AUSTIN, Texas — Just a few days ago, I swore I had lit my last candle for President Clinton. The occasion was his dizguzting reappointment of Alan Greenspan as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.

What have any of us ever done to Clinton that he should have sicked that malodorous residue of bovine digestion on us again? This is Greenspan the guardian of the monied interests; Greenspan, who considers unemployment a boon to the economy; Greenspan, who is so paranoid about inflation that he'd rather throw the whole economy into recession and millions of people out of work than risk — even slightly risk — letting the coupon-cutters lose one iota of their unearned profits to inflation.

Yeah, I know, the Republicans in Congress wouldn't let Clinton have his own pick, the brilliant Felix Rohatyn. So? Just because the Republicans are behaving like Republicans is no reason to reappoint that miserable excrescense Greenspan. This was no time for pique. Some things are worth fighting over even if you know you're going to lose — and Greenspan was sure one of them. (Even my very Republican mother, who tends to judge people by how they look, observes that Greenspan looks as though he were weaned on a pickle.)

So there I was, ready to scratch Clinton for good. Clinton, Dole, who cares who wins in November? A couple of centrist, professional pols. George Wallace was right — not a dime's worth of difference.

But on Saturday, Clinton ups and announces that he will veto the so-called tort reform passed by House Speaker Newt Gingrich and his little Newtists as part of the Contract On America. And I am abruptly reminded of why it's worth a vote and a couple of bucks to keep a Democrat in the White House, even one so pathetic that he'd reappoint Greenspan to the Federal Reserve Board.

Now here's an interesting example of just how dumb and twisted our political debate has become. I guarantee that when this column appears and I say the tort reform act is a clear corruption of justice, I'm going to get a bunch of letters accusing me of the lowest, sickest perversion on earth: "Lawyer lover! Lawyer lover!" Let me rebut this despicable charge in advance: I am a red-blooded, beer-drinking, flag-loving American, and I yield to no one in my contempt for lawyers. On the other hand, neither am I a total fool.

I've never sued anyone, don't intend to, and have been sued twice myself. There's nothing worse than a lawsuit, short of lingering disease. Nevertheless, the right to sue is fundamental.

What this bill, a stinking misnomer called the "Product Liability Fairness Act," does is take away a jury's right to award big punitive damages when a manufacturer is guilty of reckless disregard of the public safety. OK, no businessman is deliberately going to manufacture something that will hurt or kill people, but thousands of Americans are still killed or injured every year. What's really horrible is the number of times that a big manufacturer learns there's an unsafe product out there and then continues to make it because it's so profitable it covers the cost of getting sued. Those are the cases — the Pinto and Dalkon Shield cases — in which the only way to get the products off the market is to sue for huge punitive damages.

Punitive damages become increasingly important as the Republicans continue to dismantle the regulatory agencies; you can bet there'll be more cases of E. coli bacteria on beef, like that mess in the Pacific Northwest that killed several people and poisoned 500, if the R's keep cutting the Food and Drug Administration's authority and budget. Without regulation, consumers will really need their full rights in court.

The knock on Clinton is that he's "caving in to the trial lawyers." I'll say one thing for trial lawyers: At least they don't charge unless they win the case for you. (Then they charge an arm and a leg, of course.) With great indignation, the Republicans point out that trial lawyers have a huge monetary stake in the tort system. Duh. And what about the manufacturers who are pushing this bill — what are they, angels of disinterestedness?

The New York Times ran a hilarious article on Monday about the lobbyists for the tobacco companies, insurance companies and manufacturers behind the "Product Liability Fairness Act." The lobbyist who put together the "astroturf" (phony grass-roots) campaign for changing the tort system bragged about how he'd done it: lining up small-business people, schools, youth athletic organizations, anyone afraid of being sued, and using them to front for the big manufacturers. Of course, the bill has little in it to help any of those folks; it limits product liability suits — cases in which a dangerous or defective product has caused injury.

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Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.