Antidote for poison politics

While punditholics and political addicts were trying to decide on Wednesday morning if modern civilization would survive another election hangover - and scrambling to find out what the heck David Brinkley said the night before - I took a stroll through ancient Egypt.

As a way to put things in perspective, I highly recommend it. Especially for those lunatics who have been working overtime to catch up on their political hate mail.

For all of us, this election has been more toxic than most. And there's nothing like a dose of culture as an antidote to political poison.

I found mine at the Cincinnati Art Museum exhibit, Women in Ancient Egypt. I went in depressed, dejected and downhearted about Bob Dole's humiliating defeat, and came out three hours later relaxed, revived, with my faith in the human species restored.

After six months of immersion in the high-octane fumes of politics, it was like a get-well card that says, ''Welcome back to reality.'' After all, if a dead mummy wrapped in rags can survive 5,000 years, the rest of us can live through four more years of Bill and Hillary Clampett in the White House and Pharaoh Newt running Congress.

Sure we can.

We just need to look at the big picture, and remember that history is on our side. If Egypt's culture could endure 6,000 years without TV and microwave popcorn, we can endure four more years of Newt's nitwit ideas, Hillary's hairstyles and Bill's bushwa.

We just need to learn from the past before we repeat such annoying mistakes. For example, here's what I learned from just one visit to a museum.

(Our tour begins with a release form stipulating that your guide completed two terms of college-level art history without retaining a paint-fleck of useful information.)

OK, let's go:

Did you know that some of the artifacts on display at the Cincinnati Art Museum go back nearly 8,000 years? That's even older than Strom Thurmond - and they still work! The artifacts, that is.

Did you know that some Egyptian kings and queens would have their slaves buried alive with them to make sure they wouldn't have to make their own beds in the afterlife?

And here we are, about 75 centuries later, with labor leaders whining because federal employees were sent home - with pay - during the government shutdown. Unless Newt Gingrich somehow passes a budget that includes line items for federal pyramid construction, the labor leaders should get a grip.

Believe it or not, ancient Egyptians slept with their heads on Y-shaped, stone-carved ''pillows'' that look like portable-TV antennas from the Home Shopping Network, and would be illegal to use even in prisons today.

Yet the average ancient Egyptian still slept better than the residents of the White House will sleep after Whitewater Prosecutor Kenneth Starr issues his next round of indictments.

Egyptian legend tells the story of Osiris, who became so popular his jealous brother, Seth, dismembered him and scattered his body throughout the kingdom. Thousands of years later, that ancient legend is a remarkably accurate description of what President Clinton did to Newt Gingrich!

Did you know that ancient Egyptians believed that if you hollowed a king's body, put his heart and brains in jars, wrapped the corpse in gauze and dried it in the desert for centuries, the mummified remains could be reborn in the afterlife and run for president as Bob Dole?

Here in the final room of the exhibit is proof that there has always been and always will be a ''gender gap.'' Observe the 5,000-year-old wooden piece of a coffin, and notice that the biggest hieroglyph is a pair of shoes - open-toed, spaghetti-strap sandals, on sale at McAlpin's, to be exact.

That indicates it was a woman's coffin. If it had been part of a man's coffin, it would depict a pickup truck carrying beer, driven by John Madden.

(Memo to the Republican Party: If you want to sell that 15 percent tax cut, next time try adding shoe and beer deductions.)

And finally, did you know that the Egyptian civilization lasted 6,400 years - which is only slightly longer than President Clinton's victory speech?

Which brings us to the question that is on everyone's mind after this tour of the Women of Ancient Egypt: So what the heck did David Brinkley say?

Mr. Brinkley, who apparently thought he was off the air late Tuesday night, said: ''Bill Clinton has ... not a creative bone in his body. Therefore, he is a bore and always will be a bore.''

He called Mr. Clinton's victory speech ''one of the worst things I've ever heard,'' and predicted that Mr. Clinton's second term will give America ''more goddamned nonsense.''

I figure that someone who has covered every presidential election since 1956 knows what he's talking about, and he's exactly right.

Still, maybe Mr. Brinkley should take a stroll through an art museum.

Peter Bronson is editorial page editor of The Enquirer. If you have questions or comments, call 768-8301, or write to 312 Elm Street, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202.

Published Nov. 10, 1996.