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The other concern is honesty. Independent prosecutor Kenneth Starr may be abusing his office by forcing Clinton and others either to reveal their darkest secrets or commit perjury. But the lie of the adulterous pol is more than just perjury under oath. Politicians lie when they create a false picture of themselves as devoted family men when they are not. (Sometimes the wives are victims, and sometimes they are co-conspirators in cuckolding the voters.) You may not care whether they are devoted family men, but what does this lie say about their overall willingness to deceive you?
Anyway, the correct test is not whether the journalist cares but whether the citizenry cares. The test for the journalist should not be, "Would I vote against the guy because he may be messing around with a 21-year-old in the West Wing?" The test should be, "Do I think a significant fraction of my readers or viewers might vote against the guy because he may be messing around with a 21-year-old in the West Wing?" It seems the answer may well be no. Thus a final twist: because the public won't "misuse" this information, the press no longer needs to feel tempted to suppress it. But for the same reason--political irrelevance--the press may no longer be justified in reporting it.
We'll know the rules have changed if the Monica Lewinsky tale is confirmed, or at least never convincingly disproved, and Clinton survives. Is it possible that an episode as intense as this one can just fade away without fundamentally changing anything? Sure. Remember the Gulf War? (Correct answer: Just barely.) Remember how quickly it faded? And remember how it was supposed to make George Bush invincible--just as the current psychodrama is supposed to make Clinton unsalvageable?
It's possible, even probable at the moment, that Clinton will neither be forced out of office nor even be seriously crippled by this sordid and comic drama. And if that happens--whatever you may think about it--at least we won't have to take any more world-weary guff from the French.