Clinton awaits the opinion fall-out and Starr's next move

The next instalment in the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal is the wrap-up of Mr Kenneth Starr's investigation into whether the President committed perjury, tried to get others to do so or obstructed justice.

If Mr Starr, the independent counsel, has evidence that this is so, he is obliged to send it in a report to Congress, which then has to decide whether to start impeachment proceedings.

It sounds relatively simple but, of course, it is not. It will take some time for the effects of the President's "I did wrong, but . . ." speech to sink in with the American public. There is a huge "scandal fatigue" throughout the country, and the President played on that when he asked the public "to turn away from the spectacle of the past seven months" and "to move on" to more important things.

Even Republican die-hards would agree it is time to move on, but they are not ready to let a severely wounded President off the hook just yet. How wounded he is will become clearer over the coming weeks and months. Senator John Ashcroft, one of the President's severest Republican critics has said: "I think we've witnessed the effective end of this Presidency" and "He's lost his moral authority to lead".

But other commentators recall that President Ronald Reagan also lost moral authority after the murky Iran-Contra conspiracy was revealed, yet he left office as the president who will be remembered for his deeds in bringing down the Soviet "evil empire" and ending the Cold War.

Also, President Reagan was seen to stumble because of the deception of his subordinates, such as Oliver North, while President Clinton's fall from grace is due solely to his own character. While the instant polls taken after his speech have to be viewed with much caution, one significant finding was the plunge under the heading of "your personal opinion" of the President. Those with a "favourable" opinion dropped from 60 per cent to 40 per cent.

There seems to be a sense that while the President took the courageous step of telling the country and the world that he had lied for seven months about his relationship with Ms Lewinsky, he was more angry with Mr Starr than he was contrite about his dishonesty, the trauma this has caused his administration, and the humiliation it has inflicted on the country in the eyes of the world.

Cabinet colleagues and White House aides who staunchly defended the President and accepted his denials of sex with Ms Lewinsky are today trying to come to terms with his confession of deceit. So far none has resigned or publicly indicated a sense of betrayal.

Vice-President Al Gore has reaffirmed his loyalty and admiration from far-off Hawaii. The Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, who with other Cabinet colleagues stepped in front of television cameras last January to back the President's denial of an affair with Ms Lewinsky, yesterday expressed "complete confidence" in him.

Democrats facing re-election in November are taking a deep breath and hoping the public confession will remove sex-in-the-White-House as a damaging issue in their campaigns. They will hope their chastened President will continue to raise millions of dollars to help secure their seats in Congress.

Republicans are probably unsure of what to do next. For public consumption, they will say they have to wait for Mr Starr's report on whether there is evidence of an impeachable offence. But Congress will rise early in October for the election campaign, and there is unlikely to be any substantial move on impeachment before then.

Privately, Republicans will be relieved at this, as polls show that the President's affair with Ms Lewinsky is seen essentially as a private matter and not warranting removal from office. He will be gone anyway in 21/2 years, so why cause an unpopular upheaval trying to get rid of a President and replace him with their big rival in 2000, Al Gore?

But then there is Mr Starr. The President's not-so-veiled attack on him in his address, and the revelation that he refused to answer some questions during Monday's interrogation, mean that Mr Starr and his prosecutors are still coming over the hill after him.

What have they got on him now that the President has admitted sex with Ms Lewinsky? They may challenge his assertion that his sworn answers to the Paula Jones lawyers last January were "legally accurate". They may have amassed evidence that points to "obstruction of justice" or perjury in matters other than what kind of sexual relations he had with Ms Lewinsky.

All this will end up, presumably, in the Starr report, which will certainly be leaked when it is sent to Congress, perhaps as soon as early September. There is even speculation that Mr Starr, dissatisfied with the President's "voluntary" testimony on Monday, will go all the way and subpoena Mr Clinton for a second round of questioning before the grand jury.

As the President heads off to Martha's Vineyard with a wife and daughter whom he has also humiliated, he knows that the "closure" he has appealed for in his television address is not guaranteed. He and his supporters will watch the polls closely to see how his address has played around the US.

They are banking on the fatigue factor and the clear indication in recent weeks that he would be forgiven if he came clean. He has admitted the sex but insisted that "at no time did I ask anyone to lie, to hide or destroy evidence, or take any other unlawful action."

God help him if Mr Starr and his men prove this is false.