It was bad enough to see blind ' Whitehouse/DNC Bill Clinton love him or leave him ' House Democrats and talking heads still repeating the same old and tired spin ( lies ) in every media venue they could lay their paws on, but when Democrat Senators Joe Biden and Robert Torricelli started reciting the identical baloney on the political talk shows last Sunday, I feared the partisan bug had infected the Senate as well. The Senators are all meeting today ( Friday ) in an old chamber room, away from the prying eyes of C-Span video cameras, in an attempt to salvage whatever remnants of bi-partisanship may still be left. Hopefully, the partisan Democrat carriers will not give the contagion to the rest of the Senators!

While unemployment is at a thirty year low of 4.3 percent and the stock exchanges continue to grow, Clinton's approval ratings in the pollaganda scam remain high. This should give the liberal Democrat robots plenty of ammunition to argue that the public wants to keep their precious first philanderer in office and the Constitution should be ignored ( they won't put it exactly that way ).

What you won't hear, is Clinton's ratings have dropped almost 10 percent since last week. The only Democrat I heard mention this was commentator Chris Matthews from the CNBC political talkshow " Hardball " ( it more accurately should be called ' Softball ', after the lady-like slow pitches Matthews threw James Carville last night )!

With the broadcast networks interrupting regular programming for updates, and the cable news networks of CNN, FNC and MSNBC and C-Span offering a steady stream of live coverage or commentary by expert ' talking heads ', the people are being fed a continuous dose of politics as usual. This solemn occasion of the impeachment trial of a president, will show the common folk quite a bit about the workings of their government and the political parties themselves. It is a shame that House Democrat partisan extremists like Marty Meehan, Bobby Scott and Sheila Jackson Lee have not let up on the Whitehouse induced regurgitation of sharp attacking rancor on the Republicans from the House. I am hoping beyond all hope, that there may be some uninfected Democrats in the Senate, who are willing to put the Constitution before the political survival of their fearless leader. I am not holding my breath!

Understandably, amidst rumors of an out of wedlock fathered child by Clinton ( with the appropriate denials by Bill and DNA testing nearing completion ) and the indictment of Julie Hiatt Steele for perjury and obstruction of justice in her testimony before the OIC Grand Jury concerning Kathleen Willey's allegations of unwanted sexual advances by Bill Clinton in 1993, the Whitehouse has ordered it's minions to advocate not calling any witnesses in Senate proceedings. Even the Democrat Senator Joseph Lieberman, usually considered to be non-partisan, has weighed in on the side of calling no witnesses. I guess the Whitehouse is really quaking at the thought of a parade of witnesses chronicling Clinton's long history of sexual immorality, his failure to tell the truth and take responsibility for his actions, and his abuse of power to cover up same. Even the Whitehouse puppet spinmeister/slimemaster Lanny Davis has come out of his hole to attack Republicans in a manner that would make James Carville proud. You can tell when Davis is lying, because he resorts to personal attacks and raises his voice, ignoring all the facts and any system of logic what so ever!

Weren't the House Democrats and the Whitehouse Clinton defenders making a big deal about calling witnesses, just a month ago? Is it possible they fear the break up of their left wing conspiracy to keep people quiet and provide false information to the unsuspecting American public, on the wonderfulness of the current inhabitant of the Whitehouse? It may be one thing to file a false affidavit, but the possible witnesses will think twice about lying to the Senate impeachment court. Starr may have been sending them a message with the Steele indictment!

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and Minority Leader Tom Daschle emerged from consultations and announced a bi-partisan agreement to begin the proceedings without including or precluding witnesses, or establishing a firm time line. In a possible attempt to under score the non-partisan nature of the agreement, Trent Lott called it the Gramm-Kennedy or Kennedy-Gramm Proposal. Ted Kennedy and Phil Gramm don't usually agree on very much. Immediately, Democrat Senator Frank Lautenberg raced to be interviewed on MSNBC. Lautenberg lauded this proposal and declared that it didn't include calling any witnesses. He also added that if witnesses were called, their testimony could be limited ( I'm getting a bad feeling about this ). Lanny Davis was quick to begin the latest chapter of Whitehouse induced spin with praise for the Senate's actions of bi-partisanship, but he did continue a cold hearted attack on the Republican members of the House ( oops, he lost 50 percent of his target rich environment ). Hopefully, most of the Senators have shrugged off their hangovers from New Year's parties, and now realize the gravity of the situation they find themselves thrown into. It would be best if the current serving Senators refrain from making many more public declarations. They should just leave former Democrat Senators like Dale Bumpers, to blindly carry the Whitehouse's poisoned water!

Oh yeah, did anyone see the Whitehouse baloney about stipulating to the facts in the Starr referral yesterday? Alan Dershowitz was on a few puppet shows to explain how their stipulations were not actually stipulations of the facts? That sort of sounds like the same old semantic rhetoric of parsing words again. When will the Whitehouse cronies finally drop this illogical attempt to defend the indefensible, using relativistic linguistics? We all know what the meaning of words like " is " and " alone " are, but legalese terms like " stipulation " have several categories of judicial meanings. The Whitehouse is really reaching new lows, just when I thought the sexual degradathon tag team of James Carville and Larry Flynt had shown us how far in the gutter they would go!

My hat is temporarily off to the Senate Democrats and Republicans for at least attempting to exude the air of non-partisanship. I sincerely hope they all remember the additional oath of impartiality they took when sworn in as Senate Jurors. Here it is:

" I solemnly swear (or affirm, as the case may be) that in all things pertaining to the trial of the impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton, now pending, that I will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws: So help me God. "

Notice how the above oath doesn't contain anything about polling data or party affiliation. The important words in the oath are " impartial ", " Constitution " and " laws ". We are poised to see who in the Senate will actually live up to that oath ( I saw them all sign on the dotted line, yesterday )!

The vote on Senate Resolution 16 ( Gramm-Kennedy Proposal ) was unanimous. The trial of President William Jefferson Clinton will begin on Wednesday January 14, 1999 with motions and the trial in earnest will start the next day. The question of witnesses has been left until after opening statements from both sides are over.

- Bongo ( Senate Republicans have turned out to be the " fairness cops ". )