Lots of people I have talked to about the Bill Clinton sex scandal want to know who these pollsters are polling.

They find it difficult to believe that 60-some percent of Americans think Clinton is doing a good job.

I've been thinking a lot about that and I have come to some conclusions.

I think most of the people I talk to about these things are fairly well informed about the issues.

That, however, is not the case with most Americans. Believe it or not, the public is pretty clueless when it comes to the Clinton scandals.

Now, I think it would be fair to say that most people have a pretty good handle on the Monica Lewinsky stuff, but beyond that, they really aren't too well clued in.

And the White House is playing on that scandal illiteracy.

We hear over and over how Americans just don't care about the sex scandals in Washington. To back that up the White House trots out poll after poll showing how much Americans don't care.

Then the White House tells us how wonderful things are in this country and trots out another poll that shows how great the president's approval rating is.

All the while the message is that Ken Starr is an evil man who is just out to get poor Bill and the whole thing is just politics.

How many times have we heard that $40 million figure bandied about? $40 million and all Starr could come up with was a lie about sex.

Have you heard that? Of course.

But is that really all that Starr has come up with?

A majority of people either think so or don't really know, according to a recent poll.

A survey was conducted recently by McLaughlin and Associates.

In one very revealing question, respondents were asked: "How many people has Ken Starr convicted as a result of the Whitewater investigations?"

A third of them - 32.9 percent - said zero. Another 30.9 percent didn't know.

The question was multiple choice: 6.6 percent said 1; 9.8 percent said 2; 6.1 percent said 3; 8.4 percent said 4-10; 3 percent said 11-14; 2.6 percent said 15 or more.

The correct answer is 12.

So take the 32.9 percent of people surveyed who think Starr has indicted nobody and add them to the 30.9 percent who don't know if Starr has indicted anybody. You get 63.8 percent, which, coincidentally, is the president's approval rating.

Makes sense to me. If you think Starr's investigation is fruitless, then you think Clinton's troubles are all about politics and a sex lie. You probably think Clinton is doing a good job. And that is precisely what the White House wants you to think.

I think the national media could do a little better job about informing us about some of this stuff - mainly the network news. There are dozens of stories that make the front pages of newspapers like the Washington Post and New York Times that never see the light of network news.

Mostly, the TV news folks are furthering the notion that Starr is a bad man. They don't come right out and say that. But they repeatedly spew the White House line that it's all about a sex lie.

But really, it's about much more than that.

And in time, I think, the details about FBI files illegally stashed in the White House; the travel office firings; and the offenses by cabinet members Ron Brown, Henry Cisneros, Mike Espy, Bruce Babbitt, Alexis Herman and Ira Magaziner will come out.

But in the meantime, we need to focus on the job the president is doing, right?

Fair enough.

• While deriding the $40 million Starr has spent investigating his foibles, Clinton gathers together 1,200 of his favorite friends and heads off to China.

Cost to the taxpayers? $45 million.

• Bombed a "chemical weapons" factory in the Sudan that a New Yorker magazine article this month says wasn't a chemical weapons factory at all. Similar articles have appeared in Investor's Business Daily and other publications, but the story has received little if any national attention.

• Patted himself on the back for the budget surplus while knowing full well that the words "balanced budget" weren't even in his vocabulary before 1994. That's when the GOP gained the majority in Congress. Remember the Contract With America? A balanced budget was the hinge pin of the whole deal. Since then, Clinton was dragged, incrementally, kicking and screaming with threats of veto, to balanced budget agreements.

• Bailed out a private hedge fund at a cost of $3.2 billion to the taxpayers. (That's 80 times what the Starr investigation cost.)

• Chastised Republicans in Congress for proposing a tax cut of "$80 billion." He fails to mention that the tax cut is over five years and that it entails only $6 billion in 1999. While saying that spending $6 billion in 1999 on a tax cut is "irresponsible," he simultaneously proposes somewhere in the neighborhood of $20 billion in spending for new social programs and seeks $18 billion for the International Monetary Fund.

• Vows to veto any budget resolution that has too many tax cuts. A White House staffer says the administration will again force a government shutdown if it is politically advantageous. Of course if there is a veto and a government shutdown, the Republicans will take the blame.

This is not to say Republicans are blameless. They have their moments, too.

Like the 20 C-130 transport planes that Lockheed will build in Newt Gingrich's district in Georgia. Several of those planes will end up in Trent Lott's district in Mississippi. Cost to taxpayers: $1 billion. Funny thing, the military didn't request the planes or even want them.

I wouldn't want to hear Gingrich or Lott whine about pork barrel spending by Democrats anytime in the near future. But I will.

It's tough to be proud of your elected officials these days, isn't it? [[In-content Ad]]