As long as Ms Monica Lewinsky stayed silent, there was little pressure on President Clinton to respond to requests by prosecutors for him to testify about his relationship with the former White House intern.
When the presidential spokesman, Mr Mike McCurry, announced his resignation last week, the White House spin was that the Lewinsky matter was well under control and that it was a safe time for the effective and long-suffering Mr McCurry to leave.
Any sense of complacency, however, has been shattered after the rapid developments of recent days, starting with a subpoena issued last week requiring Mr Clinton to testify to a grand jury looking into the Lewinsky case - the first subpoena issued against a sitting president to appear in connection with a criminal investigation.
Mr Kenneth Starr, the special prosecutor driving the investigation, has for six months been looking into whether Mr Clinton and Ms Lewinsky lied under oath about the nature of their relationship and then sought to cover it up - such a cover-up constituting a criminal offence.
He deems this issue to be part of the investigation he was hired to pursue in 1994, an inquiry into whether Mr Clinton and his wife lied about their role in a 1980s Arkansas investment deal, the Whitewater property development.
As Mr Starr was negotiating yesterday with Mr Clinton's personal lawyer, Mr David Kendall, on how the President should testify, the first of two blows landed on Mr Clinton: a federal appeals court ordered one of his closest confidants and advisers, Mr Bruce Lindsey, to submit to grand jury questioning in the Lewinsky investigation.
"A government attorney may not invoke the attorney-client privilege in response to grand jury questions seeking information relating to the possible commission of a federal crime," the court ruling said.
Then came the news that Ms Lewinsky had struck a tentative immunity deal after long talks with Mr Starr's prosecutors in New York.
Ms Lewinsky was first subpoenaed late last year by lawyers in a private lawsuit brought by Ms Paula Jones, a woman who says she was propositioned by Mr Clinton in an Arkansas hotel room while he was governor of that state. Ms Jones's lawyers hoped that Ms Lewinsky would support their contention that Mr Clinton habitually preyed on women subordinates, that Ms Lewinksy had succumbed and was rewarded with a government job.
In a response to that subpoena, Ms Lewinksy filed a sworn statement saying she had no such relationship with Mr Clinton. He, too, denied "sexual relations" with Ms Lewinsky, both on television and in his own deposition in the Paula Jones case.
But Ms Linda Tripp, a friend of Ms Lewinsky, had recorded telephone conversations she had with Ms Lewinsky in which the latter was reported to have alluded to efforts by Mr Clinton and others to influence her testimony in the Jones case.
Mr Starr then asked for and received authorisation to expand the long-running Whitewater inquiry - an investigation that has so far cost $40 million - to look into whether there was a cover-up in the Lewinsky matter.
The public has so far looked indulgently on reports of Mr Clinton's alleged trysts or sexual indiscretions, a list that includes Ms Gennifer Flowers, Ms Jones, Ms Kathleen Willey and Ms Lewinsky.
But they may be less indulgent this time, if they feel Mr Clinton lied to them on television, and in his Paula Jones deposition.
With Ms Lewinsky apparently having confirmed to Mr Starr's prosecutors in New York this week that she did have a sexual relationship with the president, Mr Clinton would have to address her statement if he agreed to testify in whatever format can be devised to preserve whatever is left of his dignity. Video testimony is one option.
The President would also have to confront mounds of evidence and testimony likely to put him and Ms Lewsinsky together on repeated occasions. This includes material from secret service testimony, White House records and White House officials.
Mr Clinton would be forced to try to explain each encounter. Last week, a secret service officer told investigators that on a weekend day in 1996, he and Mr Harold Ickes, the deputy White House chief of staff, saw the President and Ms Lewinsky together in Mr Clinton's hideaway off the Oval Office. Mr Ickes has denied the story.
Some legal experts and some of Mr Clinton's advisers are urging him to tough it out by refusing to comply with Mr Starr's subpoena and challenging its legality all the way to the supreme court.
But Republicans are threatening to start impeachment proceedings should the President resist the subpoena.