If popularity rating is any indication, the majority of Americans don't want the presidency to be rocked by bimbo eruptions. He lied about something that most private citizens are unlikely to admit in public, certainly not in the glow of klieg lights. President Clinton has done that at a time when his private passions were about to threaten the most powerful political office in the world. Yes, he could have done it much earlier. He waited till the darkest day, a day of grand jury and inquisition, of stirrings of impeachment and presidential mistrust. Today he wants to reclaim family values after all, he is also the president of soccer moms. But can a televised confession with a subtext of arrogance reclaim presidential honour? Should he be allowed to get on withthe more ``appropriate'' work in Oval Office? Ideally, crucifixion should be abandoned right now and Kenneth Starr, the prosecutor who has graduated from an investigator of real estate scandal into a Sherlock Holmes of sex, should be made redundant.

But this is an all-American trivia with its own morality code. This is also in tune with the zeitgeist. Once upon a time, the American political ethic was magnified by crimes like Watergate and Irangate. Once, great leaders could subordinate their libido to larger-than-life leadership. Today, the president of a superpower or an ex-superpower can afford to be a lech or a drunkard. Clinton, ambitious and driven, is a textbook example of his age.

He sought history at a time when there was hardly any historical event. This is perhaps the pathology of the American age: the cross is no longer made from the passions of history; rather, it is made of very private temptations. He misled the nation. He wants to build America. At this moment, such temptations are moreappropriate than the temptations of Kenneth Starr. Still, after this historic event of presidential confession, his place will be in a lesser history.