NAKED OPPORTUNISM COMES IN HANDY AT THE NATION'S CAPITOL

Something about the name of the offense is deceptively refreshing, like an activity you'd undertake on a breezy spring day.

Some years ago, Cape Girardeau had a Capitol Hill marble-shooting champion as its congressman, so it seems not a bit strange now that elected representatives of the federal kind would engage in a diversion known as kiting.

With this pastime, however, there are no strings attached. The kiting referred to is actually a trashy practice, one in which checks are written on bank accounts that don't have corresponding sums of money.

In the real world, such activity gets you a stiff service charge, a nasty note or, in extreme cases, an arrest warrant. In the make-believe world that resides within the boundaries of the District of Columbia resembling Never Never Land with all the pirates this exercise raised not an eyebrow for years.

Suddenly, however, the American people are learning that kiting has little to with wind, unless you count what is discharged from the halls of Congress. Seldom in the history of our democracy have lawmakers been so willing to get before their constituents with answers before questions are even asked.

Someone else came up with this description of the U.S. Capitol. I wish I had.

Alibi Alley.

The House Bank, where bad checks ricocheted like so many superballs, is now boarded up. Its existence demonstrated leadership's disdain for privatization; think of the money congresspersons are now putting into the local economy. The bank's closure is classic panic governance: members of the institution can't control themselves, so remove the temptation.

Checks no longer bounce in this House. The only sound of rubber you hear in the corridors of power these days is the squeak of imported sneakers as congressional aides seek shelter from official tantrums.

Nothing is healthier for Americans than a good Capitol Hill scandal. It quickens the pulse, improves digestion and reinforces a citizen theory that things are not amiss since lawmaker capers are afoot. All is right with the planet.

Only one word adequately sums up the operational practices of Congress: amok. If the House Bank hadn't been brought forth for our amusement, it would have been something else.

In January, it barely made the headlines, so relatively minor was the offense, that House Speaker Thomas Foley had approved new marble floors for three Capitol Hill elevators. The cost of the refurbishing: $20,000.

No one wants the U.S. Capitol to take on a cut-rate Kremlin appearance. But why would someone authorize the expenditure of $250 per square foot for marble flooring when austerity might be more judicious and carpeting sufficed for years? Because it is not his money.

Were it his money, he would have probably bounced a check to pay for it.

We have come to count on such things, among them that some congressional transgressors are cavalier to the point of tickling us. Take Tommy Robinson, a three-time congressman from Arkansas. The former sheriff kept a busy schedule of antics, writing 996 bad checks in 39 months at the House bank, an average of 25 a month.

Robinson, you might recall, was the congressman who hired as an aide the 22-year-old daughter of Arkansas millionaire and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.

It just happened that Robinson owed Jones more than $100,000 in personal loans. It also just happened that young Charlotte Jones, fresh from college, had her taxpayer-supported annual salary raised from $31,000 on the day she started to an annual $60,000 only 11 months later.

Well, there's nothing like being on the Washington fast track.

Before all the checks cleared, Robinson hightailed it back to Arkansas, became a Republican and ran for governor. He lost in the 1990 primary. Unless he is a sheriff somewhere, he is off the public dole.

What a shame. Naked opportunism and unblushing arrogance are characteristics parted with grudgingly by the gang on Capitol Hill.