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Starr's report was so novelistic that reading it had the effect of redrawing the characters we have watched now for so long. It is above all Monica's story, breathless, girlish, reckless, clueless. And yet it was Clinton who had the most to lose: Monica's popularity ratings have been close to the single digits for months, while the President, riding a muscular market and peaceable times, seemed invulnerable to redefinition no matter how lurid the rumors of his personal conduct. But that was a judgment made about a public man: Starr has now introduced his wanton private shadow, and asks us to reckon with both. There is Clinton, servicing a major donor on the phone as Monica lurks nearby. There he is plotting chance encounters in the hall so he and Monica could slip into the private study, while indirectly warning the men who guard him that indiscretion will cost them their jobs.
For all of Lewinsky's fantasies of a blossoming emotional relationship, a merry tumble into love with "Handsome," the account portrays the President as a varsity cad. He had his first lengthy conversation with her after their sixth sexual encounter. Time and again, Clinton would interrupt Monica's cheery chatter by kissing her, "kind of to shut me up." In one telephone conversation he told her he wasn't interested in hearing about her job problems so he could quickly move on to sexually arousing banter. According to her testimony, he appeased her restless heart by holding out the prospect of a life together after the White House, musing about his marriage and whether he would be alone in three years. In the most secure 18-acre complex on earth, the only place he could find some privacy was in a windowless hallway outside his office, leaning against a doorjamb, because, he told her, it was easier on his back. When she found out from a White House guard that he was in the Oval Office entertaining the attractive Eleanor Mondale and stormed off in fury, he called her later to say, "It's none of your business."
A President beloved by his people and his party would be staggered by the blow the report dealt him. But Clinton went into Friday morning already reeling. Whatever his shortcomings as a person, many fellow Democrats figured long ago, he was at least a gifted athlete, an ambidextrous operator who could caper and maneuver and keep his feet dry. It would be nice, of course, to have a grownup in the Oval Office, but voters have settled twice now for something less than that because he seemed so good at the job that kept tripping others up. And yet here he was, with his very survival at stake--the thing he cared most about--and he suddenly couldn't find his footing in one failed apology after another. Lawmakers, even those who never much liked Clinton but respected his talent, were spooked by the sight of Houdini drowning in his chains.
Then there was the sheer impact of his recklessness and arrogance. He had chosen to seduce, under the eyes of his staff and security detail, not only an employee half his age but one who was indiscreet from the start, sending mushy notes by messenger, telling her mom and her friends and her therapist, all but skywriting over the Capitol that she had bagged the Big Guy. It's not comfortable to be a politician riding the coattails of a man with a death wish. Among the requirements of his apologies to fellow Democrats was the assurance that there were no more high heels to drop.