COLUMBUS, OHIO - Disgusting isn't it? Such a waste. Here was a man with almost unlimited power and for all his labors, it all comes down to a groupie with a well-trained tongue and sordid, seamy, sexual escapades.

That's Kenneth Starr I'm talking about, not Bill Clinton.

Four years and 40 million dollars and all Ken Starr could come up with was a series of smutty stories?

Nothing on Whitewater. Filegate came up snake eyes. Zilch on Travelgate.

If he can't come up with illegal loans or sweetheart stock deals, Starr will settle for sex. If he can't prove The President is a crook, he will just have to settle for painting him as the biggest pervert to ever occupy the White House.

The question Americans should be asking is will they allow Ken Starr's porno scribbles to rewrite history and depose a sitting president? Make no mistake: Starr's mission was Get Bill Clinton and if one way didn't pan out he'd dig in the garbage for another.

Under the guise of getting the report in the hands of Congress and the public, Starr unleashed a scurrilous attack on Clinton's already tattered character. Would you be willing to bet that when the report was posted to the Internet, the traffic at various sex related sites went down as voyeurs worldwide thrilled to explicit descriptions of oral sex, masturbation and vaginal penetration by foreign objects?

What, no golden showers, fisting, bestiality, bondage, double penetration or lesbian S&M? How will the Howard Stern/Rush Limbaugh crowd of morons get their jollies? Isn't it the conservatives who are trying to keep the smut off the Net and out of the hands of the kiddies? Is Starr trying to peddle porn to children?

The descriptions of the trysts between the President and the intern are graphic, disturbing and disgusting. It paints a mental picture of the First Cock being swallowed whole by a lust- crazed groupie while Yasser Arafat cools his heels on the South Lawn. Starr wants the reader to feel the shock and revulsion that he undoubtably did as he waded through Ms. Lewinsky's turgid testimony. Or perhaps share a little dirty thrill such as the first time a kid peeks at his dad's PLAYBOY or when sailors troll seedy bars in search of the nastiest strippers.

The language is raw and ugly and puts an already tawdry episode into an even harsher light. But is throwing more mud into an already muddy river the same thing as pursuing justice? Starr apparently has chafed posing as a non-partisan prosecutor and reverted to the role of attack dog that Senators Jesse Helms and Lauch Faircloth of North Carolina had in mind when they suggested to Judge David Sentelle that original Whitewater special prosecutor Robert Fiske be replaced.

Yet, [and] despite it all, what do we know now about President Clinton that constitutes news? That he enjoys a good blow job and will seek it outside of his own marriage? No, that is hardly a revelation. Most of us who voted for Bill Clinton in 1992 and again in 1996 knew he was hardly a paragon of virtue. We knew and we didn't care. Ending 12 years of Reagan-Bush was far more pressing a problem than fretting over a politician with a loose zipper. If the chickens have truly come home to roost and Clinton is the venal scumbag that his opponents have branded him, so what? The economy is still puttering along with a few hiccups and belches, but it's pretty darn easy to find a job if you've got anything approaching some usable skills and a pulse. The nation is at peace, and most Americans have more credit cards than they know what to do with. Clinton may not deserve all the credit, but I believe America is a less racially polarized, less dispirited and downcast nation than four more years of `read my lips' would have provided in terms of presidential leadership.

A terribly flawed man, Bill Clinton is more like "one of us" than a Linda Tripp could ever be. He thinks with his slick willie at times and compromises too often with people committed to his political destruction. These are forgivable sins and he has publicly stated his desire to be forgiven by his family, Monica, the Democratic party and the American public.

After the storm of Starr's report passes, the House of Representatives will begin the lengthy and tortuous process of investigating to determine if charges of impeachable offenses should be levied against the President. It's too soon to guess if Clinton can withstand the howls for resignation or impeachment. In the end it may become necessary for Clinton to heal the nation by terminating his presidency prematurely.

"Even Presidents have private lives," Clinton complained in his dismal August 17th address to the nation.

True, but in the poisoned atmosphere of a zealous prosecutor determined to embarrass, humiliate and destroy his prey, a partisan Congress hiding behind pious mumbles of `due process' while all the time hungering for some Watergate-style payback, and a slavishly lapdog press corps aiding and abetting the hype and hysteria, the private life of a President becomes a open book for all to gawk and thrill at the salacious details. Justice is not served, but the prurient interests of a perverse few are.

"Starr is now the most visible agent of corporate America wielding a new weapon under the sun: endless legal harassment of a twice-elected president so that he cannot exercise his office as first magistrate...I should not in the least be surprised if yet another `conspiracy' in the name of We the People, will be set in motion against Starr for his willful and malicious attempt to overthrow two lawful elections reflective of the people's will and that he be put promptly on trial for treason against the United States and its People; if nothing else, such an exercise might reveal all sorts of highly interesting co-conspirators." --- Gore Vidal