If a citizen could introduce a piece of legislation, I'd propose a bill requiring every public official or political candidate to watch the "Seinfeld" episode on double-dipping.

I'd introduce my bill at every level of government -- city, county, state, federal.

Maybe I'd let them all off easy and screen only the crucial 10 seconds -- where a man confronts George Costanza at a funeral buffet -- because I know our public servants can't spare much time from their heavy schedule of fleecing the public.

They'd only need to see this rebuke aimed at George: "You dipped, you ate half the chip, and then you dipped again."

Though not invented by Seinfeld, the term "double-dipping" became a catchphrase overnight. Amateurs, for once, agreed with etiquette and hygiene experts: Going for maximum dip with only one chip is greedy, gross and disrespectful of others.

This 1993 episode is, if you believe what you see on the Internet, still educating dipping novices everywhere, but the rule on refraining from that second, tainted dip has somehow bypassed many of the people who run for political office. They are double-dipping all over the place.

Often the multiple dips share a name: Flaherty, Costa, Zappala, DeFazio. Although sometimes the problem is one family dipping a shared chip into the public bowl, sometimes it's the same person helping himself over and over. In some well-connected families, it's both.

Recent articles on city politics have noted that Mayor O'Connor's right-hand man and former cousin-in-law, Dennis Regan, lives with the mayor's longtime aide, Marlene Cassidy. That's no problem: Plenty of political couples have met in the line of duty.

But in February, the mayor appointed Mr. Regan to head the housing authority board. Weeks later the housing authority hired Ms. Cassidy's son, and the water and sewer authority hired her daughter.

I'm not saying the fix is in; I'm just saying that's an awful lot of dip on one chip.

Attention, politicians: We voters don't care how big your chip is, or that you insist your mouth and fingers didn't touch the part that went back into the communal bowl. When we see you dip the second time, we're going to assume it's a dirty process. It's up to you to prove otherwise.

Remember the (muted) outcry when incoming county Executive Dan Onorato appointed campaign contributor Charles Zappala, uncle of the district attorney, to not one but two regional boards? Now Mr. Zappala, a venture capitalist and donor to Mr. O'Connor's campaign, is a partner in Harrah's bid to bring a slots parlor to Station Square. That bid bodes so ill for 'Burgh traffic that its selection will smack of one incredibly Big Dip.

Last month a hue and cry went up when it was revealed that a lobbyist's under-age children were "partners" in a firm seeking to supply slots machines to Pennsylvania casinos. Double-dipping! the public complained. Not so, said state gaming officials, because the lobbyist wouldn't benefit from his children's lucrative contract.

Extreme Analogy Warning: In other words, though the lobbyist's chip was being dipped, the food wasn't going into his mouth. (Yeah, it didn't make sense the way the gaming board said it either.)

State legislators double-dipped with abandon until last summer's stealth pay raise. Public outrage was so great that some of them set down their chips voluntarily and others had theirs forcibly removed in the primaries.

Dynastic double-dipping began at the federal level with the Adamses, John and John Quincy, and continued, more or less, with the Harrisons and Roosevelts.

George Bush's many detractors warned the nation that we'd come to regret this latest batch of dips. I'm sure those seers feel the same trepidation with the Clintons.

If you know your "Seinfeld," you recall that George Costanza, when corrected, was defiant. He flagrantly triple-dipped. (Jeb Bush, anyone? Chelsea Clinton?)

We the people sadly expect the same disregard, but once in a while we get fed up. If our politicos watched the whole Seinfeld episode, they'd know that George's triple-dipping cost him a girlfriend. Sometimes we inflict a price on dastardly dippers. Just ask Pennsylvania's jobless payjackers.

An editing error in last Monday's column distorted a pivotal paragraph. It should have read: "Though bipartisan dissatisfaction with the Bush administration is at an all-time high, scarcely half of the Democratic voters in Connecticut thought support for "the Bush war" was reason enough to force [Lieberman] from office."