"THE LEGACY," The Events in the White House in 1998

Sometimes history is slow in revealing the true nature of events. It may take years, decades or, frequently, centuries. Now, however, the story of the events surrounding the Clinton Presidency during the summer and autumn of 1998 can be told.

We go back to September 1998, Washington, DC, The White House:

This situation, which could no longer be called the Paula Jones case, or even the Monica Lewinsky matter, was growing worse by the day. Here we were now, with the president accused of committing sexual assault in his White House office ... sexual assault. His accuser, the wife of a political ally, seemed most credible and, as far as we could discern then or even now when years have passed, had no motive to damage the president, having been one of his early supporters.

Nor did she seem to have some secret agenda. Certainly she was not part of Hillary's imagined right wing conspiracy. Not even the Clinton smear machine tried to make that connection. It appears that she went public for just the reasons she stated on "60 MINUTES", i.e., she grew tired of hearing the lies and seeing lives ruined by Clinton.

So what happened as a result of her revelation? Nothing, really. The president denied everything, his flunkies hit the TV shows to try to discredit his accuser, the American people yawned and muttered something about how good the economy is, and his poll numbers went up. Oh, Jay Leno made some jokes about it for a week or two and "Saturday Night Live" played with it, but that's about all.

What should have happened, of course, is a different matter. Attorney Stuart Taylor, on the "TODAY " show, pointed out that what the president was accused of fits the legal definition of sexual assault. If the president did what the woman said he did, it happened on Federal property and crimes which are committed on Federal property are Federal crimes, investigated by the FBI. The FBI should have opened an investigation to find out exactly what took place. But the FBI reported to Janet Reno. Expectations for learning the truth of what happened were low.