It's howdy doody time.

One Senator, in a flawless imitation of a jackass, sang "Old MacDonald" on the Senate floor, much to the delight of the television cameras. Another, in response, made jokes about pig poop. The minority leader, eschewing the barnyard motif, preferred to pretend he was Darth Vader, dispatching death rays from the dark side.

This was what the news media presented as the "debate" over the crime bill.

All this dramatic play may have made for entertaining television and great headlines, but a lot of Americans weren't amused--or even entertained. They longed for a shillelagh and a woodshed. Having their own kids out of school for nearly three months, the adults of the land were a bit weary of bathroom humor, nursery rhymes, cartoon characters, tantrums, and playground fights.

But not Congress, and certainly not the news media.

Which leads us to one of the big stories of the month: the disgust of the American people with what is euphemistically called "the political process" in this country. "I'm sick of the whole system," an auto worker told The New York Times in a front-page story titled VOTERS CAN'T FIND THE HUMOR IN CAPITAL'S PARTISAN GAMES. In ANGER FROM THE GRASS ROOTS, Time magazine quoted a truck driver's assessment of Congress: "That place has become a joke."

The McLaughlin Group and This Week with David Brinkley devoted entire shows to public anger with the District of Columbia. Cokie Roberts spoke for many of us as she grilled Haley Barbour of the Republican National Committee and Tony Coelho of the Democratic National Committee about the petulant partisanship and gridlock affecting Congress.

As the bickering escalated--"He started it"--"No, he started it"--it was all Roberts could do not to give them a time out and lock their toys (and mouths) in the basement. "This is exactly the kind of conversation people hate," she interrupted, with appropriate maternal disgust, as we watched these spin-doctors-quapreschoolers blaming each other for the huge mess and black eyes in the playground.

In an incisive column for The Atlantic Monthly, Steven Stark notes how much of popular culture, from The McLaughlin Group to Seinfeld, "strongly echoes the world of boys in early adolescence, ages eleven to fifteen." And then Stark gives plenty of examples to back up his point. But in some cases, he is too generous. The age-range is more like two-and-a-half to six.

While the news media and the pundits themselves are having fun ridiculing the rug rats in our nation's capital, they are hardly innocent here. The looney-tunes version of the news speeds up the infantilization of politics and public discourse in this country. The news media love conflict; they're hooked on it, and the more childish and simple-minded the better. Thoughtful, detailed discussion of pending legislation? BORING. Hair-pulling, pinching, and name-calling? LEAD STORIES.

As a result, they've given inordinate attention to Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich over the past two years, not primarily because they're minority leaders but because they're mean-spirited bullies known for their inflammatory remarks. (My latest favorite from Gingrich, uttered on This Week, was that you would have to have a "police state" to administer universal health care.)

More to the point, the media cynicism that has clobbered Clinton at every turn may make the press feel superior, but the cynicism the press has helped spread is paralyzing the country.

Aside from further reducing the level of debate in this country, sand-lot journalism helps to push national discourse farther to the right. There is a perfect match between the simplicity of right-wing rhetoric and the increasing emphasis on simplicity and sensationalism in the news media. In this respect, the Republicans are no dummies. They know the word "pork," accompanied by childhood ditties and pictures of pigs, fits in much better with current newsroom routines than do phrases like "preventive programs," let alone the highly demonized term "social spending."

This ongoing push to the right, coupled with the display of Congress as more recalcitrant than our own children, is frustrating a significant segment of Americans. The standard explanation for current voter alienation offered by George Will, John McLaughlin, and Rush Limbaugh is that Americans hate and mistrust big government per se and want less government. In this explanation, Clinton is the main cause of voter cynicism and is in deep trouble because he is a "left winger." According to the likes of Will, Americans are, in their heart of hearts, still Reaganites.

But the poll data tell a different story. While Republican pundits blame Clinton for the anti-Washington outrage, polls show that most people blame Congress and the Republicans. And it's not just because they're obstructionist. It's because conservative politics--more guns, no health care--is mean politics and infantile politics.

I'm not suggesting that most Americans are progressives clamoring for a socialist regime; far from it. But even McLaughlin, in citing the causes of public cynicism, portrays an electorate with something bordering on a Marxist critique of the status quo. Voters see "institutional corruption throughout a government that serves only a few big interests." More than half say the government is controlled by lobbyists, and 83 per cent believe getting reelected is more important to their Congressional representatives than serving the country's interests. The glut of neo-con discourse and brat-pack sound bites obscures the source of people's real anger: the persistent, antidemocratic alliance between monied interests and our entire political structure.

Meanwhile, as the boys fight on, egged on by the peanut-gallery press, Americans realize that any kind of meaningful reform of American society is completely out of the question. Sand-lot journalism encourages our elected officials to act like juveniles; that, apparently, is how you get on the nightly news and the talk shows. But it also encourages the rest of us to throw up our hands in resignation and turn our backs on Washington. And guess who keeps control of the playground then?