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 I Can't Find BART, in San Francisco
* It is Oh-Dark-Thirty as I write this in San Francisco where, last night the waitress - uh, waitperson - at the restaurant I was in said she was "so over this whole Clinton thing."
* I am, too. It now looks as if there will be a final vote on the Articles of Impeachment by the end of this week and that will be the end of it. There will be no "Finding of Fact," no censure resolution, and, therefore, no way for Bill Clinton to get the slap on the wrist the Democrats so badly want. Up or down. Guilty or innocent. Go home for the Presidents' Day recess. I don't believe Bill Clinton's birthday will ever be a Monday holiday.
* Bill Clinton has been protected by this process. A great majority of Americans think - rightly or wrongly - that the process itself has been unfair and so have given Clinton a pass on what he did even though they understand perfectly well that their President lied under oath and obstructed justice.
* Americans value fairness above almost any other virtue. How many times have we heard that, in America, we root for the underdog? With their remarkable talent for spinning (and a disappointing lack of affection for the truth in the course of it) the White House successfully turned the entire Monica Matter into a Les Miserables remake: Poor, flawed Bill Clinton standing, a solitary figure, against the massed forces of the Office of Independent Counsel which pursue him relentlessly and seemingly without reason. Sounds silly, but they did it.
* But that ends on Friday. No more Bill v. Ken. No more Bill v. Newt. It will be Bill v. History and my money is on the guy in soft focus with the quill pen.
* A great deal has been made of what will happened to the Republican Party now? The Republican Party will be just fine, thank you. The better question is what will happen to the Democrats?
* One of the principle differences between the GOP and the Democrats is this: The Democrats understand the nature and use of power. If they have it, they use it. If they don't, they bend every effort to get it. Republicans remain confused over the differences between a political movement and a political party.
* The Liberal - that word is used here as a point on the political continuum, not as invective - Wing of the Democratic Party was forced by Clinton into making a choice between defending him and giving a victory to the Republicans. Not even a close call. A much as Liberal Democrats hated Triangulation, as much as they blame Clinton's fund raising scandals for preventing them from regaining the U.S. House in 1996, as much as they despise his signing legislation like Welfare Reform, he was still better than the Republicans. They are a political party and that's what political parties do: hold on to power and figure out how to get more. Die on the sword of principle? That's what political movements do.
* Now that the process is over, it will be interesting to see how long it takes for the Liberals to begin taking their revenge on the man who forced them into that choice. And whether Al Gore will pay the price for it.
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