OF BARBS AND BARBRA

By MARGARET CARLSON

Honk if you weren't asked to advise Barbra Streisand on her speech at Harvard last Friday. That was the joke among political pundits and media types as Streisand shopped her address, titled ``The Artist as Citizen,'' around to those who might help her in her quest to be taken seriously in front of 750 students and invited guests at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. To give an idea of just how much effort went into this event, says one of her advisers (who reportedly included ABC's Peter Jennings and the Los Angeles Times' Robert Scheer), consider that it took over 20 years for Streisand to return to the stage for her 1994 concert tour, and that even her between-song banter had to be put on a TelePrompTer. But that was easy compared to The Speech. ``This,'' the adviser says, ``made her much more nervous.''

In Harvard last week, under the most garish lights outside a discount-store dressing room and stopping to take deep breaths and frequent sips of water, she either gave an Oscar-worthy rendition of a person with stage fright or she actually had it. (Who wouldn't? Everyone from Mikhail Gorbachev to Mario Cuomo has preceded her to the podium of the Institute of Politics.) She delivered a TelePrompTed broadside at her critics, naming names (Rush, Newt, Jesse--Helms, not Jackson--and the editor of the New Republic). She denounced the politicians and media who seduce and then turn on performers: ``We can attract a crowd and raise astounding amounts of money for the politicians and make good copy which is precisely why we are courted and resented by both.'' She mocked the smarter-than-thou attitude of star-struck journalists. ``You can just hear them thinking, `You make money, you're famous. You have to have political opinions too?' ''

Streisand has been briefed on health care, had dinner with Attorney General Janet Reno and got to use the phone to return calls from the President's study next to the Oval Office. But it's hard to take someone seriously when she can belt out Memory from Cats. Someone has to answer for all that liberal silliness--Jessica Lange testifying on farm policy after starring in Country or Meryl Streep testifying that traces of the pesticide Alar could be harmful to apple juice-swilling children. Her wealth, high visibility and long fingernails make her a much more attractive target than gray leaders of industries who hold forth on things they know nothing about. But that's not enough to explain why she has become such a lightning rod for criticism. Why is it that Arnold Schwarzenegger can hang out with Newt Gingrich and not take any hits? What Streisand is a victim of is her clout as the virtual ATM of Democratic politics. By simply and literally opening her mouth, she raised $1.5 million in one evening for six congressional candidates in 1986 (five won) and $1 million for Clinton in September 1992. It's much more seemly to be like Republicans, who are better at taking their money and not calling in the morning.

After the speech, Streisand was her own reverse spin doctor, insisting she didn't do that well. But the real spin should have been ``better than expected.'' She stayed this side of pomposity, even though she invoked Plato, Michelangelo, Roosevelt, Kennedy and Marian Anderson. It is hard to understand why she--or anyone else, for that matter--should care whether policy wonks take her seriously, or ink-stained wretches trash her for daring to talk to Colin Powell. She may have starred in Funny Girl, but she can play Smart Political Woman too.