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In this issue:

• He's Already Lost

At the time that I write this, the Senate is debating whether to call witnesses and whether to dismiss the charges completely without bringing the matter to a final vote. The theory is: if we know what the outcome of the final vote is going to be, why bother taking the final vote?

The answer can be found in three words: Contract With America.

Remember the 1994 pact? It only applied to the House, so at most a handful of current Senators affixed their names to it, but the key provision of the Contract -- the one most often deliberately overlooked by the media who ridiculed it -- was that the Contract called not to pass it's measures, but to debate and vote on all of its measures. It prevented Congressman from posturing on bills that they knew would never come to the floor by bringing them to the floor.

Every member of the House had to vote on the record for their constituents, and the rest of the nation, to see. That's what should happen in the Senate. Vote up or down, but vote on it, stand by it and bring your decisions back to your constituents and explain them as you run for re-election (or run into retirement).

But let me put that aside for the moment and mention something that Clinton doesn't want to think about: his legacy.

Like it or not, there among all the predictions of victory and vindication by the White House and the Beltway pundits, permeating the atmosphere of triumph is the stark realization.

Bill Clinton has already lost.

No, he has been convicted in the Senate . . . yet. And he hasn't been removed . . . yet. But . . .

- For all the cries of whether these offenses rise to the level of impeachable offenses, they do and they have and he was impeached.

- Though he wears it like a badge of honor, President William Jefferson Clinton will forever be labeled as the second impeached president, even if by a "lame-duck partisan House".

- He will forever be the first elected president to have been impeached.

- And most importantly, the man that has lived by the sound bite will perish by the sound bite.

Come with me into the future, to the dawn of the 21st century and all the restrospectives of the last hundred years. The newsclips will flash through, capsulizing decades of memorable TV events into one five-minute montage. Every President will get one and only one sound-byte squeezed in with the rest of the historical shakers. Here's what it might sound like:

• "Ask not what your country might do for you, ask what you can do for your country."
• "I resign the President effective noon tomorrow."
• "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall."
• "Read my lips, no new taxes."
• . . .
• and President Clinton's contribution to history?
• . . .
• "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky."

JFK might have one or two different quotes. Nixon might get "I am not a crook" instead. Ford and Carter might get something, but they served only six years between them with no great victories. But Bill Clinton? That one image of him wagging his finger at the American people in a bald-faced lie, the lie that defined his second term, that will forever be Mr. Clinton's contribution to video history.

For all his attempts to bring about socialism, he'll be forever be reminded how his second term, and his Presidency, was undone.

Bill Clinton cares about one thing more than anything else: Bill Clinton. His place in history has already been carved out. And it's not one that's he's likely to be happy with.

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