IN THE most inglorious episode of his presidency, Bill Clinton yesterdaysuffered the indignity of being quizzed about his sex life under the gazeof a woman who accuses him of soliciting sexual favours.
Affairs of state - including a showdown with Iraq - had to wait as theAmerican president submitted to a humiliating obligation to testify in thecase of Paula Jones, who accuses him of dropping his trousers to ask forsex in a hotel room in Little Rock, Arkansas, seven years ago.
Avoiding an army of journalists from around the world, Clinton slipped fromthe White House in his limousine to be deposited in an underground garageat his lawyer's office. There, in the presence of a federal judge, he tookan oath to tell the whole truth before being exhaustively grilled aboutalleged sexual exploits in his former role as Arkansas governor.
Jones, wearing a cream-coloured suit, arrived with her husband a fewminutes earlier, hoping to watch the naturally red-cheeked president squirmas he fielded questions in an X-rated deposition that carries all theweight of testimony given before a court.
The historic event was captured on a video tape which will be used asevidence in a trial that is scheduled for May. However, aides said thatClinton, who had appealed in vain to the Supreme Court to postpone theproceedings until after he left office, is still hoping that the case willbe dismissed.
A writer of farce could not have concocted a more unlikely role for thepresident. But Americans were not laughing: the unedifying spectacle of thecommander-in-chief of the world's most powerful nation being interrogatedin such a sordid case has degraded the gravitas of the executive office tosuch an extent that it may never recover.
Although Clinton has given evidence as a witness in the so-calledWhitewater affair, his testimony yesterday secured him an unwanted place inhistory as the first president ever to be interviewed under oath as adefendant in a court case.
Compounding the farce is the possibility that Paula Corbin Jones vs WilliamJefferson Clinton - expected to be heard in a court in Little Rock, capitalof Clinton's home state, - will result in the president having to removehis trousers to prove his accuser wrong.
Jones has maintained that "distinguishing characteristics" she noted inClinton's genital area prove she is telling the truth. But after discreetinquiries about an allegedly crooked and diminutive presidential member,Robert Bennett, Clinton's $300-an-hour lawyer, responded recently with oneof the more memorable quotes in the history of high-level litigation. "Interms of size, shape, direction, whatever the devious mind wants toconcoct, the president is a normal man," he said. "There are no blemishes,there are no moles, there are no growths."
The Jones team has yet to demand an independent medical examination. Justas troubling a prospect for Clinton, however, are the other women believedto have testified to Jones's lawyers recently about unwanted sexualadvances from Clinton when he was governor of Arkansas.
According to one source with intimate knowledge of the case, a woman hastold the Jones team that she was frequently smuggled into the governor'smansion disguised in a trench coat and cap for sexual liaisons. Four statetroopers who protected the governor also say they procured women for himover the years. One said he had set up the meeting with Jones.
Biarritz accommodationClinton has said he has "no recollection" of ever having met Jones, butacknowledges that he "may very well have met her in the past". Bennett hasbeen less circumspect, dismissing Jones's story as "titillating allegationswhich really are just tabloid trash".
It is all unspeakably embarrassing for the president's wife. Hillary, whowas herself grilled last week in another investigation into her allegedlyimproper use of FBI files against Republican foes, has been photographedrecently hugging her husband in a carefully calibrated signal that sheintends to stand by her man, as she did when he miraculously negotiatedreports of a long-running affair with Gennifer Flowers just as he wasrunning for president.
Few had thought it would come to yesterday's testimony by Clinton. WhenJones's allegations were first publicised three years ago, presidentialaides were swift to dismiss her as "white trash" and as a deviousmuckraker. Stung by such insults, she withdrew from a settlement underwhich the president would have paid her $700,000, albeit without theapology she demanded.
Since then she has revamped her image. Gone are the braces that onceclamped her front teeth. She has smoothed the frizzy mane of curls and forher big day in court acquired clothing more reminiscent of the boardroomthan the secretarial pool.
"I had been aware of all the horrible things the White House was sayingabout her," said Susan Carpenter McMillan, her spokeswoman. "She is notwhite trash. She is not a big-haired floozy."
Yet Jones has dropped a claim that her character was defamed, apparently toavoid acute embarrassment in court where the president's lawyers, afterthorough research, had planned to show that she had a colourful sexualhistory before her alleged encounter with Clinton. It is common knowledgeto those who have followed the affair - and to the readers of Penthousemagazine - that she posed naked for a photographer boyfriend when she was19.
Hotels pas chers MarbellaIt is the exploration of other aspects of her private life that has begunto raise questions. Mysteriously, she has become the target of an audit bythe Internal Revenue Service (IRS) which in turn - in keeping with thefarcical nature of the affair - has become the subject of an investigationby the Treasury Department over claims that the taxman has been used as apolitical weapon against Clinton's enemies.
As these side battles rage, the chances of a settlement are fast receding.Under rules set by a judge, the evidence-gathering period known as"discovery" which must conclude by the end of this month, has so far,according to Clinton's lawyers, failed to produce evidence that mightprompt the president to pursue a new settlement and find the $2m needed(Jones has apparently upped her demands) to make her go away.
Clinton may be calculating that the most humiliating allegations that couldemerge in a trial - those concerning his penis - are already publicknowledge and that his best chance of salvaging some dignity is to winvindication in court, where Jones may have a tough time winning, even ifshe is telling the truth.
It is a gamble. More than any of the welter of scandals plaguing hispresidency, the outcome of the Jones saga could determine his place inhistory: whether he is remembered for balancing the budget or simply as"bonking Bill".
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