Impeachment: Which Way Out?

Can we be spared a trial? House Republicans had been offering the President a way out for weeks: Confess that you lied under oath, they said, and we'll let you off with censure. The President never bit, in part because the White House smelled a GOP trap: Admit to perjury and get prosecuted for it the moment you leave office. Even though the White House has argued that no prosecutor would bring perjury charges on what Clinton is alleged to have done, an admission would be like waving a red cape before Ken Starr. And while few believe Clinton could be prosecuted for statements made in the Paula Jones case (even the House voted down this charge), a stronger case could be made that the President lied before the gand jury.

In Monday's New York Times, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter offered another option: Admit you lied, and the Senate will promise to make the statements inadmissible in court. There's no immediate indication that Senators would agree. A bigger hurdle might be convincing Clinton, who is reportedly against any such admission of guilt because he genuinely believes that he did not lie in any of his testimony. That, of course, would be the ultimate irony: that this man, who has been know to closely shave the truth, would not be able to say something that he believed to be a lie -- even to save his own skin.