Boris The

The life of a populist is not an easy one. Fired from the Politburo two years ago, Boris Yeltsin performed the impossible in Soviet politics -- a comeback -- and skated to victory in parliamentary elections last March. Since then, however, Yeltsin has been sniped at by both opponents and supporters of Mikhail Gorbachev for being too brash and publicity hungry in his criticisms about the pace of perestroika. Last week Yeltsin was shot at again, but this time the volley went right through his foot, and the finger on the trigger was his own.

As Yeltsin listened glumly, Interior Minister Vadim Bakatin told stunned members of the Supreme Soviet about how one night last month their colleague showed up dripping wet at a police outpost in the bosky Moscow suburb of Uspensky. Yeltsin claimed that after being dropped off at an intersection in Uspensky by his driver, a gang of men grabbed him, pulled a bag over his head, hustled him into a car and raced wildly around before tossing him off a bridge into the Moscow River. He swam 300 yds. to shore, Yeltsin said, then rested briefly and went to authorities.

Even before leaving the police station, Yeltsin asked that the matter be dropped -- understandably enough, since the attempt at foul play never actually happened. According to Yeltsin's chauffeur, he dropped his boss off in Uspensky armed with two dozen roses. The bridge from which Yeltsin supposedly was tossed measured 50 ft. high and the water below 3 ft. deep -- a set of facts that would have left Yeltsin with serious injuries in any real fall. Yet aside from his soaking, Yeltsin was none the worse for wear. Said Bakatin to Supreme Soviet Deputies: "There was no attack."

Yeltsin replied lamely that "I never made a written statement" about the episode, but he did not bother denying the Interior Minister's account of his oral one. At another point he said he had been "joking" in his story to police. Moscow gossips speculated that the man of the people might also be a man of the bottle who had been on his way to bestow the roses -- and perhaps other attentions -- on one of his more ardent female supporters. Said a Soviet journalist: "He started out like Huey Long and he's ending up like Gary Hart."

Stung by the snickers, Yeltsin later claimed that the brouhaha was an attempt by Gorbachev to "ruin my health and have me withdrawn from the realm of political struggle." Not so, retorted Bakatin, who called a press conference to brand Yeltsin a liar and, giving the knife a turn, charge that his story "does not hold water." Yeltsin may recover from his soaking, but he may also discover that a politician whose private life becomes the butt of jokes eventually does not have to worry about his public life. Just ask Gary Hart.