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AUSTIN, Texas -- Oh, pooh, the fun's over. At least for a while (said she, always optimistic to the point of idiocy). But it was sure swell while it lasted.

Who can forget those glorious moments: George W. Bush railing against "terriers and bariffs," Al Gore wowing us with earth tones, Bill Bradley wowing us with ... um ... getting endorsed by Michael Jordan. Connoisseurs of political fun will have to look to the Reform Party for the nonce. However, we can hope that by fall we'll be ready for the clash of those titans Gore and Bush.

You must admit, at least this abbreviated primary season got folks stirred up, involved and out to vote. And that was fun. Everybody popping off with an opinion, lots of down-and-dirty campaigning, candidates being shocked and outraged all over the place.

Your cynics will conclude that all this proves is: (a) negative ads work, (b) you can't beat big money, and (c) there's not much democracy left in the U.S. of A. All of which is true. It was over before most of us had a chance to vote.

In Monroe, La., Kathy Looney, 29, convicted of abusing three of her eight children, was ordered at the end of February to undergo medical sterilization, or face lengthy jail time. District Judge Carl V. Sharp issued a 10-year suspended sentence, and placed Looney on five years of probation. "I don't want to have to lock you up to keep you from having any more children, so some kind of medical procedure is needed to make sure you don't." Looney's lawyer asked the judge to reconsider.

The eugenic impulse is always lurking. These days, it's surfacing once again, not only in old-fashioned coercive sterilization, such as that imposed by the Louisiana judge, but in programs of genetic improvement, using all the new splicing technologies. Know-how, as so often in medicine, sprints ahead of moral considerations. In this context, the Annals of Internal Medicine has just published an interesting comparison by Drs. Andre N. Sofair and Lauris C. Kaldjian of German and U.S. sterilization policies from 1930 to 1945.

AUSTIN, Texas -- Republicans for Clean Air, a group previously unknown to the Federal Elections Commission or anyone else in politics, is now running an ad in Tuesday's primary states claiming that Gov. George W. Bush passed laws that will reduce air pollution in Texas by more than a quarter million tons a year!

The mystery of "Republicans for Clean Air" was solved Friday when The New York Times revealed that Dallas billionaire and Bush pioneer Sam Wyly was fronting the money for this singularly hilarious example of what is called the "sham issue ad."

And just the other day I was noting that one loophole in Bush's campaign finance reform is that it doesn't address sham issue ads.

In the ad, Sen. John McCain's face is superimposed on a backdrop of smokestacks belching dark clouds, while a voice-over announces:

More than two months have passed since America Online and Time Warner announced plans to merge. Big news at the time, the formation of the world's largest media firm is already old hat. And so it goes: Like the rest of us, journalists quickly get used to the latest consolidation of media power.

One of the country's most perceptive media critics, Herbert Schiller, died a few weeks after the unveiling of AOL Time Warner. A professor of communication, Schiller had been warning against such corporate trends for decades. He urged people to consider the dire consequences when giant companies dominate and wield the latest media technologies.

"It is not necessary to construct a theory of intentional cultural control," Schiller observed in 1989. "In truth, the strength of the control process rests in its apparent absence. The desired systemic result is achieved ordinarily by a loose though effective institutional process."

For Americans watching TV news, March began in typical fashion. When five people were shot on the first day of the month in a town near Pittsburgh, cable networks swiftly jumped into action. They devoted hour after hour to the tragedy -- giving viewers plenty of live footage from helicopters, interviews with terrified eyewitnesses and grim official briefings. Correspondents functioned much like schizoid ghouls.

The television industry is good at deploring bloodshed -- while milking it to boost ratings. But the hypocrisy only begins there.

On the last day of February, the shocking news was that a 6-year-old boy in Michigan killed a classmate. How would a little boy get the impression that pointing a gun at someone and pulling the trigger is appropriate behavior? Not exactly a tough question.

But it's too tough for the nation's up-to-the-minute TV journalists -- especially when their jobs involve playing dumb.

AUSTIN, Texas -- The trouble with Granny D, the 90-year-old crusader who walked across the entire country to support campaign finance reform, is that she makes the rest of us look like such schlumps. Whew, what a record for citizen action: 3,200 miles. Sure makes me feel like an armchair warrior.

Granny D's real name is Doris Haddock, and she's been walking for 14 months -- from Pasadena, Calif., to Washington, D.C., including all of last spring in Texas. (It always takes a spell to walk across Texas.)

She got to D.C. on Tuesday by walking about 10 miles a day. She had to be hospitalized for dehydration in the Mojave Desert. She got snowed on, rained on and sleeted on; she has arthritis and emphysema; and she just kept going. And all to draw attention to the root of the rot in American politics: money.

Failed presidential bids often have a terrible afterlife, plaguing us long after the bidder has faded from the scene. Remember Gov. Pete Wilson, an exceptionally nasty Republican governor of California? Years ago, Wilson geared up for his doomed hopes for national office by putting forward savage laws aimed at young people, of whom respectable California voters supposedly live in mortal fear.

Wilson passed on to all the usual rewards awaiting an ex-governor, but his anti-youth bill survives, and has a rendezvous with California's voters as an initiative on the ballot, March 7, designated as Prop. 21, nestling next to its consort in intolerance, Prop. 22, which is the Knight initiative, banning all forms of marriage except those between a girl and a guy.

These are the only two props on the California ballot that get a specific thumbs up from the state's Republican Party. Mindful of the gay voter, the Democrats are against the Knight initiative, and on Prop. 21, they take no position at all.

AUSTIN, Texas -- Oh, come now, Gov. Bush. None of us minds a little exaggeration; a little polishing of the positive when it comes to your record here in Texas. But now it's "liar, liar, pants on fire." Your nose is growing, Governor.

George W. Bush is now running a TV ad around the country that claims: "While Washington was deadlocked, he passed a patients' bill of rights. Under Gov. Bush, Texas enacted some of the most comprehensive patient-protection laws in the nation."

Excuse me, but if anyone is interested in the truth, George Dubya vetoed the patients' bill of rights in Texas when it was first passed by the legislators in 1995; and when they passed it again, over his opposition, by a veto-proof majority in 1997, he threatened to veto it again and then let it become law without his signature because a veto wouldn't hold.

He never even signed the patients' bill of rights, and you can look it up. Claiming that "he passed" or "delivered" the patients' bill of rights is turning the truth on its head.

Let us return to those thrilling days of yesteryear in the 74th and 75th sessions of the Texas Lege.

Twenty million listeners are accustomed to hearing the refrain on the radio: "I'm Dr. Laura Schlesinger." While many assume that she's a licensed physician or psychologist, her doctorate is actually in physiology. What's most unfortunate is that Schlesinger uses her enormous media power to violate a key precept of health care: First, do no harm.

Dr. Laura does a lot of harm. Sitting at a powerful microphone, she spews abuse at those who live outside the circle she has drawn around humanity. Being gay is "a biological error," Schlesinger proclaims.

Many of the people listening are youngsters. The other day, I heard a 10-year-old caller on Schlesinger's program, deferentially seeking advice. He got plenty of it, like everyone else within earshot.

AUSTIN, Texas -- Like all the other political junkies, I am just loving this -- wow, a white-hot primary; pollsters confounded; pundits wrong; he's up, no, he's down; the people calling the shots; experts looking like fools. What fun.

One must admit, anent our boy George Dubya, that if you can't even get a two-day bounce -- from Saturday in South Carolina to Tuesday in Michigan -- after spending $30 million, you could be in trouble.

What a slugfest that was in South Carolina -- the best East Texas campaign I've seen in years. Open thuggery! John McCain accused Bush of being like Bill Clinton (horror of horrors), while Bush's supporters were accusing McCain of being gay, a womanizer, having a Jewish campaign chairman, a black daughter and a drug-addict wife. Boy, that was some goin' there. The Bushies must be proud of that one.

The great mystery at this point is why so many Republicans are still voting for Bush on the theory that he's their strongest candidate. One can see why the big-money Republicans are still for him -- McCain actually threatens to do something about big money in politics. But what about the rest of the R's?