CLINTON'S RATING WOBBLES DUE TO BOMBING

Neither Monica Lewinsky nor impeachment put much of a dent in President Clinton's lofty poll ratings -- at least the ones that measure presidential job approval. To do that, it took a war.

Up to this week, President Clinton's poll ratings had been steadily dropping as Americans grew increasingly anxious about nine weeks of air strikes, bombing accidents and debates over a ground invasion. Measured against previous presidents, Clinton's current 53 percent approval rating is still cause for smiles in the White House, but it is down from 62 percent in mid-April. Doubtless last week's announcement of a cease-fire in Kosovo and the acceptance by Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic of NATO terms will send those numbers higher.

The wonder is that it has taken a war to cause any dent in the first place. Sated by the unprecedented prosperity that began in this country back at the beginning of 1983, with only one brief, mild recession in the early 1990s, Americans seem unusually contented. Nearly all pollsters of both parties agree that presidential approval polls reflect the state of the economy, at least as it is perceived by most Americans.

Other observers wonder how this administration could have survived countless other disclosures: Nine hundred FBI files purloined illegally. The Travelgate mess and its attendant misuse of the FBI and IRS. Whitewater and all its related indictments and convictions of Clinton intimates. The first lady's miracle investment acumen in turning $1,000 into $100,000 in the volatile commodities trade. The president's out-and-out lies and long-running coverup of his disgraceful relationship with Monica Lewinsky, including his sending out dozens of administration officials to lie for him, for months, to the American people. The biggest of them all -- the compromising of American security, in exchange for illegal campaign cash, through the transfer of military and intelligence secrets to the Communist Chinese. And doing nothing about this after the president and his key security aides were notified.

Given this record, it is doubtful that historian will deal with him as kindly as have the American people these last seven years.