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?”

ONE IMPORTANT LESSON is that conservatives underestimated Clinton from the beginning. We assumed that he was just a clever parvenu, a cheesy charisma merchant who would make a couple of tries to implement a sixties program and then fold. In fact, he turned out to be a streetfighter who can take a punch; a great communicator unhampered by commitments who understands uncannily the quirks of this era and has made himself into a sort of postmodern, antimatter Reagan.