NEWTON'S LAW: LIGHTEN UP, TAMMY WHYNETTE: HILLARY HAS ENOUGH PROBLEMS

Memo to Tammy Wynette: Lighten up.

After being married to George Jones, you, of all people, should know about being under the same roof with an unfaithful man.

Let Hillary Clinton off the hook.

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Not to beleaguer the topic of ~indignant women, but what is this deal with Gennifer Flowers? First of all, her name is a typo. Were her parents poor spellers or is she just being cute with consonants?

Now, she's been canned from her $17,000-a-year job with the state of Arkansas. Letting it be known that you've slept with your married boss is usually a first step toward unemployment. Gov. Clinton, however, had nothing to do with the dismissal, said one of his aides.

Three days without reporting to work and without a call to the office means abandonment of your job at the Arkansas Appeals Tribunal, a panel that, appropriately, hears unemployment cases.

Of course, Flowers was away from her desk Monday (1,400 miles away, in fact) to blow the whistle on Clinton in New York. When she didn't show up for work Tuesday or Wednesday, she became among the jobless. Don't weep just yet. Her interview in a supermarket tabloid called The Star reportedly fetched her a six-figure honorarium.

How are you going to keep them down on the farm once they've seen the big city?

Whether she is vindicated or reviled, the career of Flowers will now take a familiar turn.

Not long from now, she will become a shill for No Excuses jeans. Later, she will move into the Playboy mansion, do racy pictorials in the magazine before and after her cosmetic surgery, make a provocative rock video with Sam Kinnison and end up with a sleazy dating service on late-night television.

When she wasn't hearing unemployment cases in Little Rock, Flowers was said to be a cabaret singer. Clinton's loss could be entertainment's gain; maybe Flowers and Tammy Wynette could put together an act and take it on the road.

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Then, there is this schizophrenic relationship we have with Dan Quayle. When we first learned of him, he was a dim, affable buffoon, attached to upper-class principles and well-heeled chums. Quayle became fodder for every hired-gun comic who stood between a microphone and brick-wall backdrop.

Next, we learn the Washington Post did some digging on the vice president and that newspaper, hardly a mouthpiece of conservatism, discovered that Quayle actually exhibits some surprise! substance.

Now we don't know what to think. Here's the puzzle: Dan Quayle was in St. Louis Wednesday for a fund-raising luncheon, a $1,000-a-plate affair.

I'm not sure what goes on the menu at a $1,000 luncheon. Probably something with a fancy name that is really just a Chicken Tonight sort of dish. Still, it's a good bet that the sort of folks who can afford these functions expect more on their plates than beanie-weenies and sloppy joes.

If I were going to a $1,000 lunch, I wouldn't eat breakfast, probably not even supper the night before. I'd go with an appetite for a good meal. They wouldn't let you have seconds, but if August Busch III didn't want his dinner roll, I'd ask for it and not be embarrassed.

But what does Dan Quayle do on his way to lunch? He and Gov. John Ashcroft stopped at a Steak N' Shake to get chocolate milkshakes.

There are three things to think about here. One, the shakes at this place are terrific, and maybe there isn't a Steak N' Shake in Washington. Two, this was really just a photo opportunity for Quayle to be seen with "ordinary" citizens.

And, three, should we trust Quayle as bright if he's ruining his appetite with a milkshake before lunch?

This should be a routine question for a man a heartbeat away from the presidency: Didn't his mother teach him anything?