WASHINGTON INSIGHT

BUM PREMISE: If Washington debate always has a fudge factor, welfare reform has become the rhetorical equivalent of chocolate blackout cake. The latest example comes from figures that Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) touted weeks ago before the Senate postponed action on welfare legislation until September. Moynihan, arguing that dependency has reached stunning levels, displayed a chart showing that 62% of Los Angeles children are in families receiving benefits under the largest welfare program, Aid to Families With Dependent Children. With other cities showing high readings, the trend was staggering--and untrue. Under pressure from Moynihan to produce figures quickly, it seems the Department of Health and Human Services mixed a few apples and bananas. The agency has since issued a correction, although if the legislation had not been delayed at the last moment, the spoiled numbers almost certainly would have played a role in the outcome. The new estimate for Los Angeles is 29%, less than half the original. For San Diego, the level fell from 44% to 23%; for Detroit, from 79% to 50%; for Chicago, from 44% to 36%.

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SPYBUCKS: Salvaging what they can from the most damaging spy in CIA history, prosecutors today will turn over a check for more than half a million dollars from the sale of the assets of Aldrich H. Ames and his accomplice wife, Rosario. The money, generated by the sale of Ames’ suburban Virginia home, Jaguar automobile and jewelry--and from $28,000 seized from his Swiss bank account--will go to two Justice Department agencies that fund anti-crime research and represent victims of crime. One notable asset was not included in the sale, however: Russia has yet to offer to sell the riverside dacha it had reserved for Ames once he retired as their most productive spy.

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CHALLENGING DESPOT: TransAfrica, a Washington-based international lobbying organization, is going after a black-run government for the first time. Eleven years after TransAfrica led a huge protest against apartheid in South Africa, organization head Randall Robinson and 13 colleagues were arrested Wednesday outside the Nigerian Chancery. They were protesting against Nigerian leader Gen. Sani Abacha, who resides in royal splendor while his 95 million people are among the world’s poorest. According to TransAfrica, Nigerian oil exports generate $10 billion a year and government leaders have an estimated $12.2 billion in foreign bank accounts, while average Nigerians survive on per capita annual income of about $240. Nigerian leaders have attempted to buy goodwill with black Americans by offering financial support to the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People. But the cash-strapped civil rights group refused the $10,000 contribution, calling it “a campaign to buy credibility.”

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FOUNTAIN OF BRONTE: Facing the threat that his GOP presidential rivals will challenge him as too old to be President, 72-year-old Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas has found comfort in “The Longevity Factor,” a study of high-achieving careers among the elderly. The message Dole drew from author Lydia Bronte, a relative of the 19th-Century English novelists Charlotte (“Jane Eyre”) and Emily (“Wuthering Heights”) Bronte, both of whom died in their 30s: “You enter second adulthood when you’re 70 to 75, then you start getting middle-aged.” Thus concluded Dole: “When I’m older, I’ll be middle-aged. If I acted 70 or 72 and wasn’t in good shape and didn’t exercise, people would say, ‘This guy is over the hill.’ But I don’t have any trouble. My stamina is good.” If elected, Dole would be the first chief executive to enter office in his 70s, topping Ronald Reagan, who was sworn in for his first term at 69.