The Perfect Spy

By MICHAEL DUFFY WASHINGTON

It was a scheme ripped from the pages of John le Carre. Not long after the end of World War II, Democratic Party elders tapped a malleable Yalie and gave him orders for life: move to Texas, infiltrate the Republican Party and start a long, quiet climb to power. His mission: destroy the G.O.P. from within. Mastering the finer points of mesquite barbecue and duck-blind repartee, the spy rose through the ranks, performing minor tasks for party leaders along the way. Years later, just as planned, the deep-cover agent finally became President.

Now the shocking story can be told: George Bush is a Democrat in disguise, a mole who has burrowed deep behind enemy lines for the sake of the party of the working stiff. It is the only logical explanation for the President's recent political behavior. Even top Democrats have begun to lift the veil on their mission impossible. "The President has been our best ally," says Paul Tully, political director of the Democratic National Committee. "We're just trying to stay out of his way."

Consider the damage Bush has done to the G.O.P. in the past five months. In June he surrendered the Republicans' best campaign issue by abandoning his no- new-taxes pledge. During the budget debacle, he revived the G.O.P.'s image as the party of the rich by demanding a capital-gains tax cut that would have mainly benefited those who earn more than $200,000 annually. He torpedoed the party's effort to expand its base by vetoing a civil rights bill that would have made it easier for women and minorities to prove job discrimination. He unleashed his truculent chief of staff, John Sununu, on congressional Republicans who opposed him. Last week he worked behind the scenes to fire Ed Rollins, co-chairman of the G.O.P.'s congressional campaign committee. With enemies like Bush, the Democrats don't need friends.

Rollins had to be eliminated because he had discovered Bush's true identity as a closet Democrat and was trying to unmask the traitor in public. He sealed his fate when, on Oct.15, he faxed a memo to Republican candidates containing these instructions: "Do not hesitate to oppose either the President or proposals being advanced in Congress."

The memo infuriated Bush, but many Republicans followed Rollins' advice anyway. Those unlucky enough to merit a presidential visit have been putting as much distance as possible between themselves and the party leader. Last week, at a breakfast in Burlington, Vt., Representative Peter Smith ticked off his differences with Bush while the Commander in Chief sat nearby, determinedly mowing down a stack of pancakes. Later, at a fund-raising lunch in Manchester, N.H., for Representative Robert Smith, who is trying to graduate to the Senate, the candidate didn't bother to show up at all. One White House aide tried to explain away the trip's miscues as "a study in ineptitude." But it was all in a day's work for the Perfect Spy.

None of Bush's schemes have been as destructive to Republicans as his cunning "surcharge" gambit. The President stubbornly resisted an income tax surcharge on millionaires, a brilliant maneuver that delivered the tax- fairness issue to Democrats and drove multitudes of resentful voters into the Democratic fold just weeks before a midterm election. The Democrats milked the surcharge for a week, then caved in, careful to preserve the issue. They know their agent in the Oval Office will rush to the defense of millionaires again next year.

So transparent were these covert operations that Bush was forced to take desperate measures to rebuild his cover. He launched a four-day campaign swing through California, Hawaii and Oklahoma, attacking Democrats as taxers and spenders. Bush knows that Republicans must lose no more than 10 House seats if he is to remain above suspicion. "We're the party that's trying to keep the taxes down," Bush said before he left. "When they talk about taxing the rich, they're really talking about taxing the working men and women of this country." As counter-intelligence experts know, a spy-on-the-run often cloaks his true colors in a coat of loyalist rhetoric.

Even if he's caught, Bush's performance has already exceeded his Democratic handlers' wildest dreams. In a poll taken for the Wall Street Journal and NBC News last week, voters were asked which party would do a better job of dealing $ with the economy. The verdict: 31% picked the Democrats, while 30% favored Republicans, a 15-point turnaround since last November. The proportion of Americans who believe things are going "very or fairly well" has dipped to 38%, the lowest in nine years, according to the latest TIME/CNN polling figures. The President has even cut his own approval rating more than 20 points in two months. So little is left for Bush to do, it may be time to come in from the cold.

Of course the President won't admit to being a Democratic spy. But in an unguarded moment last week in Connecticut, he pronounced himself "confused." If he stays that way much longer, Democrats may regret that Bush has but one life to give to their party.

With reporting by Laurence I. Barrett and Dan Goodgame/Washington