COULD it be happening again? Is another scandal threatening to paralyse the already wounded Clinton presidency? Where will this latest allegation lead?
This time, however, questions seem to be on the minds of people outside Washington DC, ordinary folks who polls show believed the impeachment of President Clinton was politically driven by a rabid independent prosecutor and partisan Congress.
The fire this time is being fuelled by nobody; the Republicans and the right wing are sighing a collective "No comment".
Some 10 million Americans watched the television programme Dateline NBC this week. They watched as Ms Juanita Broaddrick (56), a woman happily married for 18 years, described how Mr Clinton, then attorney general of Arkansas, allegedly raped her in a hotel room in 1978.
This was no Paula Jones, no sassy, twangy-accented country hick that political strategist James Carville could dismiss as trailerpark trash. This was no Monica Lewinsky, no starry-eyed girl who willingly performed oral sex under a desk in the Oval Office as her beloved chatted on the phone with a Congressman.
No, this was a well-groomed grandmother and businesswoman, speaking from her home in Van Buren, Arkansas.
Instead of wanting to gain attention for this story, Juanita Broaddrick fought long and hard to avoid telling it at all. She had even lied in an affidavit, she said, when the lawyers for Paula Jones tracked her down, denying the event and chalking it all up to political gossip and rumour.
She also, she said, had no designs on destroying the Clinton presidency. When he first ran for the office in 1992, she and her husband discussed going public. But she decided against it.
But finally, Juanita Broaddrick could keep silent no longer. She owed the truth to her children and grandchildren, she said. Her timing, of course, is terrible and adds to her credibility. The impeachment process is over. The statute of limitations on a criminal charge of rape is long over. Legally, even politically perhaps, he is immune.
Ms Broaddrick says she met Mr Clinton when he came to the nursing home she owned during his campaign for governor. The following week, at his request, she called him in Little Rock while she was attending a conference for nursing home administrators.
Mr Clinton suggested he come to her room for coffee because there were too many reporters downstairs. Once there, she says, he pushed her down on the bed, bit her lip until it was bloody and swollen when she resisted kissing him, held her down and raped her.
Norma Rogers, a friend and colleague at the nursing home who was also attending the conference, soon returned to the room and found Mrs Broaddrick on the bed weeping. After telling Ms Rogers the story, Mrs Broaddrick and Ms Rogers packed and left the hotel immediately.
The thought of pressing a criminal charge never occurred to her. Mr Clinton was the attorney general. She believed she would have no credibility against him.
She did tell the man she was having an affair with, the man who became her husband. He was furious, and years later confronted Mr Clinton, telling him to stay away from his wife.
But Mrs Broaddrick was shocked in 1991 when she was called out of a business meeting. Mr Clinton was standing in a stairway. He took her hands, and told her he wanted to apologise. He asked if there was anything he could do to make up for what he had done.
Mrs Broaddrick says she told him to "go to hell" and walked away. Later, she and her friend, Norma Rogers, wondered what had brought this gesture on. They soon learned that Mr Clinton was running for president.
Through his lawyer this week, Mr Clinton called the accusation of assault "false". But the White House would not elaborate.
The answer to what will happen now seems fairly evident to most. Nothing. Nothing at all will happen.
The phrase "scandal fatigue" is now prominent in America's lexicon.
And yet it was a comedian this week who probably captured the Zeitgeist best; David Letterman pleaded with America: "The next time we elect a president . . . can somebody please run a background check?"