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OK, this impeachment thing has gone on much too long. And besides, there's nothing new.
Let's forget about finding of fact. Let's dismiss any idea of a censure, much less conviction and removal from office.
It's time to move directly to the canonization of President Bill Clinton.
No matter that he is still alive. We can make an exception. He can become the first living saint. Especially since just before the Pope's visit he proclaimed himself an "apostle of hope."
Besides, the impeachment proceedings are drollery compared to the other stories rolling out of Washington these days.
The Washington Times, in its Thursday editions, ran a story that is quite bizarre. It talks about how White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart tried to put pressure on the Fox News Channel. He reportedly didn't want them to broadcast a story about a woman who claims she was raped by Bill Clinton in 1978.
The woman also claims that Clinton urged her to lie about it under oath.
The Times says Lockhart warned a Fox White House correspondent not to run the story, noting that NBC already interviewed the woman and declined to run the story.
Fox ran the story anyway. And then Internet "reporter" Matt Drudge somehow got ahold of a conversation between Lockhart and Fox. On his "Drudge Report" website, Drudge quoted Lockhart as saying, "You guys will regret this," and "If you go with the story after NBC News decided not to, there won't be any argument about whether Fox News is right wing or not."
If you run something bad about the president, you're right wing. Does that mean that if you run fluffy, friendly stories about the president, you're left wing?
Anyway, these Drudge, Washington Times and National Enquirer stories are always floating around and I don't usually pay much attention to them.
But when the White House press secretary is trying to squelch network news stories, that's a little weird. And it went beyond the fringy world of Drudge when people like Helen Thomas of UPI, and Bill Plante of CBS, grilled Lockhart during his regular White House press briefing.
According to the Washington Times, Thomas asked, "Did you pressure a network?"
Lockhart answered, "If any of you think I'm in a position to pressure anyone, you give me more power than you think I have."
Then Plante asked, "Did you make the call, as has been reported?"
The reply, "I'm just not going to discuss the private conversations I have, even if others can't keep them private."
So far, aside from Fox, the mainstream media haven't picked up on the story.
The whole mess started last month when NBC correspondent Lisa Myers interviewed Juanita Broaddrick, of Arkansas. Broaddrick is the woman who claimed she was raped. Broaddrick's attorney confirms the interview but NBC has so far decided not to run the story.
Broaddrick's story is that of a brutal forced sexual encounter with Clinton. She denied the incident under oath later, but claims she was coerced to do so by Clinton. She has alternately confirmed and denied the story over the years.
Broaddrick's story is at least partially corroborated by a nurse who treated her shortly after the alleged attack. The nurse says that Broaddrick told her during treatment that she was forced to have sex against her will by Bill Clinton.
Broaddrick was interviewed by Paula Jones' attorneys.
But more startling to me was the revelation that FBI investigators working for independent counsel Kenneth Starr interviewed Broaddrick last April about the incident. Further, two investigators for the House Judiciary Committee impeachment inquiry also questioned Broaddrick.
Turns out Broaddrick is the infamous Jane Doe No. 5. (This begs the question: Who are Jane Does 1, 2, 3 and 4?) All of this information was included in documents provided to members of Congress by Starr.
Apparently, this information helped sway some members of Congress to lean toward voting for impeachment last December.
Of course there's no way we will ever know if any of this is true. It's simply another case of "he said, she said." Hillary Clinton would say that it's another product of the "vast right-wing conspiracy."
Maybe it's all a lie, just a 21-year-old smear campaign against Bill Clinton.
But even the most ardent Clinton supporter must admit that the number and frequency of scandals surrounding this president is truly amazing. There are plenty of tabloid-type stories to be told about public figures, to be sure. But only in the Clinton administration do these stories surface in White House press briefings.
But no matter.
If a couple more stories like this latest rape accusation make it into the national media, the president's approval rating will top 80 percent.
Let the canonization begin.
