Saturday, December 12, 1998 --- New York (APJP) -- For those of you who are wondering why we did not have one word yesterday on the House Judiciary Committee's debate over and voting out of articles of impeachment yesterday, we thought we'd tell you why.

First, everything that needed to have been said had been said by the witnesses and members of the committee prior to yesterday. It became clear to us within a mere half-hour of "debate" that the rhetoric had gone into reruns. The points had been made and the posturing was only being sustained.

Second, it was clear to us late Thurday night that the Republican members of the committee, some of the most closed-minded, hardcore ultra-right members of Congress, would vote out four articles of impeachment, and there would be no stopping it. The fix was in -- a subversion on the impeachment process and of the ideas the framers of the Constitution had carved out in the documents on which we have founded our republic.

The only question remaining is whether impeachment will pass the House and the President will stand trial in the Senate. What was also clear yesterday was that no type of apology the President could have given yesterday would help him -- it was, yes, another chance for the President to express his quite genuine contrition, but he would be damned anyway for saying he "misled" by shrill GOPers saying "he didn't go far enough." And he'd be even more damned if he said he lied, let alone committed perjury -- two things he did not do under practiaclly all accepted interpretation of the "rules of engagement" in a civil suit except as seeen by the Bob-Barr Law-and-Order Guilty-Even-If-Proven-Innocent wing of Congresss -- the committee Reepos would now call for his head.

The real clues as to what is going on are not in the hearing room in the Rayburn Building, but in the White House, congressional offices, broadcast media soundstages, party headquarters and editorial boardrooms. Things will get worse before they get better. The Chinese admonition has come true: we live in interesting times, and it is the most malicious enemies of Clinton -- the many loosely organized cadres, including powerful business interests, a circle of high-powered private attorneys and their friends in the judiciary branch and the Office of Independent Counsel, ex-dirty tricksters in the book business, conservative-subsidized pundits, right-wing publications and web sites, hate radio, and beneficiaries of a certain billionaire from Pittsburgh, just to name a few of the key "social clubs" responsible -- who have visited these times upon us.

They have created chaos in our nation. Their actions are nothing less than fraudulent manipulation of the judiciary process, sedition, and treason.

And they had best hope that they do not get what they wish for. If, God forbid, the President should be tried in the Senate, the full story of how President Clinton came to be deposed in the Paula Jones lawsuit will be revealed -- and it is they, not the President, who would find themselves and their conduct on trial.

-- Dave "Doctor" Gonzo