In light of the conclusion of the Senate trial of the president, the editors of THE WEEKLY STANDARD asked 22 writers, thinkers, and political actors the following questions: “President William Jefferson Clinton has been impeached and acquitted. What have we learned? What should we do now?”

BILL CLINTON FIRST REACTED BRAZENLY when caught red-handed in a series of bald-faced, lip-biting, finger-waving lies. But he rightly intuited that nowadays even unrebuttable evidence of prurient sexuality, perjury, obstruction of justice, and multiple moral offenses against sacred institutions — marriage, the rule of law, and our democracy’s highest elected office — would excite only enough elite notice and mass displeasure to somewhat disturb his final years of governing and leave his place in history contested.