Moses supposes.

I loved it how the Republicans added all those amendments to the tobacco bill and then defeated it because there were too many amendments attached. Watching the whole process was like watching someone staple saddle bags to a pigeon and then shoot it because it can't fly.

I can't wait for the year 2000, when Newt runs for President. You know, I'm thinking, in order to really impress the money people, Mister G. is going to have to take himself a new tack. What this Georgia Peach needs is a slogan. And I'm just the man for the job. Here are a few rough drafts:

* The Speaker of the House: he looks out for number one.

* Newt Gingrich: no ethics violations in months.

* You don't have to trust him to admire him.

* Newter than he wants to be.

* The new Newt: hasn't abandoned a wife while she was recuperating from cancer surgery since the first one.

* Don't worry, he's not contagious.

* The Newtmeister: sleaze does matter.

* No, he doesn't always make sense, but he's loud.

* He may be an ass, but he's ours.

Meanwhile, Moses is running the NRA. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Yes, they made him an honorary postal worker, ready to lead conservatives out of the wilderness and into the promised land of high poll numbers. He's going to turn around the image of the organization--about as easy as taming a wounded weasel with a raw meat stick. First Ronald Reagan is President of the United States, now Charlton Heston is president of the NRA. I guess pretty soon Jack Palance is going to head the Red Cross. Heston said, "Mr. Clinton, America didn't trust you with our healthcare system. America doesn't trust you with our twenty-one-year-old daughters, and we sure, Lord, don't trust you with our guns!" Heston also called the recent school shootings "a child issue, not a gun issue." I disagree. I think it's a school issue. Get rid of schools, get rid of school shootings. It's so simple.

* In San Francisco, a group of political consultants refused to sign a voluntary pledge not to lie during campaigns. They wouldn't lie about lying. You have to respect that. I think.

The really good news from the Southern Baptist Convention is, if I join now, I don't have to do dishes anymore. The Baptists amended their statement of beliefs for the first time in thirty-five years to include a statement that says women should "submit graciously" to their husbands. Cool. My wife, Debi Ann, the heathen pagan, stubbornly disagrees. I explained patiently it might take her a while to see the light. Maybe like 9,000 years or so. You got to love those guys. First, they hold their annual convention in Salt Lake City in a snotty attempt to kick holier-than-thou sand in the Mormons' faces. Then, they make a decision to drag themselves kicking and screaming into the thirteenth century by declaring 51 percent of the population subservient to the other 49 percent. Proponents of the Baptist declaration argue that without such a biblical structure, civilized society is in jeopardy. Maybe civilized society is in greater jeopardy from the Utah jihad.

* The federal government is conducting a study of the year 2000 computer bug. What do you want to bet the study is going to take three years?

Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr, also known to many as Mediocre Prosecutor Kenneth Starr, is taking heavy heat for admitting to Brill's Content magazine that he and his chief deputy may have briefed a couple of reporters during his Presidential witch hunt, uh, I mean, investigation. Supposedly, he timed his leaks to put pressure on potential witnesses in his probe of Bill Clinton's many flaws and moral openings. Federal law prohibits prosecutors from disclosing "matters before the grand jury," but Starr maintains his actions were to protect his office from attacks that undermined public confidence in his work. He later was unable to provide any proof that there had been any confidence in his work to begin with. He also suggested some of the information was "what witnesses tell FBI agents before they testify before the grand jury." So it's not real testimony. I guess.

Now the White House is calling for an independent investigation of the Special Investigator. And then Kenneth Starr could investigate the investigator who's investigating him, the investigator. Where's the remote?

* Sports bulletin: George Karl, fired from the Seattle Supersonics, might leave the world of professional athletics and become coach of the Denver Nuggets.

All those big-time entertainers picked up the big bucks giving graduation speeches at colleges they got kicked out of. Too bad they didn't pick me. I had a speech all prepared:

"When you mosh down the bleached green hedges of a college campus these days, elbowing your way past creased flannel and the pierced chin clefts and quick frozen cynicism of the halls, the first question that pops in my head is the echoing bass beat of my weird uncle Bud's refrain: `To what grotesque length will the progeny of these poseurs be forced to go in order to induce a requisite parental-outrage response?' And will you, Generation Y, be forced to a rebellious wave that springs from an even more sheltered enclave than Seattle? Maybe it will rise from Bozeman, Montana, in the form of concentric body-gouging. Or Singapore caning welts framed in frayed black denim. Who knows, in twenty years, music videos could be showcasing disaffected white adolescent bands wearing bibbed overalls with barbed wire suspenders eerily warbling their hormonally poisoned poetry through distended vocal cords stretched by skull-head mosaic tribal neck rings. And, of course, the whole movement will be crushed when J.C. Penney's co-opts the images in its catalogue featuring the newest fashion line, `Grudge Rock.' What I'm saying here is, who cares? Go for it. Break down those fashion walls. You got to start somewhere. But stay out of my way. And someone give me a beer. Time you got some practice at your future profession."