The next time Congress and the White House hold a sleep-over, as they did this weekend, we hope they’ll draw the drapes. There are some things innocent taxpayers should not have to watch.

In polite society, the wheeling and dealing on behalf of fast track is called horse-trading. But the frenzy, the blatant lust, made it more resemble the type of naughty transaction that is the purview of police vice squads. With the public’s money on the pillow.

This development, while revolting, should not surprise, given that the political pimping was done in tandem by President Clinton and Speaker Gingrich. When such strange bedfellows hook up, unnatural acts are sure to follow.

Everything was for sale, for the price of a fast track vote. Every lawmaker with a home-state interest to boost — from peanuts to beef cattle — got something.

North Carolina got a promise of White House support for tobacco subsidies and immunity from health-related lawsuits. Mississippi furniture makers got backing for tax breaks on the lodgings they rent during trade shows. Democrats got pledges for presidential hand-holding during their next campaigns should anti-fast track labor leaders hold a grudge.

North Dakota dealt for a get-tough policy on Canadian wheat. Georgia for relief from the scourge of foreign peanuts and Florida produce from alien avocados. California wine can breathe easier. Apparently, the irony that fast track, in theory at least, is about knocking down barriers to international trade was lost on some.

Coming up for air midway through this orgy of influence-peddling, the president went on Sunday morning television to reassure a prudish nation that his search for fast track votes “will not lead to a sacrifice of principle.” Supply your own punch line.

Gingrich, at least, was more straightforwardly mercantile, saying chances for fast track passage were “even money or better.”

It was inevitable that the time-honored, roguishly dignified practice of log-rolling would become brazen hustling. After all, an entire summer of hearings on campaign-finance abuses really yielded only one uncontestable finding, stated with a certain degree of bad-as-we-want-to-be insolence by members of both parties: “We all do it.”

Still, some within the Beltway are shocked at this unabashedly slutty behavior. A new aide to a California Democrat, maintaining anonymity on account of not wanting to get reassigned to the mail room, told reporters of a call he received from an administration official. “He asked, `What do you want? The blue light is on.’ Odd, we always thought red was the traditional color.