After all, this is the nation’s ultimate judicial tribunal," Justice Felix Frankfurter once said of the Supreme Court.

Not anymore, it isn’t. Comes now a Washington Post survey revealing that the nation’s ultimate tribunal is Judge Joseph Wapner’s "People’s Court."

The numbers speak starkly: 54 percent of 1,005 randomly selected adults named Wapner when asked who presides over "The People’s Court," a television show that boasts more than 8 million viewers every weekday. Only 9 percent could name the chief justice of the United States, William Rehnquist. And when those surveyed were asked to list all the justices they could, only the first woman justice, Sandra Day O’Connor, broke out of single digits. She still lagged badly behind Judge Wapner.

In this country, recognition is power-and signs of the Court’s decline and demoralization are everywhere.

Justice Thurgood Marshall spends his afternoons chuckling over episodes of "The People’s Court" rather than slogging through the tedium of his own Court’s business, according to Time magazine. Rumor has it that many incoming Supreme Court law clerks are vying for clerkships with Wapner and will jump ship if he takes them.

And with everyone from President George Bush to the civil-rights lobby trashing recent Court decisions and pushing Congress to overrule them, we can see the justices’ authority draining like air from a leaky tire.

Just last week we had the spectacle of Bush whooping for a first amendment to the First Amendment in order to overturn the ruling that made the world safe for flag burners. Democrats in Congress are striving for parity in pandering to the public by proposing a new statute against flag desecration.

Wapner for Chief

At this rate, the Court’s decisions will soon command no more respect than a newspaper editorial, and the entire tripartite division of powers will come crashing down.

What is to be done to save this honorable Court?

First, Rehnquist should step down as chief, and Judge Wapner should be urged to take the job for the good of the country. Rehnquist is far more potent intellectually but about as telegenic as a telephone pole. We need to add some pizazz to the center chair. If Wapner won’t take such a big step downscale in pay and prominence, maybe Leland McKenzie of "L.A. Law" or Perry Mason will.

Next, bring back Warren Burger. He’s not in Wapner’s class as a legal mind, but the public loved that flowing white mane. He still looks every inch a chief justice, the duke of dignity. The current crowd just appears old and tired, except for Justice Byron White, who looks like he wants to hit someone, and Marshall, who looks like he has indigestion.

Besides, for all Burger’s railing against lawyers who advertise themselves like "dog food," he has shown a flair for show biz as chief celebrant of the Constitution’s bicentennial. One of his plans (unexecuted, sadly) was to print the preamble on millions of chain-restaurant place mats so people could ponder its profundities while munching Big Macs.

To make room for Burger, send White off to run one of those boot camps where they rehabilitate young drug toughs by grinding their noses in the dirt and calling them "maggots." He’d probably like that a lot more than being a justice anyway.

After 26 years on the bench, White has a three-percent recognition score. His ratings were better 52 years ago when he was an All-American running back-and he seems a bit sour about the loss of status. He scowls at people who call him "Whizzer" and glowers at people who don’t.

White won’t give the time of day to the tourists who stand in line to hear their Supreme Court expounding the law of the land. In No. 89-242, Smith v. Jones," he will announce, "for the reasons stated in an opinion that 1 have filed, we reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit. Justice Brennan has filed a dissenting opinion, joined by Justice Marshall.” That’s all, no more. The unspoken message: "You want to know what the case was about, maggots? Then go downstairs and stand in line for a copy of the opinion,”

Personnel changes, while essential, cannot alone rescue the Court from creeping obscurity. Fundamental institutional reforms are Imperative. Most essential is putting the Court on television. With no influence over either the sword or the purse, the Court cannot compete in the modern Washington power game without some sway over the sound bytes.

But simply to let the cameras into the Court as it now functions would be a disaster. With that still-life tableau of black-robed scarecrows perched up there listening to law talk as opaque to the average American as Jimmy Swaggart speaking in tongues, the oral arguments are an orgy of dullness. The novelty would soon wear off, the ratings would plummet, and the show would be pulled from the air, leaving the Court with about as much clout as Michael Dukakis has.

The justices must learn what Ronald Reagan proved: The business of America is show business. They must overhaul their operations from top to bottom:

• The Court should begin argument sessions with theme music, as "The People’s Court" does. That "oyez, oyez, oyez” bit could be retained for an air of quaintness, but it should be livened up with a little reggae or something.

• They should put more women up there. Nobody has held an audience with so many grumpy old guys playing opposite one woman since "Snow White."

• The justices should mix it up more in the Q and A and make some sparks fly. It could be as lively as "The McLaughlin Group” if all of them were as feisty us Justice Antonin Scalia

• Justices should go on programs such as the "Today Show" to tout their opinions the way writers flog their books. If they want impact, they have to hustle. Imagine Rehnquist taking on William Brennan Jr. over his flag-burning ruling: Rehnquist singing "The Star-Spangled Banner," Brennan quoting Justices Oliver Wendell Holmes and Louis Brandeis, and Bryant Gumbel or Phil Donahue standing ready to separate them in case they get carried away."

• The Court should join the deficit-spending party by giving money to all litigants and covering all damage awards. That’s how they do it on "The People’s Court." Why should anyone have to lose, as long as the treasury can print more money? After all, this is the budgetary principle on which the executive and legislative branches have been operating for years.

• Dump all those grim cases about abortion, reverse discrimination, and execution of 16-year-olds and retarded people. Americans don’t want to think about things like that. Move some palimony suits with big-name celebrities up there. Transfer hotel queen Leona Helmsley’s trial to the Supreme Court. Bring on Pete Rose to say whether he bet on baseball games. If a constitutional amendment expanding the original jurisdiction is necessary, make it a rider on the Bush flag-burner-bashing amendment.

• Knock off the "judicial restraint" stuff. Americans respect self-assertion, not self-restraint. Why defer to a bunch of legislators who themselves think of nothing but how to get on television and who rank below journalists and gravediggers in public esteem? Justice Frankfurter prattled endlessly about judicial restraint, but who has more fans, he or Judge Wapner? Did Dirty Harry get where he is by being restrained? Did John McEnroe? Madonna? Elvis? Ty Cobb? Pete Rose?

Looming in the background if the Court’s ratings fall further is the discipline of the marketplace. A certain New York real-estate developer is said to be poised to make a hostile tender offer. A takeover like that could create a lot of synergy. The reconstituted Court would make short work of rent-control laws; the parent company’s clout could move judicial product into media markets around the world.

Think of it. At the stroke of 10 each morning, nine telegenic men and women in magenta robes emerge from behind the velvet drapes, with "Trump’s Tribunal" emblazoned on their chests. Reagan, doing a stand-in as solicitor general, rises and makes an impassioned argument for burning flag-desecraters at the stake. Drums beat. Bugles blare, Cameras roll, It’s a sure hit.