What We Know
There is still plenty we don't know about President Clinton's testimony Monday and how the scandal will play out-hence all the rumors winging their way around Washington--but there are a few things we know definitely. Here are three:

1) It will be proved without a doubt that the President had sex with Monica Lewinsky. Her testimony together with all the corroborating evidence-even without the dress--make for a nearly airtight case. Clinton defenders still insist that "we don't know" whether or not the president had sex with Lewinsky. But we don't know only in the sense that "we don't know" whether or not the sun will rise tomorrow morning: this is Bishop Berkley-style radical doubt in the service of a dishonest attempt to make an uncomfortable, but incontrovertible fact go away.

2) The president has perjured himself and will likely do so again. The possible defense floated in And if Clinton were to try to explain all this to the public he would be laughed out of town. Imagine his mea culpa speech: he might have to do it with charts and pointers to make all the various distinctions clear. So, Clinton is left with sticking to his story, which means lying. He may try to stiff Starr on detailed questions about his relations with Lewinsky-possibly braving a subpoena-as outlined in last week's Washington Bulletin but trying to thread the needle of the Times scenario-let alone telling the truth-isn't a real option.

3) The president has committed impeachable offenses . Whether or not he will get impeached is another question, but he has committed offenses that qualify him for impeachment. Every impeachment this century-of Nixon and various other officials and judges-has had to do with lying, under oath or otherwise. Clinton has done plenty of that (and remember, his blanket "that woman" denial to the nation didn't include the technical definition that applied in the deposition).

Also, in just having the affair with a young woman in his employ, he has committed an offense that would get any superintendent of a school canned, and that would earn commissioned and non-commissioned officers in the military time in Leavenworth. He has also spent seven months abusing his office in support of his lie (Ann Coulter outlines how impeachment was meant for just this sort of abuse of the office in her excellent new book High Crimes and Misdemeanors). It is a tawdry, disgusting spectacle, deeply demeaning to the office of the presidency. Whether or not he gets impeached, Clinton has already become our "so-called president."