For those worried about the stock market, here's a timely tip:

Invest in Kleenex.

That deafening sound of sniffling coming from Washington, New York, Atlanta, and LA should add up to a few good quarterly earnings reports for makers of tear-drying products, anti-depressants manufacturers, and publishers of self-help books.

Who's doing all the crying? If you listen to the news, it's the Prez, but there's no Arkansas twang in these wails -- it's the self-proclaimed "opinion leaders" in the media and the politics industry whose oft overly-made-up faces are streaked with tears.

Like empty nest parents, they look wistfully back on the years they spent spoonfeeding us, laying down the rules, and setting the topic of conversation at the national dinner table. But those years are gone -- hopefully forever. Little Scooter and Sis have grown up and started forming their own opinions, no matter how desperately the old folks try to herd us down their chosen path.

If we followed to the erstwhile opinion leaders, Bill Clinton's approval rating would lower than the age of consent in Arkansas. Thankfully, we treat these professional prophets of doom with the disrespect they deserve, and last I checked most people thought the Prez was doing a pretty good job for us (while getting the odd blowjob after hours).

It's not that we don't care, as virtues vultures would have us believe. And it's not that we don't know what's going on -- if anything, we know more than enough. The fact that we know what is going on is the biggest problem the press and pols will ever face.

What's going on is an old-style political mudslinging contest, where no one's hands are clean.

Who's got any moral authority on this list of headliners?
Conflicted Ken Starr
Felonious Linda Tripp
Many Stories Monica
Scumbag Dan "The Editor" Burton
Confessed (and officially reprimanded) Perjuror Newt Gingrich
Holy Homophobe Trent Lott, or
Confessor in Chief Bill Clinton?

If you answered
None of the above
you've passed your citizenship test and can collect your automatic weapon on your way out.

To the frustration of pols and press pimps, this rasslin' match happens to be going on in front of an audience that largely agrees with the President over his opponents by a 2 to 1 margin on issues that affect our lives: the environment, the economy, education, law enforcement, teen smoking, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, employment and training, healthcare, and dealing with the national debt. Aside from the 30 cents we've each ponied up for Ken Starr's biased and corrupt investigation, and Monica Lewinsky's minuscule impact on the dry-cleaning industry, this affair hasn't affected our lives at all. (That's not entirely true. We have learned that the grand jury process is purely a tool of a prosecutor, rather than an actual venue for justice. So we got a 30 cent civics lesson.)

For the first time I can think of, I'm actually thankful for the information glut that surrounds and harasses every American today. Now we can see a hundred opinions in fifty clicks of the remote control, and we've figured out the distasteful game of talking points, spin, propaganda, and innuendo the same way we figured out Dad's drunken fish stories -- if you pay attention, things just don't add up.

Back when The Press was three TV networks and the local paper, we swallowed every lie, truth, or speculation they shoved down our throats. Think of the famously submissive Reagan press corps -- they wore red dresses and ties because Nancy liked the color, for Christ's sake.

Did we hear about Ron and George's now-proven deal with Iran to hold Americans hostage until after the '80 election? Did we hear about the illegal payoffs and "consulting" to Contras who would go on to massacre nuns and many others in the name of anything-but- democracy? Can 1% of the people you know name the most corrupt Attorney General in recent history (Ed Meese), or the succession of anti-environment EPA directors? How about Bush's obstruction of justice and post-loss pardons of all the key players in Iran-Contra? The Press did feed us (some of) these bitter pills, but they always cloaked them in soothing sugar just like Mom used to do, so we didn't really notice.

But now we're too mature for kids' stuff like that. We can handle the truth, no matter how complicated it may be. The truth we're dealing with now is that the messenger and the message aren't the same thing. Bill or Newt or whoever may have squandered their moral authority (whatever that's supposed to mean), but we can no longer use that as an excuse to dismiss their messages. We have to let ideas stand or fall based on their merit, not their backers. Demagoguery has no home in an intelligent, sophisticated population.

This is bad news for Republicans, who have been counting on a heavy dose of demagoguery (in the absence of any identifiable agenda) to demoralize Democratic voters in this fall's election. Non-partisan research consistently tells us that's not happening, and common sense tells the rest of the story. We as a country are not going to turn our backs on our kids, our cops, and our financial futures because the President got a blowjob. Not even if he lied about it. Not even if he told the hardly-impressionable blower to give back any gifts. (For the lucky three of you who haven't been following the story, the "obstruction of justice" accusation was supposed to be the important one, but when the key element -- the "talking points" -- evaporated, Darth Starr tried to fit gift exchanges into the same category so he could keep saying the phrase "obstruction of justice" to his media friends.)

In "The Birdcage," Gene Hackman's embattled politico character says people don't trust details, only headlines. If recent developments are any indication, we've progressed to the exact opposite: we know headlines are often misleading bait, while the facts are out there somewhere -- even if we have to watch the PBS News Hour or go to some obscure Web site to find them.

So I offer my condolences to the obsolete reporters and spinweasels who are kicking around the big empty house now, remembering a time when they could look down into shining, hopeful, trusting eyes, tell baldfaced lies, and hear the kids repeat the lies at the table that evening. If it helps, there are still billions of uneducated people around the world, complete with state media monopolies. And as a displaced worker, you might be able to get a Hope scholarship to learn Chinese or Russian at the community college.

-- Dave Gibbons