Insomniacs and obsessives around the world couldn't wait till the morning. In Britain, they stayed up until 3 a.m. on Tuesday to watch Bill Clinton give his TV address live - and they weren't disappointed. It made gripping viewing: Clinton dispensing with his usual ticks of faux sincerity - the bitten lower lip, the jabbing forefinger - speaking instead in uncharacteristically spare, terse sentences. He sounded like he meant it. Not so much the contrition, which was pretty half-hearted (no mention of "sorry"), as the self-pity. That was genuine.
Clinton's attack on his tormentor, independent counsel, Kenneth Starr, for conducting a hunt which "has gone on too long, cost too much and hurt too many innocent people", sounded as if it came from the heart. The much-trumpeted apology, by contrast, came over as cursory and small. Rather than deliver the healing mea culpa aides had trailed, the President resorted to more of his trademark legalese. That relationship he had denied on national TV just seven months ago? Well, it had happened after all. Those denials, some of them under oath? Don't worry, soothed Bill, they weren't lies. On the contrary, they were "legally accurate". Who can blame the American audience if they heaved with nausea at that? Who can blame Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, heard to mutter off camera: "Wasn't that pathetic? I tell you, what a jerk."
It was all there to be lapped up by cable and satellite viewers, spoiled for choice in the coverage of Clinton's five minutes of shame. The keen-eyed viewer would have clicked past Sky, NBC and even CNN, settling instead on BBC World. For this otherwise creaky, and frequently dull channel came up with a visual masterstroke.
The backdrop for its Washington set was not the usual city skyline, complete with Capitol dome, but a poster-size portrait of the woman at the heart of the trouble.
EXCEPT the way the camera was angled, the top half of Monica's face was constantly cropped out of shot. As correspondents analysed and dissected the President's words, over their shoulder there glowered a giant pair of thick, red lips. The signature image of the night was not the pale, untypically drawn face of Bill Clinton but Exhibit A in the entire Zippergate scandal: Monica's mouth.
It was an appropriate illustration, and not just for the crudely obvious reasons. OK, the blow-up picture cast a sniggering shadow over the entire proceedings - making it hard not to laugh as pundits urged the President to "come clean" or at least give a "full-throated apology". But the big mouth also spoke volumes about this entire affair - and what it says about the times we live in.
For Zippergate is truly a scandal of our time - and there are few better ways to judge an era than by the scandals that outrage it. They stand as handy time-capsules, bringing together the obsessions and taboos of a generation. If you want to understand the 1970s, look at Watergate. Keen to examine our own times? Follow the Zipper.
Watergate arose in the era of ideological polarity, the cold war years when hardline Republicans genuinely believed Democrats were a few pink steps away from Soviet communism. The 1972 presidential candidate, George McGovern, was a dangerous commie, whose headquarters in the Watergate complex could be seen as the legitimate target for a break-in. Crucially, the key players in Watergate were all men: from the plumbers who staged the original burglary to the dirty tricksters who covered it up to the two reporters and their editor who eventually blew the lid. Like the book said, it was a story of All The President's Men.
Zippergate could not be more different. The partisan clash of today's politics - in Britain as well as America - has lost the cold war ardour of old.
Nor has Bill Clinton been flushed out by the dogged work of a single newspaper, as Richard Nixon was hunted down by the Washington Post. This President has been the quarry of today's very different media, made up of countless TV networks, at least half a dozen of which churn out "news" 24 hours a day. If Nixon had been around today, not many of his expletives would have remained deleted.
Which brings us to Monica's big mouth. Zippergate is the scandal for the Jerry Springer era, the epoch where everyone is meant to say everything. Confession is the definitive 1990s genre, from Diana on Panorama to the Clintons on 60 Min- utes. It's no surprise that Monica told Linda about Bill, nor that Ken Starr wanted Bill to tell the rest of us about Monica: these are days in which secrets are forbidden. Emotional openness is the most revered ideal, discretion a forgotten art.
But Zippergate's most 1990s feature is its cast list: the lead players are women. Monica on that BBC backdrop, but also Ms Tripp, Paula Jones, Hillary and Chelsea. In direct contrast with 1974, the most overused headline of 1998 has been All The President's Women. For these days the greatest heat is not generated in the battle of left versus right, but man versus woman. The key questions of our time no longer centre on the threat of a guided missile, but the threat of an unwanted hand - with sexual harassment in the workplace top of the list. That's why Mr Clinton's admission that his relationship with Ms Lewinsky was "not appropriate" was so significant: "inappropriate" is precisely the damning word an American woman uses to complain about a lecherous boss.
The great irony is that so many of these features of the 1990s landscape were ushered in by Bill Clinton's fellow baby boomers and specifically encouraged by him as President. In policy terms, he has been a great friend of women's rights - preserving the affirmative action policies that have propelled women forward at work. Moreover, Clinton has consciously nurtured the open, informal, confessional atmosphere of modern US life: he used it to highlight the generational difference between himself and George Bush in 1992. So Bill Clinton has helped fashion the world which has found its clearest expression in Zippergate. In the most profound sense, and for all his dodging, it is his scandal. And hers. And ours.
