Monitor: The US press comments on developments in the Bill Clinton impeachment inquiry

All the News of the World

UNLESS REPUBLICANS mean to drop any consideration of impeachment articles on the obstruction of justice allegations that Mr Starr sent to Congress, they must attempt to clarify ambiguities in the factual record that he compiled. The grave impact of perjury on the judicial system is certainly a fair point for Republicans to make in the context of this inquiry, but it is no substitute for the establishment of the rigorous factual record that is necessary to debate whether a national election should be overturned by impeaching a president.

The Washington Post

IT APPEARS likely that the full House will vote, by a slim majority, to impeach the President on one count of perjury. The Senate will then take the House's action under advisement. And there, the issue will die. Throwing Clinton out of office was never really an option. The votes in the Senate were never there. A House vote of impeachment for perjury would nevertheless stand as an rebuke for conduct unbecoming. It is a rebuke that Clinton fully deserves. It would haunt him through history.

Boston Globe

THE DEMOCRATS seem incapable of coming to grips with Clinton's abuses of his office and the fact that there is an impeachment panel up and running. Republicans have begun to sound like people who've concluded they will face their duty irrespective of polls or politics. That duty should include a commitment to reauthorize the Hyde committee's impeachment mandate if the Clinton factions continue to try to bulldoze this impeachment inquiry toward the cliff.

Wall Street Journal

IF CONCERN about public opinion or doubts about Starr's case keep the House from voting to impeach, then it ought to get on with the business of censuring the President. The growing risk is that Republicans will split over censure and impeachment, and Clinton will stroll away scot- free. That would be the worst outcome. That's why Republicans need to get back on track, and, at last, let themselves be counted.

Chicago Daily Herald