Clinton In Crisis: US comment

The Wall Street Journal, 18 August: "Whatever we eventually learn ... Mr Clinton has rubbed our noses into this muck for ... long enough to force us to confront the facts and the standard of behaviour we expect from Presidents."

The New York Post, 18 August: "Even if the President's reputation is sullied beyond repair, if his honour and honesty are completely and irrevocably undermined, the damage falls primarily on this President. The presidency - the dignity, the authority, the bully pulpit - survives because it must."

Senator Joseph Lieberman, 4 September: "The transgressions the President has admitted to are too consequential for us to walk away and leave the impression for our children ... that what President Clinton acknowledges he did within the White House is acceptable behaviour for our nation's leader."

Democratic congressman Jim Moran, 6 September: "I'm confident he can restore the full moral authority of his presidency and go on to finish [his] full term honourably."

Washington Times, 12 September: "All people of conscience should now be demanding that he resign and once and for all take his leave of the sewer he has made out of public life."