So we've seen the faces and heard the voices the House Managers wanted us to see and hear. Have they solidified their case? In some ways, there have been some interesting questions raised. Why did Clinton need to remind Lewinsky about their cover story? The phone call on December 17^th is bad, although not as bad as the Republicans make it seem, as Clinton is well known for his late-night calls to aides, advisors, and friends. And I do believe Bill Clinton lied about why he asked those "questions" to Betty Currie. I also believe he lied about why he asked Vernon Jordan to find Monica a job.

This is what I think happened regarding Lewinsky and the others: Clinton's people, both Bill's and Hillary's, wanted her out of the White House. They knew who she was, and if they didn't know what she was, they were pretty sure they did. They moved her out of the White House to the Pentagon to get her away from the President -- a move dripping with irony, as that's where she became close friends with Linda Tripp. She still managed to get back in the building, so they convinced Clinton that she was trouble. What do you do with someone whose presence is a problem? You get rid of them. In the Mafia, they sleep with the fishes, in government circles, you get them a job far away. He called Vernon Jordan well before the testimony became an issue, he called Bill Richardson too, and I'm confident the push accelerated, not out of fear of her testimony (she had already lied about their relationship with the affidavit) but because they wanted her out of Washington. Publicly, Clinton talked about how he helped her because she was a fine young lady, Hillary referred to it as "ministering to troubled youth". I seriously doubt that's true, yet I find it just about as hard to believe that he was trying to get her away from the grand jury.

As for the Betty Currie questions, I think he lied to the Grand Jury about that, too. Just as with Jordan, I think the real reason was too unpalatable for public pronouncement. Those questions were checking what she knew, not to "refresh his memory", but to check hers, so that he could tailor his own story. In fact, all of Clinton's activities, not just in this affair but in most of his private/political life boils down to this simple assessment: what lies will work?

I know this isn't a ringing endorsement of him or his Presidency. I don't think it's necessarily grounds for impeachment. I'm not going to restate the things I have written over the last few months, Unfaithful Servant gives you a good overview of my opinion of Clinton.

On the other hand, he did not take Monica's life and "throw it on the ash heap," as the managers claimed. He was rather circumspect about their relationship, if her reputation, and by extension, her life, was thrown on an ash heap, it was Tripp, Starr, and friends who did the throwing.

The Sidney Blumenthal affair is fascinating. How on earth is lying to a friend or associate a crime? He's not under oath when telling about those things. He's responsible to make sure that anybody who might conceivably be a witness, or might talk to a witness, knows the whole truth? If there is legal precedent for that being the case, jury nullification seems called for. As for the "stalker" quote, as Blumenthal tells it, Clinton was repeating what others had said about her. In fact, his source for that was Monica herself.

The Republican Managers have been shameless in shading facts, ignoring testimony which contradicts their case, and engaging in mind-reading to reinforce their general case for obstruction. In fact, in the ultimate judgement, they have taken a piffle and made the proverbial "federal case" of it, indeed, the ultimate federal case.

At its heart, this is indeed a piffle, a trivial affair covered by lies. There has to be a difference between lying about your motives in covering up embarrassment, with lying about something that affects the nation. You can try and make a mountain out of a molehill, but it's hard work and requires a lot of sand. In this case, the House just decided to call the molehill a mountain and send it to the Senate. The House Managers tried to bring in the sand, but the Senators saw it as the molehill that it was.