The Main Event
Dismaying as Newt Gingrich's comments were earlier this week on raising the bar for impeachment-Republican leadership offices got an earful from an upset conservative base this week-the Speaker and all Republicans are really a sideshow to the main event: Democrats. If Democrats stick with him, Clinton survives. Think about it: What major partisan battle have Republicans won over the last three years? They're not about to win a fight over ousting a duly elected president. But if the Democrats abandon ship, the president is doomed. Indeed, the most important development this week was the increasing signs of Democratic shakiness. "They're scared s---less," says one top GOP congressional aide. For now, it seems that Democrats are in a holding pattern until the Starr report arrives. If it is devastating for the president, they will likely begin abandoning him to save their own skins. With talk in Washington about Republicans picking up 30 seats, the only indicator that ever really mattered to congressional Democrats-their own well being-is beginning to take a downward turn. Congressional Democrats have never owed much to the president anyway. Soon enough, they may begin some triangulating of their own.

Bad Dream
Anyone who doubts Bill Clinton's enormous talent at corrupting everything he touches should have watched his remarks on the thirty-fifth anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. He explained that one of the lessons of the civil-rights movement concerned "forgiveness." Nelson Mandela had taught him about forgiveness, too. And then: "I'm having to become quite an expert in this business of asking for forgiveness." And added that "in these last days, it [had] come home to [him], again. . . that in order to get it, you have to be willing to give it"--surely not the most felicitous phrase ever to issue from this president's lips. (By the way, who exactly is Clinton supposed to be forgiving?)

The president's affair is just like the fight to end Jim Crow, isn't it?

Bad Dream II
He actually started the speech by thanking Anita Hill!

In Case You Missed It
We're not in the habit of reading Judy Mann's ridiculous column in the Washington Post, so we're grateful to Amy Holmes of the Independent Women's Forum for bringing to our attention Patricia Ireland's remarks in Wednesday's edition. The president of NOW explains that she worries that Clinton's scandals will help "the right wing [to] tighten their stranglehold on Congress and the states" this November. After spinning her wheels for a while, she concludes, "I'm going to want to see what happens in the 1998 elections. If they are a disaster like 1994, we may all have a different outlook." So there you have it: the issue isn't whether Clinton abused Monica Lewinsky or obstructed justice, it's whether he can save Barbara Boxer's Senate seat. This may be demanding too much of our Bill. But it's exactly the kind of calculation you'd expect--from a Democratic congresswoman.