Our chief Democrat is a closet Republican. You'd think that would give Republicans cause for joy, but no, they keep whining that he killed Vince Foster, or that he's running a drug ring in the White House basement, or that his wife is a lesbian who had an affair with Vince Foster, or that her village doesn't know how to raise children and shouldn't try even if it did.

Amazingly, the far right found time from their busy schedule of hatching clinically paranoid delusions about our chief executive to draft a platform.

At their convention, however, their repeated and highly telegenic insistence on the Big Tent/ inclusion thing seems to have erased the fact that they do indeed have a platform. (I guess a party platform is like a warranty. You don't really look at it unless your product is broken.)

But for the record, I have it on good authority (Albert R. Hunt's "Politics & People" column in the August 8 Wall Street Journal), that the Republican platform calls for not one, not two, but seven constitutional amendments: "on abortion, a balanced budget, victims' rights, school prayer, flag burning, term limits, and citizenship for children of illegal immigrants." As Mr. Hunt puts it, "There may be a modern-day James Madison in San Diego, but he's not at the platform deliberations."

I've always liked to think of myself as the James Madison of San Francisco. As Madison's avatar, then, I think it would be a good idea to alter the Constitution to remove those elements of modern culture that offend me personally. (Or is that more of a Jeffersonian concept?)

I recently received a "special offer" in the mail for a book called "Vital Signs 1996 -- The Trends That Are Shaping Our Future." A red-inked bold-faced blurb at the top of the offer informed me that "The trends in this book will change your life... whether you read it or not."

I think this sort of thing should stop. If a book is going to change my life, at the very least I should have read it. The federal government needs to do something about this, not for me, but for my children, and their children's children. No more special offers. The special offers stop here. The special offers stop now.

In the wake of the TWA disaster, we must demand that in the wake of all future disasters public officials, the media and radio psychologists remain in their homes keeping their silly yaps shut until actual information has been achieved. The appropriate moment will be determined either by Richard Jewell, or someone who fits his profile.

In action movies, there is usually a scene (generally in a warehouse) in which a moving vehicle plows into oil barrels, which in turn explode. Where do these oil barrels come from? Who is responsible for placing these highly flammable objects in the path of moving vehicles? This activity must be stopped. We need a constitutional amendment to protect our enjoyment of otherwise fine motion pictures.

America needs to stop pretending that the information revolution has anything to do with information. It's about the dissemination of information. Information itself remains the same inscrutable entity it always has been.

And it's not a revolution. It may be a paradigm shift, but to qualify as a revolution blood must run in the streets. That may happen, but it won't have anything to do with computers, I'll predict that. (Zombie blood spilled while playing QUAKE does not count.)

Further, the phrases "content provider" and "knowledge worker" must be erased from the language or I might kill somebody. I really really mean it. Wouldn't a constitutional amendment be much easier on everybody? In the long run?

Spelling Ronald Reagan's name as "Ray Gun," replacing the "X" in Nixon with a swastika, calling George Stephanopoulos "Step-On-All-Of-Us," using the adjective "doleful" to describe Bob Dole, calling the Clintons "Billary" -- these and any similar manifestation of leaden bombast will be disallowed by a special amendment. It's only a small curtailment of free speech, and it will make me feel so much better about life. And after all, that's what constitutional amendments are all about.

Ever since Watergate, whenever a political scandal erupts, the suffix " -- gate" is attached to it. Those days are over. Get a new suffix or go to jail. That's the law.

This amendment would serve as a template to halt whatever activity is annoying me at any given moment. I might call upon the Defense Department to vaporize a car that's dawdling in the fast lane. I might have all cellular phone users thrown into jail.

It would function as a kind of blank check. If the muttered prayers of schoolchildren keep me from my precious sleep, I'll issue a gag order. If noxious fumes from Old Glory bonfires are making me sneeze, I'll require that special permits be required by any and all flag burners. I may demand that all illegal immigrants' unborn fetuses be deported.

The appeal of Ross Perot must be explained immediately. And all discussion of Whitewater, Iran-Contra, Who-Killed-the-Kennedys?, Roswell, Area 51, cattle mutilations, Mena, Arkansas and Vince Foster must cease.

That's it for now. Disperse, and obey.