The Senate was designed to judge the case on the legal merits, protected from public passions by its six-year terms; yet in the end the Senators accepted the fact that the public had reached a complex decision to tolerate Clinton's conduct, and groped their way through the law and politics and duty to find a way to honor the people's will.

In the process some blurry principles came into focus. For years debate has raged over which conduct is public and relevant, which is private and protected. One after another, in the effort to prove they were being prosecutors, not Puritans, Republicans declared that the private aspect of Clinton's misconduct was no one's business, certainly not the Senate's. If the media get the message, the country will be happy to move on. Similarly, the culture of investigation that created Ken Starr with his searchlights and Bill Clinton with his Dobermans has been examined under bright lights, and so surely we will look for a better way to hold politicians accountable without holding them hostage.

The Senate today is a different place from what it was six weeks ago, before what Bob Kerrey calls its "confinement" during the 37-day trial. Senators these days are free agents: they talk to cameras, not one another. But during the trial's last week, when the TV lights and microphones were turned off, that slowly changed, and the members became like neighbors who take down the fences after the floodwaters have swept the whole town away. They turned to one another and had an argument unlike any other in their experience: pointed, passionate and thoroughly private. On Friday, once the vote was taken, Tom Daschle and Trent Lott reached across the aisle and shook hands. "We did it," said the Democratic leader as his counterpart slapped him on the back. "We sure did," responded Lott. There were thumbs flying high and backs thumped and hugs all around as the Senators filed out.

Reflecting later on the new mood, a bone-weary Lott told a few reporters, "We've gotten to know each other better as people, as individuals rather than Senator So-and-So from Minnesota or Senator So-and-So from Alabama. There's been a lot of holding of hands and slapping on backs and nuzzling of each other and trying to keep this from breaking out into a really nasty affair." Newly bonded, the Senators are hopeful. "It doesn't mean we won't get into fusses over tax policy or farm policy or foreign policy or whatever," Lott added, "but I think we will be a little less quick to question the other's motives or to publicly be critical of each other."

Questions

1. What verdict did the Senate reach in its trial of Bill Clinton? To what extent does the verdict reflect public opinion?

2. How did the trial change the Senate?

Answers

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