The 1997 State of the Union address was delivered on a split-screen with the O.J. Simpson civil trial verdict. Last year's speech came just days after the president was revealed to be the intended target of a hidden-body wire sting. Actually, it was just another day in Bill Clinton's Washington. In the Senate trial and in the president's speech, that's exactly what the White House hoped to project. Doing the people's business.
All systems go.
From first to last, Clinton and his representatives conducted themselves with the insouciance of Mohawk ironworkers settling down to lunch on a girder 75 stories up. They haven't fallen yet. At 1 p.m., White House counsel Charles F.C. Ruff opened the president's impeachment defense as cool as an April breeze. With few exceptions, last week's speeches by the managers of the House prosecution covered a range of emotion from fervent to thrombotic. His voice was pillowy and measured.