Molly Ivins February 11

SAN DIEGO, Calif. — Never have so many made so much of so little. Bottom line: There is no impeachment case against President Clinton — never was and never will be.

According to Monica Lewinsky, testifying for the 25th time, lying in her deposition in the Paula Jones case was her own idea because she considered her affair none of anybody else's business. She was not promised a job or anything else, nor was help in getting the job a reward for her deposition. She got help because she was, in her words, making a pest of herself.

Which is not to say that Clinton didn't lie in his deposition in the Jones case; he most demonstrably did. However, it was on precisely that count that the House declined to impeach him because, in the memorable words of one Republican, "That was an understandable effort to protect his wife and daughter."

Of course, perjury is not trivial, but since 1) the perjury was committed during immaterial testimony in a case that was dismissed by the judge as baseless; 2) the case was brought by his political enemies to begin with; and 3) the perjury was not designed to conceal illegal conduct, I think Clinton should have been treated like any other citizen caught in such an act of folly. In other words, he should have gotten a slap on the wrist.

When Mark Fuhrman committed perjury in the middle of a major murder trial, he was fined $200. So Clinton should have been fined, say, $100, his political foes could have held him up to moral obloquy forevermore, and the rest of us could have gotten on with business.

But no. In the longest-running act of political insanity and ill-advised vindictiveness since Sam Houston was run out of Austin, these obsessive Clinton-haters have made the original sinner in the case look good by comparison.

Anyone who thinks Clinton "got away" with something in this case because he's president should understand that no one has ever been treated like this for perjury in a civil suit. If Clinton had been Joe Doaks, he would have been shed of this more than a year ago. Only because he is president and has such relentless political enemies has he been subjected to this extraordinary legal harassment.

From the beginning, the public has said it did not want to know about Clinton's sex life, did not need to know about Clinton's sex life and considers Clinton's sex life none of our business. How it ever got to be the subject of this insane legal proceeding is not so much beyond human comprehension as it is the consequence of miserable political judgment — entirely understandable when you consider that House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, the Texas bug exterminator, was the chief strategist and driving force behind the impeachment proceedings.

But long before DeLay was able to lend his own peculiar brand of shrewdness to the endeavor (DeLay is the guy who convinced Newt Gingrich to shut down the government) came Kenneth Starr.

And what are we to make of Starr's legal judgment, not to mention his performance in toto? At last report, he was once again investigating himself because yet another little elf in his office had once more leaked an interesting tidbit designed to influence the proceedings.

And can you believe the media mavens? They are still on the air, burbling away; not a single one of them has had the decency to apologize for having wasted everyone's time with this pathetic pile of nothing.

John McLaughlin was so indignant about the treachery of Senate Republicans for failing to convict Clinton that he could barely speak coherently.

Chris Matthews — who along with the rest of the Washington press corps has been consistently wrong in his every prediction throughout the proceedings — was still there trying to predict what the final Senate vote would be. (Note to newsies: Could we, like, get out of this silly crystal ball gig and get back to reporting news?) The Sabbath gas bags outdid themselves in their 180-degree switcheroos — amazingly enough, they all knew all along that it would turn out this way.

The most obvious thing about the Senate proceeding is that the president's lawyers skunked the House managers. Anyone who's ever covered courts, or for that matter watched Judge Judy, can tell you that the president's team was classier, sounder and mercifully more low-key (except for Dale Bumpers' show-and-tell on what old-fashioned oratory sounded like). That was some lawyering.

Frankly, it would be hard not to look like Solomon in comparison to Rep. Bob Barr, who urged senators to "strike down these insidious cancers poisoning future generations of children, poisoning our country's justice system and perhaps even poisoning future generations of political leaders."

This entire mess is a monument to the damage that can be done by an overzealous prosecutor. It has been widely predicted that Republicans will now engage in a search for someone to blame for this mess — and if the media had any shame, they too would be looking for someone to blame for their performance.

The obvious culprit is Starr, but rather than dumping this whole disgusting episode at his door, both the Republicans and the media need to ask why they allowed themselves to be used by him. Where did their judgment fail?

Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. To find out more about Molly Ivins and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

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