The political world is agog at what the New York Times calls "the oddest and potentially one of the most interesting personal confrontations Washington has seen in years". The columnists are straining to depict the fur flying and the blood on the floor. "Having a liberal Republican smeared, roasted on a Senate spit and chewed up by Jesse Helms may seem only fair play to some," wrote one.
The "liberal Republican" is William Weld (51) who, until a few days ago, was Governor of Massachusetts. One of his last official appearances was with the President, Mrs Robinson, at the unveiling of a Famine memorial in Boston.
Today the tall, red-haired and wealthy Mr Weld, whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower, is campaigning hard for the job of US ambassador to Mexico to which President Clinton has nominated him.
But four-square in the way to the coveted post is the dreaded Jesse Helms (74), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who has said "no way".
The arch-conservative from North Carolina has dismissed Mr Weld as "not ambassador quality" and especially not suitable for Mexico where a priority is to clamp down on the smuggling of drugs to the US.
Mr Weld, you see, favours legalising marijuana for medical use and providing exchange of needles for drug addicts. He is also in favour of abortion, which makes him anathema to Mr Helms, who is now refusing to give Mr Weld a hearing before his committee and so is preventing the Senate voting on his appointment.
As Maureen Dowd elegantly puts it in a column: "Mr Helms clearly resents the Brahmin [Mr Weld] as an avatar of the Eastern Establishment sorts who treated him like a senescent redneck during his last two Senate bids."
This tussle between the Boston Brahmin and the North Carolina redneck is seen as a "holy war" threatening to tear the Republican party apart. This is happening just as the party is licking its wounds over the revolt on Capitol Hill which saw the Speaker, Mr Newt Gingrich, barely surviving a coup attempt by an alliance of Republican leaders and young Turks.
And who launched the "Republican Don Quixote" from Boston on his kamikaze mission against his fellow Republican, Jesse Helms? None other than President Clinton, who is killing all sorts of birds with one stone. By nominating Mr Weld for Mexico, the President removed the biggest obstacle to Congressman Joe Kennedy's bid for the governorship of Massachusetts next year. So Senator Teddy owes President Bill one.
Mr Weld had gallantly offered to testify in favour of Hillary Clinton if needed in the tortuous Whitewater affair. They both worked as young lawyers on the congressional committee preparing to indict President Nixon in the 1970s. So Hillary owes Bill one for his crossing party lines to appoint "Big Red", as the Irish whiskey-loving Mr Weld is known by his supporters in Boston.
And the Democrats owe Bill for the enjoyment they are getting from watching the Republicans chew each other up as they side with Mr Weld or Mr Helms for the soul of the party.
As the former White House adviser, Mr George Stephanopoulos, put it gleefully: "Either the Republican Party devours itself, or Governor Weld becomes an ambassador, or both." Another former Clinton adviser, Mr James Carville, gloats: "This reinforces a pre-existing perception that Republicans are narrow, mean-spirited and divided."
The Republicans see the danger but play it down. The chairman of the American Conservative Union, Mr David Keene, says: "Weld has made himself the champion of the goofy, liberal wing of the party by taking on Jesse Helms. Some groups would like to make this the opening battle to retake the party from conservatives. But Weld is at best an uncertain champion, and they just don't have the horses to do it."
Mr Weld's Republican supporters in Congress are doing their best to get around the Helms roadblock, but it's hard going.
"Let's just say there are very few individuals who wake up every morning wanting to cross swords with Jesse Helms," says an aide to Senator John Chafee, who is one of eight Republican senators (out of 55) who signed a letter to Mr Helms asking him to give Mr Weld a hearing. Mr Weld is doing better among his former governor colleagues. Some 36 of the 50, including 23 Republicans, have signed a separate letter to Mr Helms requesting a hearing.
Some Republicans believe Mr Clinton is not doing enough to fight for Mr Weld after he appointed him. They want the President to "come off the golf course or out of the hot tub" and take on Mr Helms.
The White House spokesman, Mr Mike McCurry, denies that Mr Weld is not getting support. "The President believes in the divine power of prayer," he says piously.
Mr Weld is going to need more than prayer to move God-fearing Mr Helms who is, after all, the author of the Helms-Burton antiCuban law which has infuriated the EU and Canada and who was unfazed when the Canadian press called him "an unlovable troglodyte" and "the personification of the blustering, buffoonish, know-nothing American political figure".
Just the kind of guy to tell the President and his Brahmin pal to get lost.