By Al Kamen

Friday, January 23, 2004; Page A19

In New York, the hottest tickets in town are for seats to the Broadway show "The Producers," especially now that original stars Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick are back.

In Washington, the hottest seats this week, of course, were in the House balcony surrounding first lady Laura Bush during her husband's State of the Union address.

Both events sell out quickly, but there's always a chance for a last-minute ticket. Plans, after all, are subject to change.

For example, the Bush administration had been in overdrive recently to try to resolve the bitter civil war in Sudan, which has killed nearly 2 million people in the past 20 years. A Dec. 31 deadline had been agreed to under prodding from Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. If it were to happen, then Sudanese President Omar Hassan Bashir and rebel leader John Garang might even get a couple tickets to the speech and President Bush could do an Iraq-Libya-Sudan trifecta in the speech.

Things snarled, however, and special envoy John Danforth, the former Republican senator from Missouri, was dispatched last week to see if the impasse could be broken. It couldn't, so no Bush mention of success in Sudan was to be had, much less any seats for those fellows.

Meanwhile, the buzz is that enemies of Iraqi Governing Council member Ahmed Chalabi, the Pentagon's favorite, appeared to have misplaced his seating reservations. Council chief (they rotate) Adnan Pachachi was set to be on Laura Bush's left and the council's rep here, Rend Rahim Francke, given a seat on her right.

Chalabi and his folks are said to have mounted a fierce campaign to correct this obvious oversight. The effort rivaled in intensity one undertaken at the end of the Iraq invasion which, as reported in The Washington Post, the Pentagon flew Chalabi and several hundred heavily armed men into Baghdad. Vice President Cheney approved that move, which some people thought might have been an effort to have Chalabi take over and avoid all this messy transition business.

So no Sudanese. Just Chalabi -- looking enormously pleased with himself -- and Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari placed right behind the first lady.

Speaking of changed plans, freshman Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) finally seems to be learning the ropes in the Upper Chamber. He had a fine trip Down Under -- from Jan. 3 to Jan. 13 -- to the Marshall Islands, Australia and New Zealand.

This was what Senate wags were calling the swan song of retiring Budget Committee Chairman Don Nickles (R-Okla.). Nickles and Chambliss, joined by GOP Sens. Jon Kyl (Ariz.), Conrad Burns (Mont.), Judd Gregg (N.H.) and Gordon Smith (Ore.) -- and apparently spouses -- went on the long journey to talk front-burner issues such as trade with local officials.

New Zealand's foreign minister, Phil Goff, said the senators were mainly in his country for a short holiday before returning home via Hawaii, the Associated Press in New Zealand reported. (Note to file: Tell Goff to get with the program.)

Chambliss was to rest up in Georgia for a few days, then hustle on over this week to Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum -- also known as ground zero for the important and the self-important to bloviate about the issues of the day. (Attendees were to include Sens. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and the much-traveled Gordon Smith.

Unfortunately, Chambliss was hit by an emergency appendectomy after his return. He is fine, we're told, resting at home in Georgia but missing those very important sessions in Davos.

Not to worry -- it's a yearly event.

Key job opening in the White House. Robert Joseph, head of the National Security Council's Office of Proliferation Strategy, Counterproliferation and Homeland Defense, is fixing to leave. Joseph was at the center of action and policy regarding Axis of Evil countries and was involved in the controversy over President Bush's claim, later retracted, that Iraq was trying to buy uranium in Africa.

The media focus may be on the Democratic presidential primary in New Hampshire on Tuesday, but campaigning is going on in the other early primary states as well. And while the candidacy of Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) hasn't quite reached cruising speed, that doesn't mean he's not getting key endorsements.

For example, out in New Mexico, which is voting Feb. 3, Lieberman has picked up the backing of Division XI District Family Court Judge Ernesto J. Romero, says a news release we got the other day from Romero's office.

Romero has been a judge for only two years, and this is his first elective office, so it's not clear how this will translate into votes. But it's got to do more for Lieberman than former vice president Al Gore's endorsement did for Howard Dean.

Don't miss new Environmental Protection Agency chief Michael O. Leavitt's news conference on Monday. Our invite from EPA Assistant Administrator Jeffrey R. Holmstead says everyone's "excited to be launching this important milestone in automotive pollution controls."

Some enviros note there is no mention that the celebration is the result of a Clinton administration initiative. Well, that's no reason not to attend. The invite says it's at the "Ronald Regan [sic] building." How quickly they forget.