The President of the United States, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Leader of the Free World ... brought down by a summer intern who just wanted to have sex?
It seems somehow unreal that this is what finally made us consider impeachment. But it is the one thing where the President was squarely caught in a lie, where his semantic games cannot save him.
He could, after all, always say he wasn't informed, he never knew, he wasn't consulted, he wasn't in the loop, however improbable those assertions might seem.
But, in the end, he couldn't say he hadn't had sex. Unfortunately for him, sex is something you just can't do by proxy.
I am somewhat distressed by all this. I've thought for a long time that the President is a moral cypher, someone clearly unfit to govern, someone who will lie to anyone for any reason. Surely we deserve a leader with integrity as well as chutzpah?
But, at the same time, I think Hillary Clinton is his goad. Reason Magazine has a very persuasive article out that says she is his brain. My theory is that, once Hillary pounds on his self-esteem, he needs something else, someone who looks up to him, someone who respects him, to salve his feelings and make him feel whole again. That someone, as we all know, was Monica.
So I don't think Monica was necessarily a Bad Thing, as moralists would tell us. I think Monica was probably necessary for his continued mental health. Nobody wants to be around a goad 24 hours a day, good as that might be for you.
But, at the same time, everything from Whitewater to Travelgate to the FBI files makes me think this man is unfit for office, just because he has no integrity. Not because he sleeps with a pretty intern, but because he has no conscience and no regard for the truth. If nothing else, I think the Starr report proved that.
So in the end, I must support the jackals of impeachment. Chronic lying is a Bad Thing. In the bitter words of The Economist, "Just Go".
Of course I know he never will; we'll have to push. Hard.