It's easy to enter an intellectual coma on the last day of exams (or even earlier) and sleep through the summer without ever picking up a newspaper or watching the evening news. So in case you missed Dan Rostenkowski's stamp-gate, the White House's suicide-gate, Ross Perot's talk-show-gate, General John Shalikashvili's Nazi-gate and Jesse Helm's Dixie-gate, here are the highlights of the summer of 1993.

June

Three-time Republican advisor David Gergen came to work his charm on a White House that blamed a "lurch to the left" rather than incompetence and arrogance for President Clinton's dramatic descent into Gallup Poll hell.

At a time when most people were embarrassed to admit they had any ties to the president, Clinton half-brothers and half-sisters began to appear almost daily.

With the genocide in Bosnia worsening, the U.S. decided it was time to fight for democracy abroad--by punishing Iraq for an alleged assassination attempt on George Bush. Though Americans were assured that the bombs targeted only an Iraqi intelligence building, newspaper stories of dead civilians soon abounded.

Another campaign promise went the way of NASA's Mars probe when Clinton decided to renew China's most-favored-nation trade status with the U.S., though he insisted on human rights progress in the future. To prove how seriously they take Clinton's threats, the Chinese sentenced a journalist to life imprisonment for giving a Hong Kong newspaper an advance copy of an official speech. Meanwhile, Beijing celebrated the growing freedom in China with a bid to host the 2000 Olympics.

July

Clinton accompanied the march of midget leaders to Tokyo, behaving like a rock star for the Japanese crowds, while Hillary was uncharacteristically submissive and silent. In an election later that month, the Japanese responded to Clinton-esque calls for change and threw the Liberal Democratic Party rascals out.

In typical Clinton style, the president angered both homosexuals and military bigots with a don't-ask-don't-even-think-about-it "compromise" that keeps gays in the closet but gives them a peephole. In a policy consistent with the inconsistency that has become a military trademark, homosexual soldiers will be allowed to tell people they're gay, as long as they then can prove they were only kidding.

Media conspiracy buffs saw something sinister in the fact that Clinton initially said he had no idea why Vince Foster shot himself, and then--like anyone whose friend commits suicide--remembered things that in hindsight could be seen as warning signals.

The White House avoided complying with U.S. immigration laws by bullying Mexico into dealing with a boatload of Chinese refugees. Exhibiting the same hostility toward immigrants that Americans have denounced in Germany (and demonstrating the same there's-a-constitutional-amendment-for-every-contr oversy attitude that brought us the flag burning amendment and the balanced budget amendment), California Gov. Pete Wilson proposed to change the U.S. Constitution so that being born in America would no longer automatically make people American.

Carol Moseley Braun embarrassed the Senate and persuaded over 30 senators to reverse their earlier vote to renew a patent on the Confederate flag. An angry and increasingly immature Jesse Helms threatened to sing Dixie until Sen. Moseley Braun cried, and then challenged her credentials as a genuine descendant of slaves. No one investigated Helms' own lineage to see if he is a genuine descendant of slaveowners.

Ruth Bader Ginsberg bored the nation and charmed the Senate on her way to being confirmed as the second woman Supreme Court Justice. Since no one ever thought this frail woman would face Clarence Thomas-like allegations, her nomination lacked the suspense and excitement we've come to expect.

After tripping on a curb and breaking his arm in front of television cameras, William Sessions was further humiliated by becoming the first FBI director ever to be fired by the president. The appointment of Louis Freeh to replace him excited some FBI agents so much they delayed their plans to retire so they could serve under their former colleague for a while.

President Clinton nominated the son of a Nazi to replace a charismatic homophobe as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.