AL Gore kissed his wife. George Bush kissed Oprah. The word "rats" appeared for 1/30th of a second in an advertisement. Gore read a top- ten list on Letterman's show. Bush went on "Live with Regis" and wore an outfit like Regis wears on "Millionaire."

This is the worst, least inspiring, least interesting, most frustrating political season since the advent of the Great Depression, and for once, it's not entirely fair to blame the candidates for it. They deserve plenty of blame for all sorts of things, no question - Gore's difficulties with the truth, Bush's difficulties with English, [Hillary Clinton]'s difficulties in sounding exactly like Nurse Ratchet, [Rick Lazio]'s difficulties with not saying every 32 seconds that he's a New Yorker.