Last week I lamented the media’s poor coverage of the Olympic games and the overkill of such mundane subjects as politics, but I’ve got to slightly renege on my complaint this week.

Forget Greg Louganis, Seoul and the shotput…just for a while.

The biggest Olympic-class sport of the season is almost upon us: George “Ronnie’s Heir-Apparent” Bush versus Michael “Duke, Just Like John Wayne” Dukakis in the Great Presidential Debates!

Yes, I know that devoting any substantial portion of television viewing to politics during the next couple of weeks will totally contradict all that I pontificated about in my last column. But look at it this way—this could be the only two-hour period that you’ll (hopefully) hear the presidential candidates respond to questions about their platforms with answers about their platforms, instead of allegations of how crooked their opponent is.

That would be an ideal situation, of course. It seems the temptation among candidates for higher office is to constantly duck the acknowledgement of your own incompetency by referring to that of the other guy. Or you can simply create your own diversions out of thin air.

The 1988 campaigns have been filled with plenty of these less-than-substantive issues.

Dukakis and the Democrats have made “Where was George?” their anthem, asking where the vice president was while things were cooking in the Reagan administration.

Bush has called Dukakis a false environmentalist, pointing to the dinginess of Duke’s Boston Harbor. Not long after that, GOP vice presidential candidate Dan Quayle picked up on this and nicknamed Dukakis “Alibi Mike” for his dodging of Boston Harbor questions.

Speaking of artful dodgers, the biggest flap of ‘88 so far has been the question of Quayle’s service in the National Guard during Vietnam. Was he a big weenie? Or a smart sunuvagun for staying out of Nam like so many other kids would have done if they’d had the chance?

This is just a sampling of the endless 1988 mudslinging and, unfortunately, it’s typical of most political campaigns.

Everyone who reads mudslinging in the newspaper, hears it on the radio or sees it on T.V. bitches about it—”Why don’t the candidates turn their attention away from each other and toward the issues? I’d understand a lot more about politics if the candidates actually discussed politics!”

If the people who make these complaints are sincere in what they say, they’ll watch the debates this Sunday night.

The presidential candidates realize there’s too much at stake to blow off the debates. For example, in 1976 the debate microphones went dead for 20 minutes or so. Did Gerald Ford or Jimmy Carter so much as look at each other or ask for a glass of water? No way! They stood stock still, staring straight ahead. (How’s that for alliteration?)

The candidates know there are 400 bazillion people watching on T.V. and any “wrong” move could be the kamikaze beginning of a presidential hopeful’s end. That in itself should prod them to give fairly straight answers to questions regarding their political stances.

This has seemed an amazingly lackluster election year so far. If you’re like me—and hopefully you aren’t in too many ways—you haven’t yet been able to decide how to vote on Nov. 8. Don’t fret—we’re part of a large group of Americans, wandering aimlessly through the wasteland of political mud and empty-sounding campaign promises. I’m kind of counting on Sunday night to help me make up my mind.

Here are a few lines from Paul Simon (the singer, not the Illinois senator) that seem sarcastically appropriate for the moment:

Sitting on the sofa on a Sunday afternoon

going to the candidates’ debate

laugh about it, shout about it, when you have to choose

any way you look at it you lose.