Barring a miraculous turn of events - such as a Democratic sweep of the November elections, which nobody expects, or even a draw, which also isn't expected - President Clinton will be impeached by the House.

It will happen because House Republicans, led by Speaker Newt Gingrich, are determined that he be impeached, and also because the Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee have already passed the point of no return. It will happen because the ever-stronger Republican base, the Christian Right, demands that it happen, and few Republicans will risk crossing them. This is more important to most Republicans than the President's job approval ratings.

Some Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee opted early for making perjury - whatever the subject - an impeachable offence, without appearing to give the matter much thought. In 1974, what constituted impeachment was considered a solemn subject, and the then judiciary committee members spent nearly a year before deciding. The bar is being lowered dramatically - and dangerously.

As of now the House leadership's plan is that before Congress adjourns for the elections, the House committee will vote on - inevitably in favour of - a resolution to begin a formal impeachment inquiry; the inquiry would perhaps begin before the elections. After the elections, the committee would vote articles of impeachment, and the House would approve the articles (or article) before the end of the year, maybe even before Thanksgiving.

Gone, apparently, is the insistence of Henry Hyde, the committee's chairman, that impeachment must be bipartisan. And Gingrich's statement a month ago that "only a pattern of felonies" and not "a single human mistake" should constitute grounds for an impeachment inquiry. (When Gingrich made this statement, he assumed - as did a lot of people - that independent counsel Kenneth Starr would come up with a report charging a broad pattern of obstruction of justice on the part of the Clintons.)

Gingrich, the moving spirit behind the current strategy - shared by the other House leaders - is driven, according to colleagues, in some substantial part by vengeance. Not against Clinton. Not against what he might see as serious offences.

A major motivation for Gingrich, these people say, is his lasting resentment of his treatment by the House Ethics Committee. (After a long investigation, the committee in January 1997 voted to reprimand Gingrich for use of tax-exempt foundations for political purposes and recommended a financial penalty for providing "inaccurate information" to the committee, causing a lengthened investigation. The House voted its agreement on January 21st.)

Gingrich feels that the process against him was unfair, that even the Republicans on the ethics committee didn't protect him from the Democrats, who were on a tear, so why should he protect the President? This is an unusual rationale for proceeding to impeach a president.

The various establishmentarians' efforts to put together a deal notwithstanding, Gingrich and the other Republican leaders, including Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, have no interest in letting Democrats off the hook before the elections, or even in talking about a deal before the House has voted to impeach.

"They are discussing it as casually," says one prominent Republican, "as if they were talking about passing a highway bill and saying `Let the Senate fix it'." There is even some thought in high Republican circles that no deal should be made until after the Senate has voted on whether to convict Clinton.

Orrin Hatch, the Utah senator, was recently slapped down in the Senate Republican conference for prominently trying to work out an arrangement whereby the President would admit to lying (not perjury, which is legally more dangerous) hither, thither and yon, and would receive some sort of congressional spanking. A few Republican senators who have taken the role of ideological enforcers even threatened removal of Hatch from his chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The Republicans no longer fear that installing Al Gore in the presidency would be handing him re-election in 2000. (Thus earlier this year Gingrich was speaking to some of his associates about impeaching both Clinton and Gore - for pardoning Clinton.) They figure Gore's too damaged now. There is even talk among the House leadership about blocking Gore's selection of a vice-president until they get one who is satisfactory. They enjoy contemplating their leverage, whether or not they'll exercise it in the end.

The Republicans don't seem to realise what a dangerous game they're playing, near and long-term. To begin with, impeachment has to be bipartisan if it is to have legitimacy. And it can't look like a lynching, which it is currently threatening to do. The Democrats were engaging in a bit of crocodile-ism in their show of outrage that documents and the famous tape were being released. Some among them, including the former inquisitor John Dingell, urged the Democrats to not let the Republicans control the materials and leak them as they chose.

The country is often said to be impatient with this or that inquiry, but its registered uneasiness with the Clinton crisis being drawn out is well founded. It's facing an unusual number of difficult and dangerous concurrent foreign crises (Kosovo, Russia, North Korea, India, Pakistan, to name a few). The creeping currency collapses threaten America's own prosperity.

To drag out this process out of partisanship and personal pique is to invite condemnation now and in the future. Unless he resigns, there are other ways to punish Clinton, and the country deserves better.

Elizabeth Drew is a Washington-based author. She covered the Nixon impeachment hearings