The Week

■ Newt Gingrich woke up the day after the election and found a dinosaur head next to his pillow.

■ The case for impeachment has not lost force since the elections, but the momentum behind it has. Since the House looks unlikely to impeach and the Senate even less likely to convict, many Republicans are tempted to let the issue die in the Judiciary Committee. If they do, they will have decided, in effect, that there are no charges that might possibly warrant indictment of President Clinton—that the House should not consider asking the Senate to consider the charges, indeed that the charges should not even be drawn up. The alternative would be to risk an honorable defeat in a vote of the full House. That way congressmen, and the Republican Party corporately, could go on record defending the rule of law, which might, after all, come back in fashion. And an up-or-down vote on impeachment would be far better than a pointless, and probably unconstitutional, resolution of censure. The most unsatisfactory outcome would be to weaken the presidency for the sake of this president.

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William F. Buckley Jr.

■ Newt Gingrich woke up the day after the election and found a dinosaur head next to his pillow.

■ The case for impeachment has not lost force since the elections, but the momentum behind it has. Since the House looks unlikely to impeach and the Senate even less likely to convict, many Republicans are tempted to let the issue die in the Judiciary Committee. If they do, they will have decided, in effect, that there are no charges that might possibly warrant indictment of President Clinton—that the House should not consider asking the Senate to consider the charges, indeed that the charges should not even be drawn up. The alternative would be to risk an honorable defeat in a vote of the full House. That way congressmen, and the Republican Party corporately, could go on record defending the rule of law, which might, after all, come back in fashion. And an up-or-down vote on impeachment would be far better than a pointless, and probably unconstitutional, resolution of censure. The most unsatisfactory outcome would be to weaken the presidency for the sake of this president.