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”?

WE MAY NOT KNOW FOR A WHILE what we have learned. The nation has undergone a trauma and it is very difficult to know the precise effects of this trauma. Also, much of what is “learned” we may have already known. With these two caveats, here are one American’s provisional conclusions: