AS LAWYERS, SPIN DOCTORS and other predators descended upon Florida like pinstriped flying monkeys in some David Lynch remake of "The Wizard of Oz," one thing was certain:

  Bill Clinton is the president of the United States.

  For now, anyway.

  My buddy Hal and I, both of us former daily-newspaper men, had settled in at his jackass ranch for a bracing evening of cursing at the TV between bites of posole and sips of porter when it became clear that there was more on the menu than we had anticipated.

  We were only two members of a motley gang of disenchanted electors who had planned to vote for third-party candidates -- Harry Browne of the Libertarian Party or Ralph Nader of the Greens -- but finally cast ballots for Vice President Al Gore in a deliberate "Anybody But Bush" effort. Texans, we agreed, should be restricted to Texas, where they can cheerfully befoul their own nest.

  It was a shit sandwich, to be sure. But we felt it was better to choke it down once, now, rather than face it three meals a day for the next four years.

  When CNN declared Florida for Gore, we relaxed somewhat, thinking our sacrifice worthwhile, especially since there were hints that Colorado might actually wind up in the Gore camp, what with a medical-marijuana proposal and a gun-control measure winning voter approval. What the hell, better a tool than a fool, we reasoned.

  But the Sunshine State, like the schlong it so closely resembles, had some bad ideas of its own. And shortly after midnight Rocky Mountain time, it rose up red and angry for Texas Gov. George W. Bush.

  Ups and Downs. That didn't last, either. Florida went back in the quien-sabe column early Wednesday morning, and the election remains too close to call. Seems an unopened ballot box turned up in Broward County, a couple thousand absentee ballots from military personnel were yet to be tallied, and some Floridians apparently are so preternaturally stupid, they thought they were voting for Gore, but actually cast ballots for Pat Buchanan.

  All this is moot, of course. The chances of Gore squeaking out a win are remote in Jeb Bush's back yard, where the politicians are so crooked that they require assistance from a platoon of Cuban maids to screw their pants on every morning. And Big Al didn't blow it in Florida, but in Washington, D.C., where he seriously underestimated the power of human stupidity.

  Nader nailed it to the floor in a chat with CNN's Larry King when he noted caustically, "The Democrats are very good at electing very bad Republicans." That was much nicer than what the Democrats were saying about Nader. The least vindictive among them wanted to duct-tape him into a Corvair and launch it into permanent orbit around Pluto.

  Below the Beltway. When the dust settles, Dubya will be headed for D.C., where corporate America will jam its Rolexed forearm up his ass and work him like an evil Shari Lewis with a retarded Lamb Chop.

  As for Gore, he will not be able to run for a crosstown bus without hoots of derisive laughter trailing in his wake. He will wind up in Colorado Springs as executive director of USA Cycling, where an inability to recognize things as they are is not considered a liability.

  It's probably an exaggeration to say that Jeffrey Dahmer could have beaten Dubya like an egg-sucking dog if he were serving boiled babies at the post-election party. But it is no joke that a dead Democrat beat a live Republican in Missouri, while Gore couldn't even win his own home state.

  The upshot of all this is that a bitterly divided American electorate, slightly more than half of which took the trouble to cast ballots in the first presidential election of the new century, has saddled itself with a GOP-dominated Congress, the prospect of a few more fascists on the Supreme Court, and the least qualified chief executive since Lisa Voight, who at least has the dubious virtue of being ornamental.

  The Permanent Corporate Government will find fewer obstacles to what it calls progress, the American eagle will be replaced with an oil-soaked seagull perched glumly on a penitentiary fence, and the folks who say they don't want big gummint ordering them around will be telling you what you can smoke, whom to pray to, and whom you can sleep with.

  At least Bill Clinton only screwed us one at a time.