MISSOURI WATCH: FOR A LIMITED TIME: MCGRATIFICATION

We are witnessing today in Washington a shining example of America's insatiable desire for instant gratification, personified in this instance by House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who insists he is leading nothing short of a "new American revolution." Except when the word was applied to the political movements in communist countries, we Americans have always had a predeliction for the word revolution, with its connotation of immediate change and reform.

Patrick Henry's immortal request ("Give me liberty or give me death") is an explanatory footnote on why our colonial forefathers rejected political negotiation with King George and opted to gather up powder and musket to do battle against the British. Since most of the residents on our shores in the late 1Sth century were those who had little to lose in the new world because they had nothing to gain in their native lands, the Yankee spirit of do-or-die was particularly fertile.

This damn-the-torpedoes approach to freedom and independence served us well in the American Revolution, and over the past 22 decades has continued to enhance both our personal and national aims to a degree often ignored or unrecognized, both at home and abroad. America has become, along with the land of opportunity, the residual birthplace of instant gratification, and despite the best efforts of thoughtful philosophers from Jefferson to Thoreau to Coolidge, we shall probably remain so to our dying days.

It is the wise political leader who wraps himself in the flag of immediate reform. The nation today is lead by a young intellectual member of the Boomer Generation, who ran for the highest office in the land on a platform created, purposefully or accidentally, from the premise of quick and decisive change. Cill Clinton had a litany of improvements he immediately wanted to inaugurate, once a resident of the executive mansion. We would create a national health insurance program for those without access, a welfare program that ended dependence, a government that was smaller and more frugal, a tax system that answered the frustrations of the small and mid-sized taxpayers.

That Clinton intended to revolutionize the way in which Washington operated can be confirmed by the several failed attempts he made to change government. He sought a health plan, offered numerous welfare changes, made a pass at downsizing the bureaucracy and even remembered, after prodding, that he had called for greater tax fairness.

When history looks back at Clinton's first, and probably his last, term as president, many future scholars will be puzzled why, despite the progress of the times, he has largely remained unpopular. After all, the stock market has never been higher, unemployment has largely disappeared from the national crisis list, inflation is certainly under control, and the world is, generally speaking, at peace.

Future chroniclers of our time will have to dig a bit deeper before they discover that this president's low approval ratings stem less from his actions than from a public perception that, despite the best of intentions, he has not moved swiftly enough to correct nagging, long-standing problems on the public's crisis list. Mr. Clinton may have believed he had to correct any inequities suffered by a small sexual minority in the armed forces before he dealt with far more irritating abu,ses in society, but he was wrong. A desire to end any hounding of a small number of persons who are viewed as morally unjust by a far larger number of persons would finish last on a list of a thousand projects average Americans have in mind for their government.

One does not hear Mr. Clinton's political opposition speak of the need to feed those who cannot feed themselves; one hears from this quarter the need to impeach those who are defrauding the rest of us by only pretending to need. The ultimate aim of both Clinton and Gingrich is the same: the most efficient, least costly welfare system that can be devised. Clinton seeks to reach the goal by making sure no one is overlooked, while Gingrich would achieve it by not overlooking those who debase it.

Numerous Qf my colleagues in the commentary business overlook the fact that Gingrich is trying to deliver on Clinton's campaign promises, which included tougher welfare regulations, a balanced budget, a line-item veto, a middle-class tax cut, less bureaucracy and improved health care. It requires no great leap of faith to believe this president wanted to deliver on his promises, which he is certainly intelligent enough to recognize come back to haunt a candidate the next time he runs for office. But Gingrich had a luxury the president didn't: a job that required little attention to instant gratification, which is the same advantage Clinton had over his last opponent, then-president George Bush.

Clinton encountered, virtually from the first day in the Oval Office, a whole series of obstacles to meeting the public's expectations. He had a bevy of former girlfriends, an office staff that couldn't find the indoor plumbing, close friends who ranged from suicidal to embezzlement prone, and a large number of candidates for important jobs with qualifications that were non-existent. No president, regardless of facile mental capacities, can attend to our American fondness for instant gratification and attempt to deal with the obstacles that were before William Jefferson Clinton.

Newt Gingrich has, in effect, been setting the national agenda for a period ranging from last summer to the present moment. One could, not quite accurately, refer to him as the de facto president, but he has skillfully placed himself in a position to satiate our proclivity for quick change. We would have thought that anyone as familiar with McDonald's as Bill Clinton would have known about McGratification.

~Jack Stapleton is a Kennett columnist who keeps tabs on state government.