Starr Report: Too Hot to Handle

WASHINGTON: When Ken Starr's 36 House guests arrived Wednesday, unannounced and two days early, their Republican hosts had an understandable reaction -- lock them in a room until all the beds get made. TIME political editor Priscilla Painton says that while the two 18-box sets of raw scandal data languish in that sealed room in the Ford office building, the report looks leakproof, and "the process by which House members decide what to do with it may be as important as what's in it."

That process will include a resolution by the Henry Hyde-led Judiciary Committee, scheduled to be hammered out Thursday, and full House debate, perhaps as early as Friday. In the meantime, Starr spokesman Charles Bakaly sounded happy to be rid of it. "We have fulfilled our duty," he said, "by providing substantial and credible information that may constitute grounds for the impeachment of the President of the United States." Not surprisingly, the ever-terse David Kendall disagreed. "We do know this," he answered. "There is no basis for impeachment." That judgment, of course, will be made by 435 politically queasy House members who, given their druthers, would probably leave their new guests locked up until January.