FACE-OFF: DUELING COLUMNISTS TAKE ON THE ISSUES NEW CABINET VISIONARIES OR OLD HACKS?

Byline: Jane Robison vs. Chris Weinkopf

Daily News columnists and editorial writers Jane Robison and Chris Weinkopf spend hours a day at each other's political throats, dueling over what's right and what's wrong, which is left and which is right, where's up and where's down.

Sometimes they even agree. But not today when they discuss their views of President-elect George W. Bush's cabinet.

Jane: George W. Bush has named the most-diverse Cabinet in history. Big deal. It's not like any of these people will leave their mark on history or government. Who's the outgoing secretary of agriculture? Who is President Clinton's outgoing secretary of education?

Who cares?

Only three people matter in government today - Alan Greenspan, Alan Greenspan and Alan Greenspan.

Chris: Ah, Cabinet members who don't leave their mark on history - what a blessing that would be! No indictments! No special prosecutors! No Waco, no Wen Ho Lee, no sending in U.S. marshals to seize a 6-year-old boy at gunpoint under the cover of night!

It's nice to have a Cabinet that looks more like America - and less like America's Most Wanted.

Jane: Let's hope Bush's poster Cabinet for diversity follows the boardroom model of government and not the tough love, Big Nurse-lockdown model. I'm not sure America wants a smokestack in every yard, an oil rig in every wilderness and Jerry Falwell in every bedroom, which is what the public may be getting with Gale Norton as interior secretary and John Ashcroft as attorney general.

Chris: What it wants is an attorney general who won't let political considerations keep him from doing his job and an interior secretary with a little more imagination than Bruce ``seize it!'' Babbitt. It will get all that and more - including vast experience, the most-admired secretary of state ever and a health and human services secretary who's serious about ending welfare ``as we know it.''

Jane: What America wants is continued peace and more prosperity. What Dubya seeks is an 1980s revival - a big tax cut for the rich coupled with a massive arms buildup for defense contractors.

Dubya may think the 1980s were America's glory days, I doubt anyone besides his father's old Cabinet members remember it that way.

Chris: I'll take the 1980s over the 1970s any time, and that's where the nation is headed: Skyrocketing energy prices, a slumping economy, an eviscerated military, the increasing power of rogue terrorist states, outrageous tax rates. ``Charlie's Angels.''

Why not avoid the retro-funk by rebuilding the military and letting taxpayers keep a little bit of the surplus they earned? Better to resurrect a few old Republicans than to relive disco fever and malaise.

Jane: That's an apt metaphor for Bush's Cabinet - ``Stayin' Alive.'' He's picked some well-seasoned GOP veterans but they are managers all, not visionaries who will design a new America for a new century.

Chris: That's an old Catch-22: If they're newcomers, they're inexperienced; if they're veterans, they lack vision. But the new administration has some trailblazers, too. Linda Chavez is controversial precisely because of the bold new outlook she promises to bring to the Labor Department, and HHS pick Tommy Thompson spearheaded the welfare- reform effort in Wisconsin.

Jane: And Gale Norton is controversial precisely because of her ties and tutelage by old reactionaries like former Interior Secretary James Watt, whose ``scorched earth'' environmental policy to open every national park to mining, clear-cutting and drilling appalled the American public.

And certainly, no one is calling New Jersey Gov. Christie Whitman a tired old visionary. But how much trust can the American public put in an elected official whose idea of a wild Saturday night was having her picture taken frisking ethnic drivers?

Chris: There's no denying that with the old administration leaving town, Saturday nights are about to get a lot less exciting at the White House. Poor transportation nominee Norm Mineta, the lone holdover from the Clinton administration - he'll be hard-pressed to recognize the place.

That's a good thing.

Jane: I'm not defending Clinton's legacy. He barely had time between court depositions to run the country. Hopefully, Bush won't be hogtied by zealots who would rather force him out of office on trumped up charges than allow him to advance his ideas.

And at the end of the day, that's still what it's all about. Bush could appoint the College of Cardinals, and people like me would still find fault. But it doesn't matter who his Cabinet is as much as what his ideas are for leading the country.

I'm anxiously awaiting what the new cowboy in town is going to rustle up for a broad agenda.

Chris: That's the question, isn't it? But as a conservative who was skeptical about Bush as far back as the primaries, I'm cautiously optimistic. This Cabinet could have been a lot worse. Instead, it's hard to see how it could be much better.