Is There A Way Out?

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At this crucial moment it is not clear that anyone with stature also has the means and the will to nail down a deal. Early last week Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, a friend of Starr's, tried to lay the foundation; he spent 20 minutes on the phone with Clinton, and though he didn't speak to Starr, has a good sense of how the guy ticks. Hatch imagined that the country might be spared a year of unnecessary public hanging if Clinton confessed more publicly and contritely than before, if the House agreed to a censure, and if Starr could somehow be compelled to bless the deal. But this attempt at arbitration did not go far before Hatch's more conservative Senate colleagues rebuked him in private for his attempt at peacemaking. Though there is considerable risk of reprisal from his own party, Hatch says he won't stop trying.

Hyde and Speaker Gingrich have it within their power to call a truce, but that's not in their interest. The problem here is that everything is already going their way: Republicans now talk of winning 15 to 20 new seats in November, a prospect that has the faithful and the financiers wanting to barbecue Clinton for at least a few more weeks. The party's social-conservative flank, meanwhile, is opposed to mercy on ideological grounds, determined that the President must be spanked and spanked hard. But if the G.O.P. drags Clinton's carcass around the arena too many more times, the favorable trend in the polls will come to an abrupt halt. And so the Speaker sits tight, sounding statesmanlike, careful not to overplay his hand. If the release of the videotape doesn't backfire this week, all he has to do is hang on through Election Day, betting that a bigger margin in the House next year will give him more leverage with the President's lawyers after November.

Even if the Wise Men can agree on a deal, they still have to sell it to the man it is designed to save. There is no visible evidence that Clinton has learned much from all this, other than the need to demonstrate conspicuously that he has learned something from it. Like any negotiator, he won't give up anything now that he can use later to extract concessions. He has stopped telling his friends that a censure deal is out of the question. He may drop the legal jitterbugging, but he's not ready to admit that he lied in either of his testimonies. That can come later. "Why should he give up perjury now if that's where we want to end up?" said one presidential associate.

For all the moist apologies of the past month, Clinton's conduct is a more reliable measure of his mood than his shaded confessions. He has argued that his actions are good for our children, as he sets an example on seeking forgiveness, good for our families and, most recently, good for his party. As he told donors at a Democratic dinner in New York City, Democrats should be grateful for his disgrace, because "adversity" is good for turnout and fund raising. Most important, he is still torturing the language and the law. As a White House aide explains it, he knew what he was doing, and not doing, with Monica, and feels that he acted, and answered, so that he was indeed legally accurate. "He will go to his grave believing he didn't perjure himself," says the aide.