KINDER'S COMMENTARY: THE LIST: THOSE WHO HAVE WRITTEN THEIR NAMES IN DISHONOR

As stories of a search for DNA from a possible semen stain on an intern's dress slither out of the Oval Office, we all wonder what has become of the office of Washington and Jefferson, of Adams and Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. As Americans listen to Clintonite spinmeisters night after dreary night telling us that obstruction of justice, perjury and witness tampering in a chief executive are just jim-dandy -- no cause for concern, as long as you spin it right -- the worm may just be about to turn.

Many commentators have recently speculated that a major theme of the presidential campaign two years hence may just be a return to traditional morality and standards of personal responsibility. Tucker Carlson of the Weekly Standard has a piece suggesting as much, citing Texas Gov. George Bush and Missouri U.S. Sen. John Ashcroft.

Let us, meanwhile, recite a litany of those commentators and criminal defense lawyers who have quite literally written their names in dishonor beside Bill Clinton's, never to be forgotten as long as a camera might still be found. Heading the list of dishonor must be Eleanor Clift of Newsweek, followed closely by Margaret Carlson of Time. Clift, who is said to be Hillary's best friend in the media, has never met a Clintonite atrocity for which she couldn't apologize. The purloining of 1,000 FBI files -- old Nixon hand Charles Colson pulled two years of hard time for mishandling one -- is now an occasion for great hilarity and cute little jokes. At least it is between Clift, Carlson and Co. Susan Estrich, manager of the ill-fated Dukakis presidential campaign, almost nightly displays a contempt for the rule of law that until recently was sufficient to get a lawyer like herself called up before a bar disciplinary committee.

For the host of a certain program on CNBC, week nights at 8 o'clock, there should be created the Geraldo Rivera Kneepads Award for Creative Sucking Up. How absolutely nauseating it is to see this flyweight little creep sneering and giggling his way through another night of defending the indefensible. Abandoning all pretense of being anything but the Voice of the Clinton White House, Rivera desperately averts his gaze from any evidence damning to the president, no matter how overwhelming.

Meanwhile, to the 11 Secret Service agents from whom Ken Starr already has testimony, add the six more he subpoenaed this week. Soon enough we will learn why Mr. Clinton's White House fought so hard to create a phony joke of a privilege to deny us all their devastating, incorruptible evidence.

As much of the news media disgraces itself, a few stand out. Katie Couric gets honorable mention for snapping at Geraldo this week and telling him to knock it off. But standing far above them all is the always incisive and honorable former aide to Jimmy Carter and Tip O'Neill: Chris Matthews of CNBC's "Hardball."

In the spring of 1974, nearly six months before the August collapse, columnist Bill Buckley's brother Jim, then a Republican senator from New York, stood up publicly to call for Nixon's resignation. Say what you will about old Dick, he at least had a sense of shame and did depart, 24 years ago next week, after Barry Goldwater came calling to tell him the game was up.

Where is the senior Democrat -- Pat Moynihan, say, or a governor somewhere -- who will stand up and say, "There is no honor in this, I can't stand what it says about our beloved country, about my beloved party, it is time for this disgrace to end, and for Bill Clinton to go ..."?

What would a country look like that had completely lost any capacity to display, or feel, any sense of shame at all? It would look like the Clinton White House, spun night after night by Geraldo.

~Peter Kinder is assistant to the president of Rust Communications and a state senator from Cape Girardeau.