WASHINGTON INSIGHT

MUSICAL PORTRAITS: You can tell there’s a new attorney general when portraits of former AGs start playing musical chairs at the Justice Department. A painting of the late Robert F. Kennedy, who is much admired by Atty. Gen. Janet Reno, hangs in her office where a portrait of Robert Jackson was fondly gazed upon by her predecessor, William P. Barr. Actually, the Jackson work was banished prematurely when a ladder damaged it in a light-globe changing. . . . Portraits of William French Smith and Edwin Meese III, who headed Justice under President Ronald Reagan, disappeared quickly from the walls outside Reno’s office when she arrived. An aide says they were due for cleaning--but a likely destination is the obscure corner where Democrats Ramsey Clark and Nicholas deB. Katzenbach were dispatched when the GOP took over Justice in 1981.