WASHINGTON INSIGHT

BRIEFING NOTES: Rep. Charlie Rose (D-N.C.), renowned for defending tobacco and peanut subsidies and for bringing fancy computers to House offices, is quietly campaigning to become Speaker of the House. He says he has “a hunch” that incumbent Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) is about to be named ambassador to Britain--a hunch that Foley emphatically dismisses. . . . Singer Johnny Cash, whose recitation of “Ragged Old Flag” stirred throngs at a PBS July 4 concert on the Capitol lawn, afterward got House Minority Leader Robert H. Michel (R-Ill.) to give him a crisp new star-spangled banner, hauled down from a flagpole on the Capitol roof.