A presidential election that goes into triple overtime. A Senate divided down the middle. A House riven with partisan tensions and personality conflicts. It is all the stuff of an Alan Drury novel. Only nobody is in the mood for taking advice, and nobody is likely to consent to much of anything.

That is the situation under which the 107th Congress was assembled. All of the certainties were uncertain, all of the isms were wasms. No Congress ever assembled under conditions of such upheaval. No capital Establishment ever fretted so much.

And yet the 107th Congress was cobbled together under blessed skies. There was no secession crisis, as Congress faced in 1861. There was no economic crisis, as Congress faced in 1933. There was no diplomatic tension, as Congress faced in 1941. There was no divisive war, as Congress faced in 1969.

This was at once the best set of circumstances Congress ever faced and the worst. It was the most challenging in terms of directioning the tensions that divide not only Republican from Democrat but also House from Senate, moderate from conservative, old-style from newfangled. But even partisans who cannot agree on much else acknowledged that the stakes facing the Congress in 2001 were, at best, modest.

Congress came together at a time of unprecedented economic health, when no threats abroad provided jitters at home, when no rivalries posed dangers to Americans. Nearly a decade of a roaring stock market had boosted the endowments of the nation's colleges and universities, shored up the finances of the nation's art and cultural institutions, even helped many charitable organizations whose focus is on the poor and the striving. Many of the crumbling bridges and roads that made the unwieldy phrase "infrastructure" part of the nation's political argot were under repair, or already repaired. It was smooth riding on the nation's byways.

There were issues and unmet needs, to be sure. The divide between rich and poor was still with us, and by some measures more troubling than ever. The gusher of opportunity did not flow in some urban neighborhoods, nor in some rural enclaves. But overall the nation was prosperous and the social indicators, including the crime rate, were positive.

And the challenges and crises that Congress girded itself to face? The sort of challenges and crises that burden a lucky nation - how to help underwrite the retirements of workers more than two decades away, how to cushion the blow of medical bills for older Americans in the future. The economic questions were similarly the problems of prosperity. A decade ago Congress and the White House were worrying about (and this was the inevitable phrase thrown about the capital) deficits as far as the eye could see. Washington now was worrying about what to do about its surpluses, and the two choices it faced were decidedly pleasant - cutting taxes, a perennial crowd pleaser; and paying down the national deficit, an exercise in economic prudence.

Even so, there was a rot at the heart of politics, and the Congress itself was in bad odor. The public's view of Congress was barely tolerant. Indeed, this was a time when Americans held Congress in far lower esteem than they did the other two branches of the federal government. Only one American in eight had a great deal of confidence in Congress. And a Gallup survey taken in the fall showed that the public, by a margin of 47 percent to 39 percent, preferred President Clinton's approach to policy to the approach taken by congressional leaders. This was an inauspicious start for a body that prides itself on being the closest to the people.

All those factors were in place before the presidential-election impasse, which set the stage for a political atmosphere that may have no precedent in history.

At stake here was no single issue, nor a single program, nor even a single presidential initiative, though none would be unaffected by the political atmosphere. At stake instead was the health of the political system in general. The specifics would have meant little even had either Governor George W. Bush or Vice President Albert Gore Jr. prevailed in a crisp, clean fashion. They meant even less when Congress convened. But the general question - the respect for political institutions, the vigor of our political system - was even more urgent under these conditions than it would have been before.

Politics, and thus Congress, faced a crisis of legitimacy that predated the presidential impasse but was reinforced by it. The public had a sense that politics was not a completely honest racket even before the phrase "dimpled chad" became a staple of the airwaves. Now that the seamy underside of politics has been exposed for all to see - not as a nostalgic

look at the world of the bosses of yore, but as a realistic look at how we live today - the factors that undermined America's confidence in its political institutions were stronger still.

And so was not Social Security, nor Medicare, nor missile defense, nor the Middle East, nor even the budget surplus that cast the long shadow over politics as the 107th Congress gathered. The factor that cast the longest shadow over politics was politics itself. And the problem that politics was asked to cure was politics itself. The most sobering advice Congress might hear in 2001 may be the simplest: Politicians, heal thyselves.