MISSOURI WATCH: IT'S ABOUT TIME FOR THE SEMINARS TO BEGIN

The invitations may already be in the mail since it will not take long for the political scientists, historians and capital media pundits among us to schedule the first of what will unquestionably be an outrageous number of seminars on the recent Clinton impeachment trial. What better way to relive the past five years of political historians that so engulfed the state and nation than a seminar with the title "The Positive and Pejorative Effects of the Clinton Impeachment on the American Political Process"?

The media, too, will be engaged for the next few weeks or months in rehashing every minute detail of the trial of William Jefferson Clinton. One of Missouri's largest daily newspapers, on the Sunday following the trial conclusion, devoted page one to a banner headline that read "Scandal reshapes political scene," along with four subheads devoted to questions which, it turned out, none of its reporters or commentators could answer. Expect more, not less, of this type of "news coverage" in the days ahead.

Like the details of Monicagate, the same news and views will be rehashed ad infinitum until an already satiated public will become even more so. Those who purport to inform readers, listeners and viewers of the day's news still haven't heard the message many of us have been sending for weeks, months, even years. It doesn't take an expert to decode what so many have felt and said: "Don't waste your ink and electricity on the revolting conduct of the forty-second President of the United States ... we know what he did, we don't have to be told it is wrong by some sanctimonious politician in Congress, and we will leave it up to a Higher Power to punish the guilty and absolve the innocent." The postscript to the public's message has consistently read, "Let's turn our attention on the serious problems confronting our nation and deal with them as best we can before they become even greater tomorrow."

The same day the above-mentioned newspaper envisioned a reshaping of our national political process I visited three nursing home friends who problems are more numerous and more significant than those facing Bill, Hillary and Ken. Although we don't often discuss them, their problems are soul-shattering, worsened by the unspoken realization that their departure from Mother Earth is fast approaching. They are not worried that the two impeachable counts against their president may somehow change the way Democrats and Republicans handle the nation's business in the future. Being pragmatists, all three recognize that the likelihood of a solution to the abominable quagmire of today's political climate is about as likely as their suiting up for a brisk game of tennis next week.

Leaving the nursing home, I drove to my office to being this column, but before I could start, I responded to a call on my answering machine from a woman in Kansas City whose mentally ill son had been prematurely discharged from a hospital and who is now in police custody after committing a serious crime. The mother, approaching hysteria, said she was contemplating suicide as her tolerance for grief and suffering over her dearest child had driven her to mental exhaustion. "I have no one to turn to," she said as rationally as she could manage under the circumstances. Not once during our conversation did she mention Bill Clinton's fascination with women other than his lawfully wedded wife; nor did she mention the mean-spirited prosecutors; nor the political dominance of a process that had been labeled 'constitutional"; nor the future political implications of the various players in the impeachment process. None of these things had any significance for her and the human beings in her life; neither did they have any possible connection to the future of her son or hers.

It has often been said, perhaps ad nauseam, that the Clinton impeachment demonstrates that "The American System works." If what Americans have been watching is a confirmation that we have an efficient and effective system of representative government, then we have been treated to the most bizarre scenario of proof ever disseminated.

In the opinion of many citizens, including this writer, what we have seen is a glaring example of personal irresponsibility by our nation's highest elected official; an attempt by others to make political gain from the president's actions; and the constant jockeying of both political parties as they sought to minimize or maximize their own roles in a partisan circus.

Monicagate has been a joyless occasion, a dark spot on the nation's history that will forever resonate in untold ways for the rest of our natural born lives, and one in which future historians will wonder why we chose to ignore so many human problems at the expense of self-exploitive moments of glory by a mere handful of hacks.

Most of us have seen how the officials in our nation's capital go about the public's business -- and we don't like it. We don't lit it because the behavior is partisan, selfish, artificial and unreliable, and these are not qualities we like to associate with the men and women we have elected to positions of power and influence. Neither do we care for the virtually unlimited political warfare that hinders our democratic system and harms, even obliterates, its effectiveness.

One of the few ameliorating effects of the scandal is to cause many to worry less about the harm Governor Jesse (The Body) Ventura and other clowns can do to state government. Another is to waste not a split second worrying whether Democrats or Republicans will gain more from the impeachment trial. A pox on both their houses.

And the last is a determination to turn down any invitation to attend a seminar that purports to discuss the electoral ramifications of political sexuality.

Jack Stapleton of Kennet is the editor of Missouri News and Editorial Service.