2 million last year by his law firm Kirkland and Ellis. You will recall one of his partners at that firm is Richard W. Porter, who helped form a link between Linda Tripp and Paula Jones' legal team. Coincidentally, the Independent Counsel's office paid Ronald Rotunda $118,400 for "legal research," and "work on a special project" and "various phone consultations." Could Starr's generousity in rewarding such inexact services have had something to do with the fact that Rotunda had filed a Supreme Court brief on behalf of Paula Jones? We can safely bet Hillary Clinton thinks so.

Still another link between Ken Starr and Paula Jones. According to National Public Radio, Starr had as many as six conversations with Gilbert Davis, then Jones' attorney, on how to defeat Bill Clinton's claim of immunity from civil suit. John McCain, who many were talking up as a Republican presidential candidate in 2000, did not add luster to his reputation as one of the town's few white hats when he held up construction funds for local airports out of apparent pique at not getting nonstop flights to Arizona from National Airport, a terminal which most people here think is already overused.

The election results were glad tidings for Bill Clinton's lawyers. But they aren't out of the woods yet. A nagging possibility is that Ken Starr will...