Let's see if I've got this right: We're supposed to believe that the high-living Rev. Al Sharpton has little in the way of assets or income with which to pay the $ 65,000 judgment he owes the man he defamed, even less ability to raise it. Clarence Thomas, a Yale law grad, appeals court judge and believer in natural law, never thought about abortion before his confirmation hearings. College boy Clinton didn't inhale. And now, that a nominee for labor secretary who generously harbored and paid a beleaguered illegal immigrant actually believes she was forced to withdraw her candidacy because of mere partisan bloodlust. What next? That every vote counts?

Americans who do not live and die by the political cycle, who have lashed neither their resumes nor their identities to either party, who are not indefatigable partisans making judgments based on the ideological affiliations of the parties involved -- surely they are weary of the insulting liar's poker marathon that ensues every time some member of the elite is shown to have stuffed a few socks into the codpiece of his public persona.

The gust of wind produced by millions of eyeballs simultaneously rolling heavenward during Linda Chavez's painful "love me, love me do" news conference was stronger than El Nino's. No wonder voter participation rates are so abysmal here given the familiarity-bred contempt that the well-informed but nonideological voter must battle.

When will our leaders stop insulting our intelligence? When will someone at the height of public life stand and admit to lapses of judgment of the type any decent person might make and trust the rest of us to let the knucklehead off with the noogie of a few Letterman skewerings?

Naive? No. Who would have thought that puritanical America would keep President Clinton's personal failings separate from his triumphs in the capacity for which he was hired? And what of Christine Todd Whitman in her first gubernatorial bid, when she admitted to employing and housing an illegal immigrant couple for five years? She told the truth, paid substantial fines and has been Madame Governor ever since. Likely, she'll soon be Madame EPA Chief, her transgression atoned for and long forgotten.

Consider John McCain, whose maverick presidential campaign this season caught fire in part because of his refreshing willingness to speak frankly, admit mistakes and take criticism seriously.

Obviously, no one can expect to survive admissions of either purely self-serving or criminal acts. Also, the lapse of judgment would have had to cease at least a few years before the admission -- the longer, obviously, the worse the mistake. Certainly, no unshriven transgressor could criticize others for committing the same transgression, regardless of time passed. One would also have to do nothing to cover up the act, or pressure others to do so. Most important, one should come clean at the first meaningful opportunity. An FBI background check is probably as good a time as any.

Thankfully, we have a few positive examples of character -- Whitman and McCain, however strategic or unavoidable their choices may have been -- to stoke our forlorn hopes for both leaders of character and parties that might someday encourage (let alone require) such character. Because we can't go on choosing leaders this way, not if we don't want voters to become ever more disaffected. Every clash can't be framed as instant judgment -- that is, if the alleged behavior occurred, the conversation ends and the next player takes the stage. Life is more complicated than that, and politics ought to be, too. The correct question ought to be, "Even if the behavior occurred, how disqualifying is it, really, in context?"

Eventually, someone at the height of public life is going to have to stand up for everyone who's ever pulled something boneheaded -- all of us, in other words -- and demand that acknowledged mistakes be kept in perspective.

Let's play a game. Let's say Anita Hill told the truth. Clarence Thomas admits to having been a pig in the early 1980s, before society had made clear its taboo on such behavior. He expresses sincere regret, reminds us that he never laid a hand on her, helped rather than hurt her career and had truly not understood how his actions made her feel. He de- and renounces sexual harassment, swears not to have practiced it in a decade and not to tolerate it if he witnesses it in the future. Patricia Ireland shakes his hand, accepts his apology on behalf of women everywhere and refocuses the debate on his judicial opinions and writings. Who needs psychotropic drugs?

Back in the real world, the question remains, how can a country ever grow up when no one ever talks to it like an adult? But then, I still believe that every vote ought to count.