Operation distraction.

• Author: Clinton, Kate
• Position: Congressional Republicans' first 100 days - Column

Sometimes I miss those good old Reabush days. They'd do any old horrible thing they wanted and benignly name it some operation--"Operation Restore Hope (Bob, That Is)," "Operation Just Cause (We Felt Like It)."

I'd call these 100 Days in the House of Newt "Operation Distraction." I believe that the O.J. trial is part of the operation: a massive conspiracy by Gingrich and the GOP to distract national attention from the left-hand side of the country, while they on the right dismantle democracy in 2,400 hours flat.

In the House of Representatives, they are hard at work. Day after day, sometimes on just four hours of sleep, our Reps are repping. They are worn down, with big circles under their tiny red eyes. What's left of your heart goes out to them. They are suffering through exhaustion, colds, the flu, and sleep deprivation.

It's not what you're thinking. This is not a virtual field trip, some sympathy simulator so our Representatives can better understand the conditions of single teenage motherhood. No, these Reps are hard at work on the Contract on America, the Straight Agenda, and, tired or no tired, they are going to get through it in 100 days.

Unfortunately, unlike single teenage moms, they can't just drop the end product off at some orphanage when it gets too much for them.

Not that anyone is paying attention. Let them eat block grants. Let them eat laptops. Feed a cold, starve a child.

People are more conversant in the details of the O.J. trial than in the details of the Common Sense Legal Reform Act. You remember, check your laminates, that's number nine in the Contract on America, right after the Wage Enhancement Act, the one about how a reduction in the capital-gains tax will eventually help the poor. Also known as the treacle-down theory.

And what is the new replacement value for democracy hawked by his Professorship on National Empowerment Television (NewtNet)? His Extreme Grey Headedness recommends one of my favorite family values, shame, as the great motivator. He says when you see teenage girls having babies to collect welfare checks, you just go up to them and say right in their faces, "Shame!" Wow, I feel better already.

The poetry curriculum in Cobb County now includes the slightly revised, "In spring a young girl's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of welfare checks."

Not for Newt the old Guilted Age of the New Deal. Out with that Old Democracy! In with the New Victorianism!

I am proudly ashamed to admit that since I don't...