A prep course for the month-long World Cup soccer tournament, a worldwide pheno

we see a bowled-over , can't-believe-his-eyes-or-ears Carson greeting in 1968 ? 

Why , it 's none other than Tiny Tim . Yet he looks as quaint as a sweet old aun

t and as mainstream as Peoria compared to 1994 's Prince or Michael Jackson . Mo

st of the `` moments '' are in the still-funny-after-all-these-years category . 

There is Carson in 1968 face-to-face with Jack Webb in a `` Dragnet''-style ston

e-faced talking-heads dialogue about a `` Copper Clapper Caper '' that could hav

e been pulled from a contemporary police parody ; then a decade later as Mister 

Rogers , using mommy and daddy dolls to explain the birds and bees . And there h

e is spoofing George C. Scott 's Gen. Patton , giving a stirring speech in front

 of an enormous U.S. flag . When the camera pulls back , you see that he 's been

 speaking to Girl Scouts . What strikes you , though , is just how little time i

s devoted to traditional interviews , almost as an admission that the bulk of th

em were too forgettable to earn a shot at posterity . Instead , Carson affirms h

ere that he not only was a hair-trigger ad-libber but also was someone adept at 

shaping cleverly written material into hilarious physical comedy , whether as fa

st-talking movie host Art Fern or as all-knowing , all-seeing Carnac the Magnifi

cent ( `` Piggly wiggly : Describe Kermit 's wedding night '' ) . You particular

ly appreciate just how gifted and instinctive he was as a physical comic when he

 elasticizes his gangly body when he comes under attack from the various exotic 

insects and animals brought on the show by Joan Embery , Jim Fowler and others .

 The tapes also showcase a slew of young stand-ups including Leno , Letterman an

d Garry Shandling before they became major stars . In fact , all of Carson 's ho

sts-in-waiting are memorialized here . Well , almost all . Johnny holds a grudge

 so long. .. . How long ? So long that former Carson favorite Joan Rivers who re

portedly angered him deeply when she bolted `` The Tonight Show '' for her own c

ompeting late-night series on Fox in 1986 is a non-person on these tapes . The e

motional heart of `` His Favorite Moments '' is not the sign-off show a no-guest

 , anticlimactic sprawl of clips and various bits of nostalgia but the famous ne

xt-to-last show that included a visibly moved Carson being serenaded by Bette Mi

dler . It was a lovely , lingering , moist-eyed instant of television that seeme

d to belie the fact that , for nearly all its life under Carson , `` The Tonight

 Show '' was nothing more than fluff . Which , of course , is why we watched it 

.

 NEW YORK Judith Krantz 's success with commercial novels rich in steamy sex and

 glamorous excess began in 1978 with her maiden effort , `` Scruples , '' the st

ory of a swank boutique . `` Scruples Two '' came six books later , followed by 

the new `` Lovers '' ( Crown ) , a discrete conclusion to her trilogy that has m

ore than 400,000 copies in print and will spawn an ABC miniseries . For all of K

rantz 's fluency in conspicuous consumption `` my beat is not the lady next door

 '' the resident of pricey Bel Air , Calif. , confesses that she no longer has t

ime to go out and shop on Rodeo Drive or anywhere else . `` I have managed to ac

quire clothes , but in lightning forays , '' said Krantz , 67 , a diminutive gab

ber who was clad during a recent New York visit in a muted green Chanel suit . `

` J . Crew and J. Peterman are my favorite catalogs . And then I go to Chanel . 

They have a book of the spring and fall collections with swatches of fabric and 

designs , and drawings or photographs . I order from that . When it comes in , I

 go , I try the clothes on and I say , ` I can wear this on ` Larry King , ' wit

h a black blouse ' .. . `` I used to shop for pleasure . Now I shop for televisi

on . It 's a whole other world . When I couldn't afford it , I was shopping anyw

ay .. . Now that I can more than afford it , I don't have the time . It 's not a

 really tragic story , but I don't have the time . `` At midnight , or 1 in the 

morning , I 'll call and have a chat with the friendly folks at J . Crew. It 's 

amazing what kind of a bill you can run up that way . '' Some of the phone opera

tors recognize her name , she said , but `` all they want to know is the number 

of my Visa card . '' -0- Judith Regan has earned more newspaper and magazine cov

erage than any book editor in history , or so it seems , mainly because she help

ed turn manuscripts by Rush Limbaugh , Howard Stern and Kathie Lee Gifford into 

best-selling riches . Now , after much speculation about Regan 's plans , an ann

ouncement this week revealed that Simon & Schuster has lost the hard-charging ed

itor to Rupert Murdoch 's News Corp. and its subsidiary companies . The 40-year-

old Regan will become a reporter for a Fox TV news magazine in development , she

 will start up Regan Books within HarperCollins Publishers and she will develop 

films for Twentieth Century-Fox . In a prepared statement , Murdoch said `` we e

xpect great things from her as she branches out beyond the world of publishing .

 '' -0- One of the more surprising details in this week 's ocean of ink about th

e late Jacqueline Onassis comes in The New Yorker ( May 30 ) , which devotes all

 of its `` Talk of the Town '' to memories of her and reveals that she , too , o

nce wrote an unbylined piece for the section . Her article about New York 's Int

ernational Center of Photography appeared Jan. 13 , 1975 . Who knew ?

 WASHINGTON D-Day : landingboats , dramatic action , a known and evil foe , full

 power , victory . Nothing has changed more in 50 years than the way in which we

 routinely tend to the global stability that was bought by massive commitment an

d sacrifice in World War II . The United Nations peacekeeping operations now sca

ttered around the world are everything D-Day was not : marginal , ambivalent , r

agged , controversial . But how could it be otherwise ? And who would again want

 total war ? We must deal with the world we live in , and we live in a world whe

re peacekeeping in its various forms is unavoidable and important to us . We hav

e not done it well enough and as a result we face a certain crisis of internatio

nalism . Bill Clinton is blamed for wobbling , Boutros Boutros-Ghali for overrea

ching . But such criticisms miss the main point . The real trouble is that in th

is time of relative safety and security for the favored nations , peacekeeping c

an mean an unwelcome degree of personal risk to the forces taking part and polit

ical risk to their sponsoring governments . Americans have spent the past few ye

ars wrestling with this dilemma . The post-Cold War vista opened with the rosy a

nd mistaken diagnosis that Soviet-American confrontation alone had kept the Unit

ed Nations from ushering in a new world order . In the second , more sober stage

 we are seeing that the United Nations is not merely an irregular contributor to

 global stability but sometimes itself a contributor to disorder . The primary c

ontributors to disorder are the governments and their challengers . But the deed

s done by peacekeepers sometimes have the unintended but perverse effect of enab

ling the parties to extend war and avoid peace . To use the United Nations as an

 instrument of relief , for example , sounds noble . But it can also encourage c

ombatants to shift some part of their war budget to others and can spare them th

e discipline of an early reckoning . Are we ready to use relief explicitly as a 

political lever ? The new pattern of ethnic wars makes this disturbing question 

increasingly difficult to evade . The international presence in Bosnia is being 

used by the Serbs in an effort to freeze their gains and by the Muslims to rever

se their losses . This is understandable : They are at war . But peacekeepers le

nd only themselves to the belligerents ' maneuvers when they make their own safe

ty their first concern . In Bosnia , the United Nations now routinely softens NA

TO 's ultimatums to avert expected Serb retaliation against exposed U.N. forces 

. This makes the world body a partner in diluting its own credibility and effect

iveness . It gets worse when such limited self-defense as peacekeepers do conduc

t is treated as a loss of neutrality . But Americans are poorly placed to compla

in as long as American forces do not share the risks on the ground . The embarra

ssment in Rwanda is scarcely less painful . The United Nations ' first response 

was to pull peacekeepers out , abandoning the helpless civilians it was ostensib

ly there to protect . Some U.N. forces remain , but with both the Hutu army and 

Tutsi rebels threatening to fire upon them if they get in the way , they may not

 be there for long . It 's not `` the U.N. 's '' fault . A membership organizati

on , it must heed members unwilling to take more than token casualties . But in 

that case , the talking part of the United Nations should stop issuing resolutio

ns , instructions and promises premised on the notion that the peacekeeping forc

e is a military juggernaut . The now-desultory discussion of tactics must get se

rious . Ground forces might be reduced and air power brought to bear against the

 violators of U.N. decrees . Or forces might be increased and unleashed . Many p

eople have already concluded that international peacekeeping involving the use o

f force is a passing phase in global politics , a post-Cold War experiment that 

did not work out . But it 's early to throw in the towel . I think there is stil

l a logic in proposals for a standby U.N. combat force that members had endowed 

with a mission and with suitable resources . Not that the members-sovereign stat

es , after all-couldn't later take back their approval . But at least there woul

d be an effort to deal with the real world of hard choices rather than a pretend

 world in which everybody acts as though peace comes for free . In any event , l

et us not slip too casually and uncritically into D-Day celebration of a war tha

t , after all , involved a global cataclysm and caused more than a quarter-milli

on American combat deaths . It was horrible . We should be glad that our securit

y and stability cares , though they use up our whole frazzle quotient , are triv

ial compared with the challenges that America and its Allies faced and mastered 

in World War II .

 By James P. Pinkerton Special to Newsday The Clinton administration 's original

 plan for health-care alliances may be dead , but Washington pols are still stru

ggling to assemble bureaucratic body parts into a Frankenstein 's monster that w

ill carry them past the electoral finish line in November . Lightning struck in 

one political laboratory last week when the Senate Labor and Human Resources com

mittee voted to piece together a National Health Board to establish a `` standar

d benefits package '' for any health plan that might be forthcoming . This may h

ave been a small victory for bipartisanship , but it was a big victory for the s

ystem of simultaneous credit-taking and blame-shifting Congress has perfected . 

The board will empower both Democrats and Republicans to say what they want abou

t how compassionate ( or thrifty ) they are , secure in the knowledge that a bun

ch of bureaucrats will take the heat for defects of the ultimate health-care pro

duct . Supporters of the board say it will control costs . But that 's not why t

he Congress created it . The board 's real value is as a diversionary punching b

ag . Citizens , sick from disease of the body and/or the wallet , will target fa

celess apparatchiks , not a real-live elected official . The major reason that t

he inflation of health-care costs has been diminishing in recent years is that p

rivate-sector insurers have been squeezing benefits . Such cost-cutting is easy 

for business people ; they don't have to win popularity contests . But politicia

ns do , and that means currying favor with those who can give them votes or mone

y . Every special interest knows that the health board will be the Potomac equiv

alent of one-stop shopping . Lobbyists will descend on it like vampires in the n

ight ; groups that can't win their case in the daylight of either the free marke

t or public opinion will suck what they want from the American jugular . In case

 you haven't noticed , all the incentives in Washington are to increase spending

 . Consider just one controversial issue that the Congress will delegate to the 

board : coverage for mental health . No rational lawmaker wants to vote `` again

st '' the mentally ill , but nobody wants to be on record voting to pay for such

 expensive coverage , either . The George Washington University Medical Center h

as been running ads in The Washington Post arguing for `` non-discriminatory inc

lusion '' of mental-health treatment in any plan . The ad cites a study purporti

ng to show that full treatment for depression would save the nation $ 35 billion

 a year in restored productivity . Maybe so . But bear in mind that the mental-h

ealth community has every incentive to lowball cost estimates , secure in the kn

owledge that once the program is in place it will be almost impossible to roll i

t back , even if the projections turn out to be grotesquely wrong , as they were

 three decades ago with Medicare . Consider other candidates for `` non-discrimi

natory inclusion '' : post-traumatic stress disorder , attention deficit disorde

r , repressed memory of sexual abuse , multiple personalities and `` ghetto stre

ss syndrome . '' Overnight , special pleaders for these ailments and more will s

pring up , demanding their share of the federal pie . And , in the final irony ,

 members of Congress will use all their influence on the board to help a favored

 constituency . That 's right : Congress will lobby its own creation , because t

he final responsi-bility will still rest with the board . The point is not to si

ngle out mental health for criticism . One could just as easily predict the inco

me-optimizing advocacy of balding men , shamans and fallen-arch sufferers . The 

point is this : If Washington creates a political football , everyone will toss 

it around . The National Health Board willn't eliminate politics . It will merel

y insulate the president and the Congress from the consequences of politics .

 After a half a dozen years in which he 's directed films , founded a record com

pany and dabbled in worldbeat and orchestral music , David Byrne has finally got

ten back to doing what he does best being himself . `` David Byrne '' ( Luaka Bo

p/Sire 45558 ) marks the singer 's return to the wry , affectless writing style 

he perfected in his early work with Talking Heads . Like `` Uh-Oh Love Comes to 

Town '' or `` Don't Worry About the Government , '' the best of these songs are 

tuneful , plain-spoken and full of wonder , depicting his world with dreamlike c

larity and understated wit . Simply put , it 's his strongest work in more than 

a decade . It 's also and this may not be entirely coincidental his simplest wor

k in a long time . Ever since Newsweek declared him `` Rock 's Renaissance Man '

' in the early '80s , Byrne has done his best to live up to that title , drawing

 on everything from dadaist poetry to Lucumi rites to show just how clever and e

clectic he could be . This album , by contrast , has nothing to prove on that le

vel . Byrne 's current band is a quartet ( bassist Paul Socolow , drummer Todd T

urkisher and mallet percussionist Mauro Refosco are the other members ) , and ``

 David Byrne '' offers an appropriately trim sound . Gone are the blaring brass 

and roiling percussion of his last couple of touring bands ; gone , too , are th

e worldbeat experiments that fueled his previous solo efforts , `` Rei Momo '' a

nd `` Uh-Oh . '' In their place are the sort of arrangements Byrne used to rely 

on when he was still part of Talking Heads . `` Angels , '' for instance , opens

 with a rhythm vamp and recitation that recalls the opening verse of `` Once In 

a Lifetime , '' while `` Nothing At All , '' with its neatly harmonized chorus a

nd coolly understated pulse , comes across as a close cousin to Talking Heads ol

dies like `` Who Is It ? '' That 's not to say Byrne has begun repeating himself

 . For one thing , this new band has far greater range than the Heads did . It w

ould be difficult , after all , to imagine the old Talking Heads maintaining the

 emotional balance of a song like `` Crash , '' in which rage and tenderness int

ermingle in the roaring guitar and swirling percussion . Byrne 's new band handl

es it easily . Moreover , the level of imagination in Byrne 's songs is well bey

ond where it was when `` Talking Heads : 77 '' came out . In addition to its del

iciously dreamy blend of guitar , marimba and synths , `` A Self-Made Man '' boa

sts a hauntingly clever lyric about a future in which genetic engineering become

s the domain of mobsters . `` And now we got a black market/A black market in de

signer genes , '' sings Byrne . `` The most beautiful , most intelligent/Crimina

ls you 've ever seen . '' Nor has Byrne entirely forgone his interest in global 

music . `` You and Eye , '' for instance , includes a nifty mbaqanga guitar brea

k , while the dark , minor-key melody of `` Sad Song '' floats over a cushion of

 Afro-Cuban percussion . But this time around , those elements are mixed in more

 for spice than anything else . So although `` My Love Is You '' comes on as a s

amba of sorts , what we hear is less an exercise in musical exoticism than a cle

ver means of making the song seem romantic , even as Byrne skewers the conventio

nal notion of love song sentiments . ( The tuba solo on the you're-a-jerk , I'm-

a-jerk bridge is particularly brilliant . ) As a result , `` David Byrne '' allo

ws the singer to have his cake , and eat it , too . By soft-pedaling his artisti

c ambition and downplaying his cultural reach , he 's able to make music that 's

 as enjoyable as it is ingenious . It may be the smartest thing he 's ever done 

.

 The man sits in front of a camera . He 's wearing a red sweater and a down-home

 smile . He talks to us in soft , reassuring tones from a videotape produced by 

Jerry Falwell , the evangelist who would save America from itself , or at least 

from Bill Clinton . The man in the sweater does not seem like a nut case . At le

ast , not immediately . His name is Larry Nichols . He 's from Arkansas . He is 

, to put it in the nicest terms , Clinton 's enemy . That 's probably a fair des

cription of someone who basically accuses you of murder . That 's right . Anyone

 can accuse the president of womanizing I mean , who hasn't ? and Nichols surely

 can't resist himself . But it takes a special kind of person to throw murder in

to the mix . Clinton has lots of enemies . You just have to take a run through t

he AM-radio dial to find them and all the anti-Clinton bile they cough up on the

 talk shows . Clinton-bashing is as American as Rush Limbaugh . But Nichols take

s the concept to a different level . He was anti-Clinton before there was an ant

i-Clinton movement . A former Arkansas state employee , Nichols filed a lawsuit 

against Clinton in 1990 , making an assortment of charges , including chasing wo

men on company time . He was around during the 1992 election , feeding reporters

 who came to Arkansas all the anti-Clinton material they could swallow . Now , w

ith help from Falwell 's Liberty Alliance , he has upped the ante . Radio isn't 

good enough . Neither are your right-wing newsletters . Video is the medium of o

ur time , as any TV evangelist could tell you . And for 43 bucks , Nichols comes

 directly to you on a video called `` Clinton 's Circle of Power . '' Yes , I kn

ow that for 43 bucks you can buy copies of `` Jurassic Park '' and `` Aladdin ''

 and have enough left over for a couple of Happy Meals . But you get your money 

's worth with this tape . Believe me . You get up close and personal with a smea

r campaign . You get to see the get-Clinton boys at their get-down-and-dirty bes

t . It makes you proud to be an American . In a lot of other countries , they 'd

 lock these people up . You see , Nichols doesn't simply catalog the bimbo explo

sions or quote Arkansas state troopers or call Clinton a pathological liar . No 

, sir . He also flatly states that Hillary Clinton and Vince Foster were lovers 

. Then he accuses them of insider trading . Of course , he believes Foster was m

urdered . You can hear that anywhere on the right-wing media circuit . Just like

 you can hear that Whitewater special prosecutor Robert Fiske , although a Repub

lican , is a Clinton stooge . But Nichols is just getting warmed up . Right befo

re he implies that Clinton might have some connection to a drug-smuggling ring ,

 he strongly suggests Clinton may have been involved in what he calls get ready 

countless murders . Here 's the quote fresh from the tape , which may not be the

 `` Manchurian Candidate '' but is still your basic paranoid vision of America :

 `` People are dead in Arkansas . When I started this , I knew that I might be o

ne of those unsolved mysteries in Arkansas . `` There are boys on railroad track

s . There are countless and countless people who mysteriously died that , as it 

turned out , had some connection to Bill Clinton . I believe this is going on to

day . '' This is when you hit the stop button on your remote . This is when you 

either laugh or throw something at the screen . This is when you say to yourself

 , `` OK , Bill Clinton may not be everything I wanted in a president , but I 'm

 pretty sure he 's not Billy the Kid . '' In fact , if you judge Clinton by his 

enemies , suddenly he looks like Abe Lincoln . Whenever I get down on the guy , 

I just jam the video into the VCR and , within five minutes , I 'm ready to re-e

lect . Ask yourself : Are you ready to believe any of this ? Murder ? Drug smugg

ling ? Slush funds ? Is this Bill Clinton we 're talking about or Manuel Noriega