BE OUR GUEST: MR. THOMAS GOES TO WASHINGTON

Ted Hirschfield is a member of the faculty in the Department of English at Southeast Missouri State University. This Cape resident has taught at the university since 1965.

And now we have seen it all and you were there: a high-noon soap opera showdown of all the conflicting undercurrents in American life of the last generation, served and mixed up into a peculiarly American salad (it ain't coleslaw) to titillate and frighten and offend all sensibilities equally.

The Democrats, lush-lipped, chocked on fur-balls of emotion, looking more and more like crumpled shopping bags, their arguments tinged with the sweetly-sick odor of emotional decadence; the Republicans, tight-lipped, cloaked in dark habits of moral rectitude and outrage, vainly bending inward like flood walls against the main current of hysteria. Reason colliding with emotion.

And the right mix of ingredients to remember an age by, as yet unnamed: racism, sexism, equality, civil rights, the law, stereotyping, politicians, poor Long John Silver, feminism, pornography, morality, immorality, ideology, education, spying, perjury, pubic hairs, FBI leaks, conspiracies, an open Coke can, massive egotism, questions of sanity, rumors.

Never before in American history has the hour met so many issues in pettifoggery. Whoever disentangles this mess, this melange, this massive airing of the American psyche deserves not to be elected to anything. It is either a watershed or tragicomedy, a straining to crisis or perhaps most sadly, nothing more than business as usual. Mark the appropriate square. Wheel of Fortune meets This is Your Life, son of You Bet Your Life.

Why were these men not laughing or crying? How could this happen in the most august halls of Congress? All it lacked was a panel of psychiatrists after whom nothing would be left to confess or discuss. With a straight face, try saying "Long Dong Silver" ten times in a row. Switch to Pepsi? Go to Captain D's? Shave it all off? Jesus wept. And Lincoln, Jefferson and Washington. TV victorious. Hollywood rump enthroned. The backside touching the face. This was a drowning, not a baptism of justice.

This is a tidal wave suddenly cresting after gathering energy for 30 years. Erosion will follow. It was bound to happen. The signs were all out there. We were out to lunch.

I am tired of other people spending my freedom. What evil genius discovered over a generation ago in the false spring of the 60s, that more freedom could be bought at the price of freedom, undermining my freedom in the name of freedom? That women would become a class of beings, instead of human beings? That it would become a crime to dislike anyone, a crime to make a generalization about anything, a crime to hate criminals? That one would be labeled an "elitist" if one advocated excellence. Worse yet, declared an outcast if one created excellence? That "consciousness" had to be "raised" and purged correctly? That a massive assault on common sense would be launched until nothing could be said about anything, anymore? That how-to books would become best sellers? Until fear at night locked tight the home of the free.

That all the divisive elements of our society would rise in the name of love and freedom and equality, practice their resentment and hysterically punish anything better and finer and dignified and proven and worthwhile?

And bring us to the grotesque spectacle of a decent black man confronted by a troubled black woman in the name of sexual innuendo in the hallowed halls of Congress. We are losing both our freedom and capacity to define evil. Mr. Thomas goes to Washington and Washington goes to Hollywood without a script. Everything is equal. Rest in peace.

Count your remaining freedoms while you can?

1. You have the freedom to pay more for prisons.

2. You have the freedom to lose your children.

3. You have the freedom to pay for the effects of drug use.

4. You have the freedom to pay more for less education.

5. You have the freedom to pay for the AIDS epidemic.

6. You have the freedom to take lesser paying jobs.

7. You have the freedom to keep your mouth shut.

When it is all over, everyone will be declared innocent and everyone will be guilty. Everything will be equal and nothing will be equal. And you and I will pay for it forever.

P.S. Mr. President: Sell the television rights of the next hearings to Hollywood for $10 billion. And send the money to Israel.