By LEE N. HOWELL
Politically Speaking

President William Jefferson Clinton admitted on television recently what his critics suspected and his supporters feared: For the past seven months, he has been living a lie!

During that televised appearance, President Clinton took "complete responsibility for all my actions, both public and private," he admitted that his "silence gave a false impression," and he admitted that he had "misled people, including my wife." The President said that he "regretted" what he did because "it was wrong."

Now, he did not describe in detail the type of relationship he had with Monica Lewinsky, except to say it was "a critical lapse in judgment and a personal failure."

He did not say what they did, when they did it, where they did it, or how often they did it. But, then only voyeuristic denizens of the most vile sewage dump would relish such details of what went on between two consenting adults behind closed doors.

He said enough for me and it was certainly enough for anyone with ears to hear. And, it did not require any advanced technical degrees to understand that what he was saying was that he "had sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" (to use language with which this Bible-toting, churchgoer is most familiar), that he was asking forgiveness of his family and his God, and that he hoped we as a nation could now move on to more important things.

Of course, all of us realize that the speech given will not be enough to satisfy that right-wing cabal of Clinton-haters who have spread lies and innuendos about this president and his family since the earliest days of his campaigning for the office to which he was elected and reelected but, then, probably nothing short of public emasculation would satisfy some of them.

What he said will not be enough to satisfy that nefarious nitpicker, the Special Persecutor Kenneth Starr, who has wasted $40 million of taxpayer money on a partisan witch-hunt which has tried and failed to uncover some shred of evidence that would prove wrongdoing by the President (of his private citizen wife) in a whole list of areas stretching back to the days before he became chief executive of Arkansas.

And, it will not be enough to satisfy those hypocritical, holier-than-thou members of the Republican leadership in the U. S. House and Senate who will ultimately be called upon to decide the merits of the report to be presented them by Starr. (To his credit, Speaker Newt Gingrich has tempered his criticisms of Clinton's sexual escapades but, maybe he figures that when one lives in a glass house, they had better not throw too many stones!)

The questions is: Will his apology satisfy the American people. Polling results seem to indicate it will. The American people seem to be saying that they are more interested in his public performance than in his private mistakes. Or, to use some more of that Biblical language, maybe they are just saying, "Judge not that ye be not judged," or, maybe, "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone."

Now, it would have been nice if President Clinton had come clean about his relationship months ago, before so many of his friends and supporters became involved in the effort to refute the allegations and now find themselves in what can only be described as an embarrassing situation.

But, he is only human and like any other human being caught in an illicit sexual relationship, he tried to hide it from his family, his friends, and his constituency.

The bottom line is: He made a mistake, he got caught, he finally admitted it, and now it is time to move on. As he said in his address, "We have important work to do real opportunities to seize, real problems to solve ... turn away from the spectacle of the last seven months, repair the fabric of our national discourse, and return our attention to all the challenges and to all the promise of the next American century."

That is good advice which is well-worth heeding. If only we would.

[Lee N. Howell is an award-winning writer who has been observing and commenting upon politics in Georgia and the Southern Crescent for the last 25 years.]