Is There A Way Out?

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Every other day, the White House runs up to the Hill with a new poll showing that voters overwhelmingly favor the President's agenda, that they don't care about his sex life and that they don't want him to leave office. But you can hardly blame Democrats for being unconvinced that any of this matters to them. "About a million gallons of toxic waste have been dumped on the soil," says a senior Democratic aide on Capitol Hill. "Yeah, you're measuring the groundwater right now, but that stuff's seeping in."

Even before the release of the Clinton videotape and its endless companion volumes, the prospect of an impeachment inquiry had become all but certain, and once the process happens, even Democratic elders predict, Clinton faces a 75% chance that he will be impeached by the full House and put on trial in the Senate. Now, they warn, the shape of the deal will be changing with each day that passes. He still has a chance of being sanctioned in exchange for immunity. But as this drags out, the price of immunity goes up, Republicans say. Already, the no-quarter wing has said that protection can be exchanged for one thing only: resignation.

--Reported by Jay Branegan, John F. Dickerson, Karen Tumulty and Michael Weisskopf/Washington