AUSTIN, Texas — What a jumbled holiday weekend that was, marked by brilliant sports and miserable politics. There was Mark McGwire, so classy, so terrific — the lovely gestures to the Maris family, his joy in his son, his delight in the birthday present for his dad, so grateful to St. Louis. You couldn't have asked for better.

And Sammy Sosa, what grace, what style — especially the hilarious riff on the old "Saturday Night Live" routine, "Beisbol bin berry, berry good to me," at which he and McGwire collapsed in laughter. And special credit for supreme class goes to fan Mike Davidson and groundsman Tim Forneris, who simply gave the 61st and 62nd home-run balls back to McGwire. The salute from the Blue Angels, the St. Louis fans cheering for Sosa — all of it was perfect.

Maybe being classy is catching. Maybe this will remind us of what we actually like about America in this, our season of discontent. Maybe all the folks overseas who watched it will realize how far we've come since Jackie Robinson. Hank Aaron's mother, they reminded us, ran onto the field to hug her son after he broke the Babe's lifetime home-run record — not so much from pride as with the intention of stopping the bullets racists had threatened him with. It's hard for me to believe there was a person in America who so much as blinked at seeing McGwire hugging his teammates of all races. It was all just wonderful.

And then there is the rest of our national life, rapidly approaching Insanity Central. During the course of a long, lazy weekend, I had leisure to listen to the radio talk shows (I would specify "right-wing radio talk shows," but there doesn't seem to be any other kind), only to find there a level of vituperation and meanness that genuinely shocked me.

Much of the language and level of anger used to excoriate President Clinton is fit only for denouncing Adolf Hitler. Maybe it's just because I haven't listened to them much lately, but I was appalled at what passes for political discourse in at least a part of America — so much so that I do not hesitate to point out the obvious.

This level of hatred will lead to killing. How bright do you have to be to see this one coming? We have a great many very loosely wrapped people in this country, all of whom have easy access to firearms. Hate is a poison: Spread in these vicious and brutal terms, it will persuade some crazed, lost soul to go after Clinton. If you people on the far right really want to make a martyr out of the man, keep this up. That will be the inevitable result.

Meanwhile, we have the unedifying sight of Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott pirouetting gracelessly around the campaign finance issue. One minute, the man is demanding that Attorney General Janet Reno appoint an independent counsel to look into the abuse of soft money; the next, he is supporting a filibuster to stop the Senate from doing anything about these abuses. His position is, as The New York Times so aptly put it, "grotesque."

Just to bring you up to date: The national party committees have raised $115.7 million in soft money during the first 18 months of the '98 election cycle — more than double the $50.1 million raised during the comparable cycle in 1994, the last nonpresidential election year. Republicans outraised Democrats $70 million to $45.8 million, hence Lott's reluctance to do anything about the scandalous situation that he now demands be investigated by another special prosecutor.

Our friends at Common Cause have a useful new format called the Follow-the-Dollar Report so we can see just how much it costs to buy a bill through Congress these days. The consumer credit industry, for example, which is lobbying hard for a drastic rewrite of the nation's bankruptcy laws, has given, on average, more than $100,000 in political action committee money to each member of the Senate during the past 10 years. In addition, the industry has given millions in the aforementioned soft money, about which Lott so resolutely refuses to do anything. The same Lott has said he hopes to bring the credit industry's bill — which is opposed by consumer groups, bankruptcy judges and legal scholars — to the Senate floor this week.

Likewise, the oil industry, now battling hard to prevent new rules that would finally end the unfairly low royalties it pays for drilling on public land, has given $35.2 million over 10 years to parties and individual candidates.

Cynics around the Texas Lege used to complain, "It's not that they sell out that bothers me; it's that they sell out so cheap." I don't consider $35.2 million cheap myself, but on the other hand, look what a bargain this is for the oil industry: The big oil companies get to set their own estimate on the value of the oil they take out of public land (!) and have been accused of undervaluing it by billions of dollars. It is estimated that they have cheated the government out of $66 million a year by this method — and that's $66 million that you folks who have not given generously to political candidates have to make up with your tax money.

Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. To find out more about Molly Ivins and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.