Hell of a Ride: Backstage at the White House Follies, 1989-1993.

FOR ANY TRUE Reaganite, there was one phrase used during the 1992 presidential race that made the hair on the back of the neck stand up. That phrase was "the Reagan-Bush Administrations." For though this eluded CBS, Newsweek, and the Washington Post, it was an article of faith among conservatives that the chasm between the policies of Presidents Reagan and Bush could hardly have been larger had Mr. Bush been a Democrat. In the words of John O'Sullivan, January 1993 marked not the end of the Reagan-Bush era, but the midway point of the "Bush'Clinton era."

John Podhoretz, onetime Reagan speechwriter and a conservative humorist, hammers this point home with wicked intensity. The picture he paints of the Bush White House is that of an Administration committed to nothing except a belief in its own superiority.

Conservatives will recall--now, in the light of the 1992 election results, with a bit of Schadenfreude--the arrogance of the newly installed Bushies in 1989. In leaks to the press that clearly reflected the views of the President himself, they boasted of Mr. Bush's "engagement" and "hands-on" approach to government. By the very act of reprinting those quotes now-- "Unlike his scripted mentor Ronald Reagan, Bush has displayed spontaneity," wrote David Hoffman of the Washington Post on November 26, 1988--Mr. Podhoretz rubs salt into the wounds of the Bush crowd.

It is difficult to think of any Presidency in living memory that committed such a spectacular act of suicide as the Bush Administration. Squandering the greatest political legacy any President has inherited from his predecessor, Mr. Bush was a combination of serene self-confidence and boneheaded political incompetence. Even as the axe was fallinag, in the autumn of 1992, Bush maintained a bizarre belief that the voters would rally to him. "He wanted to talk about how the voters should vote for him because they trusted him," writes Mr. Podhoretz. "That was it. That was all he wanted to say. It never seemed to occur to him that perhaps it was the worst possible message for him. Because the voters had no reason to trust him; he had lied to them."

Mr. Podhoretz's device is to focus on the lower-level staffers in the White House, those who were loyal to Mr. Bush personally, to flesh out what was wrong with the Administration. Here a bit of reverse snobbery creeps into the narrative. These were wealthy white Republicans, Mr. Podhoretz implies, the country-club set, who acquired their political views not from NATIONAL REVIEW or from Whittaker Chambers, but rather with their wine spritzers and canapes. Accordingly, they lacked the passion and commitment of the Reaganites. There is probably some truth to this, though the Reagan Administration contained its share of blue-bloods who were no less zealous than the more colorful, working-class converts.

But the bottom line for every Administration is the same: the staff is a reflection of the boss. The Reagan White House, contentious and divided to be sure, attracted, in addition to the usual opportunists, a fair number of principled conservatives, who often succeeded in putting a Reaganite stamp on policy. The Bush Administration, Mr. Podhoretz makes clear, was stuffed with hollow men because the President wanted it that way.

Hell of a Ride recounts one episode after another of Mr. Bush's political astigmatism. When the furor broke over the federal funding of obscene and anti-Christian art, the President chose as director of the National Endowment for the Arts John Frohnmayer, whom Mr. Podhoretz correctly describes as "a liberal Republican concerned about his reputation in Democratic circles" (a fair description of Mr. Bush as well). Only three years later, when Patrick Buchanan was taking slices out of Mr. Bush's hide in New Hampshire, did Mr. Bush direct that Mr. Frohnmayer be fired. Mr. Podhoretz writes: "Thus an action that Bush could have taken on high ground . . . became instead merely a crass political move. The dismissal did not satisfy conservatives . . . And the chorus of denunciation it earned Bush all over Washington proved that his initial effort to make nice with the other side by picking somebody uncontroversial had ended up backfiring every which way." And so it went.

President Bush fully expected victory in the Gulf War to lead to re-election by acclamation in 1992. When the rude reality of the need to campaign was upon them, the Bushies were confronted with their own sorry record. Mr. Podhoretz recounts what must have been the most mordant moment (of many) during the campaign, when pollster Robert Teeter met with the much-abused speechwriters to search for a "theme."

Mr. Teeter came to the meeting armed with charts he had generated on his home computer. In the first box were the words: "I have been President for 3 1/2 years." Major accomplishments/record: Foreign and domestic. Tremendous benefits for all Americans. Some disappointments." There were eight other boxes, but the most striking was box number three, which read: "Theme/slogan/name." It was otherwise empty. "What I want from you," Teeter told the speechwriters, "is to help me fill this empty box."

Filling the empty box that was the Bush Administration proved too large a task for mere speechwriters. The Podhoretz retelling is sharp, insightful, and very funny. But for some of us, it is still too painful to laugh.

Miss Charen is a syndicated columnist with the Creators Syndicate.