MISSOURI COMMENTARY: ISN'T IMPEACHMENT ENOUGH? HISTORY'S VIEW OF PRESIDENTS

History is little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind. -- Edward Gibbon

As a president reaches his final months in office, he contemplates his future, focusing on one dream and one dream only: "How will history treat me?"

He plans for his dignified retirement. He does some mundane things like raising money for the presidential library that he wants to believe will be the permanent monument to his place in history.

By my reckoning, American presidents fall into five categories.

GREAT: The Mount Rushmore four plus Franklin Roosevelt. Historians often disagree about presidents, but not on the greats. Even some of these men have blemishes. George Washington cheated on his expense account during the Revolutionary War. Thomas Jefferson developed into a racist as his retirement years went by. The Great Emancipator Abraham Lincoln was slow to come to grips with the concept that "all men are created equal." Theodore Roosevelt tarnished his legacy by splitting his own party when he sought to return to the White House from a premature retirement. Franklin Roosevelt was sometimes an enlightened fibber and had an extramarital relationship.

DECENT: James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower.

Many would argue that Truman deserves a higher ranking -- maybe a new category entitled "Approaching the Great." Some claim that Lyndon Johnson's courageous achievements in civil rights and other domestic policies put him in the decent category, but more would argue that the Vietnam War ("Johnson's War") assigns him to the scrap pile of history. It's way to early to evaluate the Ronald Reagan years.

JUSTIFIABLY IGNORED: This is the biggest category. It's surprising that the greatest free nation on Earth has had a preponderance of inept, lackluster presidents. Look at the list of our 42 chief executives and you will learn for certain that the strength of our country is greater than those who led it.

TOO BRIEF TO TELL: William Henry Harrison, James Garfield, John F. Kennedy and Gerald Ford. Interestingly, public opinion polls put Kennedy in the highest category, far beyond the scope of what he was able to accomplish in a tenure that was tragically abbreviated by an assassin's bullet.

CURSED: Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Richard Nixon -- and now, William Clinton.

Fillmore, Pierce and Buchanan slept while the fires of disunion burned. Grant, a horrific president, should have remained a general.

Harding was a likable philanderer who, along with Coolidge and Hoover, led us by inaction into the Great Depression.

Clinton has a 72 percent job approval rating, but he cannot escape the wrath of history. Where other presidents may, like Truman and Eisenhower, grow in stature with the passage of time, Clinton will forever be associated with scandal and impeachment. There is nothing he can do to remove himself from enduring obloquy. Balancing the budget, moving the Democratic Party to the political center, 9000 on the Dow -- all of this is overwhelmed by the word "impeached."

Commentators tell us that Andrew Johnson -- adamantly pro-Union and adamantly pro-Southern white -- was treated with gross unfairness by his impeachment. The law that he violated was later proved to be unconstitutional. Yet, belatedly acknowledged unfairness does not rescue Johnson. His name and impeachment are inextricably linked.

Richard Nixon achieved foreign-policy success in his opening to the People's Republic of China and some environmental progress with his signing of the first Clean Air and Clean Water acts. These achievements amount to zero as history brands him as the first president to resign his office in the face of certain impeachment.

Bill Clinton now suffers the same fate as Andrew Johnson and Richard Nixon. Clinton's political cleverness, his forensic abilities, his brilliant mind -- all this is but a footnote to his history of torment. Need he be further punished? Clinton pretends to believe in 10 to 20 years history will set the record straight in his favor. He is too smart, too good a reader of history to believe that in his heart of hearts. As in so many other areas, Clinton spins a better game than truth will allow.

Is it not punishment enough to be forever linked in the Johnson-Nixon-Clinton Hall of Shame?

No 20th century president, save Woodrow Wilson, was as bright as Clinton. No president, again excepting Wilson, was as conscious of history's judgmental powers as Clinton. Since Clinton is already buried deep in his political hell, why should he be punished further? What can "censure" add to "impeached?"

It is awkward to wrap Clinton in gentle sympathy. I'll leave the moral and theological evaluation judgments to the professional ministers. It is still mind-boggling to understand how Clinton got himself in this dilemma.

In light of his extraordinary political skills, how was it, with Gennifer Flowers and Paula Jones already chained around his neck, that he could embark upon a sexual encounter with a 21-year-old intern? How could brilliant Bill Clinton not recognize that the instant he involved himself with Monica Lewinsky, he was putting his presidency at her discretion?

Was it an act of arrogance? Was it some form of compulsion? Was it his confident belief that whatever happened, he could talk his way out of it -- just as he had successfully done in other aspects of his career? How could a clever politician be so stupid. No Starr report, no Hyde speech, will ever satisfactorily answer these questions.

Clinton is known as a creature of polls. Polling data told him where he should go on his summer vacation. The polls drive his vocabulary. He polls aspects of American political life so that he can squeeze himself to fit into the current consensus. Why didn't Clinton ask his pollster: What kind of predicament will I be in if I have another sexual encounter?

Even if compelling answers to those questions were forthcoming, it would not serve to Clinton's advantage. Even if he were to overthrow Saddam Hussein, it would not change Clinton's curse. He's stigmatized for the ages.

To be sure, Clinton is not the only one whose reputation will suffer. The House of Representatives, with impeachment, has etched its own record in infamy. Henry Hyde, once deemed to be the beloved Santa Claus of the House, now seems destined for the Thaddeus Stevens award of the 20th century. Stevens was the embittered zealot who masterminded Andrew Johnson's impeachment 130 years ago.

It is expected that the Senate will not conduct a protracted search for further vengeance. If the World's Greatest Deliberative Body were to conduct a complete trial, it would be the civil equivalent to the fire-bombing of Dresden in World War II. The spectacle would indelibly brand the Republican Party in voters' minds as needlessly vindictive.

Republican leaders in the Senate are presumably wiser than Hyde and his cohorts in the House. There will be no Johnson-like, three-month trial in the Senate. An accommodation will be reached. Clinton will serve out his term in sorrow, musing about his lost credibility and what might have been.

Chris Matthews, Geraldo Rivera and the other gurus of cable TV will find fresh titillation. Maybe they will not be as big as Bill or O.J., but other tattered souls will stumble into the spotlight.

Life is good -- or so we are supposed to think.

Thomas Eagleton of St. Louis is a former U.S. senator from Missouri.