Why did the chicken cross the Atlantic? How else would Bill Clinton get to Europe? Welcome to the mean world of American political humor, where most of the jokes are drafted to fit onto a T-shirt or a bumper-sticker.


There has been an extraordinary explosion of this politicana since the election year which put Clinton into the White House. There are now three shops in Washington that sell the right-wing political stuff, and the back pages of American magazines team with their classified ads and the booming cottage industry of mail order.


"I Love Animals ... They're Delicious" is one of the top sellers for a firm called The Right Stuff. They offer a full range of conservative prejudices, including the T-shirt -- "If it's worth reading, it was probably written by a dead white male."


Their classic garment states: "Christian. American. Heterosexual. Pro-life. Right-wing. Conservative. Any Questions?"


They sell the Clinton wrist-watch, which runs backwards, and "Teddy Kennedy for Lifeguard" T-shirts, and the right wing's ultimate insult: "Your mother dates Kennedys." The next Presidential election year is a slogan in itself. "Is it 1996 yet?" asks a plaintive bumper-sticker. "Hope ain't in Arkansas -- it's in 1996" affirms another. And the right-wing looks back, with T-shirts of Ronald Reagan's face and the slogan "Remember when America had a Real President."


In Clinton's first year, most of their targets were conventional politics. "I want my own doctor -- not Hillary's" or "Health care expensive now? Wait until they make it free," and that old faithful "If you like the Postal Service, you'll love socialized medicine."


But there was always a personal edge to the anti-Clinton stuff, partly because of the evasion of the Vietnam draft and "I didn't inhale," partly because of the bimbo-eruptions of the campaign. "If Hillary can't trust him, why should we?" was a campaign-year foretaste of the nastiness to come.


"From a chicken in every pot, to a chicken smokin' pot" and "Clinton loathes the military -- it's mutual!!!" are offerings from a Missouri-based mail order company called Vietnam Vets. Nothing so oblique for The Patriot Company of Connecticut, whose bumper-sticker asserts "Clinton is a sleazy scumbag. And a lousy President."


"Smoke Dope, Dodge Draft, Cheat Wife, Become President -- the New American Way" is a characteristic offering from The Rascal's T-Shirt company of Texas. But now they are getting serious, with "Two Terms for Clinton -- one in office, one in jail."


Clinton-haters can take their pick from "Stop Socialism -- Impeach Clinton," or "From White House to Jail House in less than four years." The anti-feminism which runs through the anti-Clinton movement finds its expression in "Impeach the President -- and jail Bill too."


If that is too subtle, you can make do with "Impeach BilLARY."


After all this, it comes as a relief to visit Washington's Politically Correct Clothing store, where the cotton is picked by contented peasants and no garment is so white that it leaked bleach into the ecosphere. But there was not much comfort for the beleaguered President in the left's T-shirt retort to the rash of conservative slogans -- "Sure you can trust the government. Just ask a Whale. Or an Indian."