Yet, absurdly, the United States has been going into a hysterical moral tailspin for the last eight months because, basically, two adults engaged in consensual, if adulterous, sex. The entire situation was laden with volatile chemistry: a powerful, attractive man; a star-struck, hyper-hormonal young girl; and, apparently, similar sexual triggers. So things happened, as will in such circumstances anywhere. Okay some of the things may have been outlandish by some conservative standards—and expensive: good cigars cost—but then many millenia of obsessive sexuality have taught us that sexual triggers can assume bizarre dimensions. One woman's ecstasy is another's boredom. And the rule here, I think, should be that if it's between two consenting adults then it's no one else's business. (Yasser Arafat, I suppose, could complain for being made to wait.) As for the perjury, it came after the explosion of prurience and moral outrage, and was clearly a result of it. But of course, with the illogical momentum of so many things in the world—the nuke race for one—the circus swings on, having already consumed more than $50 million.