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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?

Just as in Europe, prominent people here are still busy striking moral attitudes about Joerg Haider, the Austrian head of the Freedom Party now being treated as the greatest menace to Austrian decorum since the Turks besieged Vienna in 1683. Try this one from Paul Fireman, chairman and CEO of Reebok International, handed down from Reebok headquarters in Stoughton, Mass., on Feb 11, 2000.

"In 1994, I learned from an associate in London that Joerg Haider appeared in an Austrian video wearing Reebok products. Upon learning of this, I ordered an immediate investigation, and found that an employee in Austria, acting on his own behalf, without any knowledge of Reebok International, had provided product for this video. This individual's actions were a clear violation of Reebok's code of conduct, and totally against what we stand for. I asked for his immediate dismissal from our Austrian subsidiary. Reebok responded quickly and responsibly to a deplorable situation. Reebok has never supported Haider. His opinions are abhorrent to me personally, and in direct conflict with the values of human rights that form the core values of this company."

What if a big restaurant chain announced that it was hiring a chief inspector -- and filled the job with the person who'd been in charge of the company's kitchens? We might roll our eyes if the incoming inspector proclaimed from the outset that the meals on the menu were delicious and nutritious.

National Public Radio has hired an ombudsman -- "to receive, independently investigate and respond to queries from the public regarding editorial standards in its programming." Jeffrey Dvorkin, the NPR vice president for news and information since 1997, is moving into the new position. A press release quotes him as saying that the creation of the ombudsman post "keeps NPR at the forefront of editorial excellence."

In this context, NPR's first ombudsman in two decades is not off to an auspicious start. The boosterism should make us wary. But Dvorkin seems committed to dialogue. "I'm the agent for the listener, and I'm there to help raise issues to the editorial staff that are of concern to the public," he told me in a recent interview.

Not the least dismaying aspect of the most recent crisis in Northern Ireland has been the stampeding of public opinion here in the United States into denunciation of the IRA, and into sympathy to the political maneuvers of the British government and of the Ulster Unionist leader, David Trimble. Naturally enough, this sudden tilt is being viewed with profound satisfaction by the British, not to mention the Ulster Unionists, who have chafed for years at the admirable refusal of the Clinton administration to take dictation from the British Embassy in Washington.

Tens of thousands of high-flown words have now been devoted to the IRA's supposed flouting of the 1998 Good Friday agreement, the IRA's lack of good faith, and Sinn Fein's duplicity.

A specter is haunting cyberspace -- the specter of e-vandalism.

Media alarms have been loud recently: Electronic commerce is under siege. A virtual crime wave threatens to wreak havoc on the World Wide Web. Any site is vulnerable, no matter how big.

Let's not bother to shed tears for the likes of E*Trade, Amazon.com and Buy.com. Sympathy seems misplaced for massive outfits that are blights on the Web as they strip-mall every pixel in reach. And I can't summon much empathy for the targeted website run by the Time Warner subsidiary CNN, a cable giant with millions of viewers every day.

But at the same time, even when electronic attacks occur against corporate sites with little or no socially redeeming value, I won't cheer for cyber-saboteurs. Efforts to censor or block communication are odious -- whether based in government offices, corporate suites or secret hacker locations. What we need is not less but more speech: and especially more diverse speech.

AUSTIN, Texas -- I laughed until tears ran down my cheeks Sunday morning. There was Karl Rove (a.k.a. "Bush's Brain") on television, chatting with the Sabbath gasbags about how the real champion of campaign finance reform is ... George W. Bush.

This was funny enough, but Rove went on to say solemnly that John McCain has taken money from lobbyists and special-interest groups! Of course, by then I was on the floor.

And then Rove said: "He (McCain) is the only candidate to accept a $2 million contribution. He took $2 million raised for a Senate campaign and transferred it over to his presidential campaign. He benefits from the current sort of insider way that we handle campaign finance laws in America, and he sees nothing wrong with that." By then I was in hysterics. Let's take a look at the record.

George W. Bush has raised the unheard-of sum of $70 million for his presidential campaign. He has collected so much money that he can afford to ignore the caps on campaign spending that accompany federal matching funds.

AUSTIN, Texas -- Listening to our presidential candidates is a splendid example of the dog-that-did-not-bark-in-the-night. (The dog-that-did-not-bark was the crucial clue to the solution of a Sherlock Holmes mystery. Elementary, my dear Watson.)

While they snipe at one another over golden oldies -- abortion, soccer moms and who-invented-Willie-Horton -- there is something happening out here. And they don't know what it is, do they, Mr. Jones?

Alan Greenspan, the great pooh-bah of the economy, just raised interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point -- the fourth increase since June -- and clearly signaled another increase to come on March 21. This was in an effort to tamp down the roaring stock market.

The response from the stock market? According to The Associated Press, "Investors poured money into the shares of technology companies to the exclusion of all other sectors." It was the speculation in high-tech stocks that Greenspan was trying to stop, so that was a brilliant success, wasn't it?

Bill Clinton used to quote a definition of insanity: It's doing the same thing that doesn't work over and over again.

Time magazine recently offered some notable journalism. A 14-page investigative report -- "Big Money and Politics: Who Gets Hurt?" -- provided extensive coverage of how government decisions really get made in the nation's capital. The cover story, by Donald Barlett and James Steele, was terrific.

But the mass media's response to the new expose was dismal.

Barlett and Steele don't bother with the fluff and psychoblather that dominate political reporting. They bypass the styles and personal traits of politicians. Instead, in the Feb. 7 issue of Time, the two journalists illuminate a process that normally remains in shadows. Money doesn't talk. It screams. And it gets heard.

AUSTIN, Texas -- There may yet be some instructive points to be mined from the New Hampshire primary. Perhaps the most important of these is that George W. Bush is not the front-runner because he is the most able or effective candidate. He is the front-runner because he raised so much money early.

He is not the front-runner because he has a splendid record as the governor of a large state. (He has been a so-so governor of Texas, a record that qualifies him to be lieutenant governor of Texas -- which, as all Texans know, is the more powerful office.) He is the front-runner because he has $70 million in his campaign kitty.

And thereby hangs a tale. He has already spent $37 million, which is almost as much as the Democratic nominee will have to spend on his entire campaign up to Election Day, since the D will abide by spending limits in order to qualify for federal matching funds. Bush has raised so much money that he's well beyond needing federal funds and their accompanying limits.

The reeling Bush campaign is pulling out all the stops to show that George W. is not only a true leader of men, but a warm soul. "He's had to sit in the chair," cries Gov. Carroll Campbell of South Carolina, whose state faces a Feb. 19 primary now touted as crucial for Bush. "He's had to make life-and-death decisions." "He has a human touch, a personal touch that most candidates don't have," an aide whispers to the New York Times. But it's hard to reinvent George W. at this late hour, when most Americans access his warmth through bulletins of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, announcing executions in the months ahead.

It'll be a busy time in the Huntsville Death House. Feb. 23 sees Cornelius Goss strapped down for his last shot, followed the very next day by 64-year old Betty Beets. March will bid adieu to Odell Barnes, Timothy Gribble and Dennis Bagwell, and Super April will be crueler yet, with lethal injections for Orien Joiner, Victor Saldona, Robert Carter, Robert Neville and Ricky McGinn. Carruthers Alexander goes to his maker on May 3. Such, at least, is the present execution calendar.