Ken Starr

I CAN'T think of any logical argument to refute Ken Starr's claim that the president should not be able to engage in raw illegalities in front of his Secret Service bodyguards, safe in the knowledge that they can't be compelled to testify. Mr. Starr was also right that no court or statute had previously recognized the Secret Service's claim of a "protective function privilege."("A constitutional absurdity," harrumphed Judge Laurence Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

WASHINGTON -- A day after Kenneth W. Starr's 12-hour appearance before the House Judiciary Committee, his venerable ethics adviser, Sam Dash, resigned in protest yesterday, saying Starr had "unlawfully intruded on the power of impeachment" through his "aggressive" advocacy against President Clinton.The move by Dash -- who served as chief counsel to the Senate Watergate Committee -- could further dampen the Republican drive to impeach the president. Another House Republican, Rep. John Edward Porter of Illinois, announced yesterday that he would vote against impeachment and estimated that as many as 50 Republicans in the House might not support impeachment if it reached the floor.

Jay Leno has already taken 545 shots at the 1998 White House sex scandals. And that's not even counting any jokes from his August shows.David Letterman isn't doing too shabbily himself. The king of the "Top 10" list has told 364 sex jokes about President Clinton and his escapades, while fellow late-night funnymen Conan O'Brien and Bill Maher clocked in at 152 and 111 jokes respectively.All told, the late-night television comedians have told 1,172 sex jokes related to the scandal affectionately known as "Zippergate."

Long before Dr. Ruth or Dr. Laura, before Abby or Ann or Miss Manners, someone had all the questions and all the answers. Before Freud, Einstein and certainly Andy Rooney, he had all the insight. He wrote Lady Di's life story almost 400 years before it unfolded. Bill's and Monica's, too.We're talking Shakespeare, a man who had something to say about almost everything, and whose simplest lines continue to hold meaning. "Out, damn spot!" might mean one thing to Macbeth, something else again to Bill Clinton.

MAYOR Kurt L. Schmoke, a former prosecutor, seemed stunned yesterday by the magnitude of the bad news: The Department of Housing and Urban Development's inspector general is about to send some 20 investigators, including FBI agents, to probe Baltimore's use of federal aid."You are guilty until you prove yourself innocent," he said of the planned three-year investigation. "I was a prosecutor for 8 1/2 years, and I know how to use a grand jury."It is not clear whether the federal probe has a focus or is "a Ken Starr-like fishing expedition," as Mr. Schmoke said.

WASHINGTON -- When Kenneth W. Starr steps down from the Whitewater investigation this summer, the 3-year-old inquiry will continue with the appointment of yet another independent counsel, Starr said yesterday.News that Starr will leave by Aug. 1 to become dean of Pepperdine University's School of Law, which he confirmed yesterday, has jolted the Clinton administration's fiercest allies and its sharpest critics.White House staff reacted yesterday with cautious optimism, apparently in the belief that Starr would not be walking away so soon if he planned to bring criminal charges against the president or the first lady.

WASHINGTON -- Three new opinion polls quantify the obvious -- that most Americans are sick of special prosecutor Kenneth Starr and want him to wind up his investigations as quickly as possible.The White House is encouraging the idea, of course. President Clinton's flacks have been highly visible selling the notion that now that the Paula Corbin Jones case has been dismissed, it is time to wrap up all the investigations and "get back to the people's business."Mr. Clinton himself, in an interview with Time magazine, said the pending legal matters are keeping him from his appointed rounds.

It has come to our understanding that a few of you actually work for a living. Even more shocking, some of you don't have a TV. So, for those who missed the release of President Clinton's grand jury testimony yesterday, we at Today have sifted through the muck to provide highlights and lowlights of our history in the making. Caution, it wasn't the Gettysburg Address.Things we never knew about Bill:He's a presidential re-gifter: "What I normally do, if someone gives me a tie as a gift, is I wear it a time or two ... but at the end of every year ... I give them mostly to the men who work [at the White House]

AS THOUGH our president didn't have enough to worry about, with the confusion on Kosovo policy and the collapse of the China World Trade Organization deal, now he must finally face the music on being contumacious about his concupiscence. After years of slipping and sliding around, President Clinton was finally pinioned by his former law student, Judge Susan Webber Wright. In a scalding ruling that was far more gratifying than the partisan House impeachment hearings, and far more appropriate than a congressional censure, Judge Wright plainly rebuked Mr. Clinton for what he was plainly guilty of: lying through his teeth.

IT WAS ON the TV screen last week. There was Monica Lewinsky at age 14 playing volleyball at some fat camp her parents had sent her to. All I could think was, "Gee, am I ever proud to be a member of the media today."Since this newest Bill Clinton sex scandal broke, I haven't touched this story in any serious way, largely on hygienic grounds. Every time I've read or watched coverage of this, I've felt a ferocious urge to take a shower.But however irresponsible some media outlets have been on this, the politicians have been worse -- even politicians you'd think would be above playing such cruel games with people's lives and reputations.