The Senate Chamber is the stage on which the final act of the Clinton-Lewinsky drama is being played out. And the reviews are decidedly mixed. It's true that the Senate trial of William Jefferson Clinton has seen none of the histrionics and the name calling which disfigured the House of Representatives impeachment of the President, but it would be wrong to suggest that the courtesies of the Senate have taken partisanship out of the equation. Political gamesmanship continues amid the hardwood desks and the marble busts of the Senate chamber. It's just conducted with a slap on the back, not an ideological snarl.
Republican senators are in a bind.
They have a majority large enough to ensure they can set the rules of the trial, but not large enough to give them any realistic chance of removing this popular president from office. That requires a two-thirds majority, and the Republicans have little hope of finding a dozen democrats prepared to kill off the Clinton Presidency. So what we see in the Senate are Republicans desperately trying to face two ways at once. They don't want the case against Mr Clinton to be dismissed out of hand. That would represent an unacceptable slap in the face to the Republican prosecutors from the House of Representatives and to the hordes of party activists across the nation.