President Clinton will today make last minute efforts to avoid a looming impeachment vote on Capitol Hill as support from moderate Republicans continues to erode.
The House of Representatives will vote tomorrow on four articles of impeachment citing alleged perjury, obstruction of justice and abuse of power by Mr Clinton. The Republican leadership is blocking Democratic attempts to offer a censure motion as an alternative to impeachment.
The first impeachment of a president since that of Andrew Johnson in 1868 appeared almost inevitable here last night even though opinion polls showed that over 60 per cent are opposed to it and Mr Clinton's approval ratings remain in the mid-60s.
The President flew back late last night from the Middle East into what a former White House deputy chief of staff, Mr Harold Ickes, described as "a tidal wave moving against him". One by one, Republicans who had been listed as likely to oppose impeachment or "undecided" announced that they would vote for it.
But the House of Representatives Democratic leader, Mr Dick Gephardt, told the White House that there were still enough moderate Republicans to give the President hope. Political observers estimated that about 15 of the 228 Republicans would have to defect if the impeachment motion was to fail and this now looked unlikely.
If the House of Representatives votes tomorrow for one or more of the four articles of impeachment, the President will face a trial in the Senate early next year. If two-thirds of the 100 senators find him guilty he would be dismissed from office.
There was speculation in Washington that the President might make some dramatic gesture such as going in person to Congress to admit to lying about his relationship with former White House intern Ms Monica Lewinsky. Republicans who had preferred censure have said that they moved towards impeachment because Mr Clinton would not admit he lied under oath.
The offices of members of Congress are being flooded with calls from constituents urging them to vote for or against impeachment or for censure. The big labour unions and some women's and liberal groups are planning -
Irish-American organisations have been lobbying members of Congress to remind them of the President's importance to the Northern Ireland peace process.
The so-called "New York strategy" of the White House whereby the Republicans in that region were targeted as likely to favour censure rather than impeachment crumbled yesterday as most of them declared they would vote to impeach. This was a victory for the Republican leadership, which has refused to allow a censure motion to be debated alongside impeachment.
Behind the scenes, the President's supporters are working desperately to avert his impeachment by promoting the censure option. They got a boost from the proposal yesterday from the former Republican presidential candidate, Mr Bob Dole, that Congress should pass a tough motion condemning the President's behaviour but stopping short of driving him from office.
Another Republican member of Congress, Mr Michael Castle, has proposed that the Republican leadership drop impeachment if the President would agree to be censured and pay a $2 million fine.
Before leaving the Middle East, President Clinton had declared that he was ready to accept a "reasonable compromise".
As the situation for the President became more critical, Vice President Al Gore changed his plans to visit New Hampshire tomorrow as part of his as yet undeclared bid for the presidency in 2000. Mr Gore decided it would look bad if he were out of Washington on such a visit while the President's fate was being debated on Capitol Hill.
Reuters adds:
American feminists expressed outrage yesterday at the push to impeach President Clinton, and the women's movement pioneer Ms Betty Friedan, blamed it on "a bunch of dirty old white men".
"Even if he did what he's alleged to have done, what's the big deal?" Ms Friedan said, referring to Mr Clinton at a news conference with more than a dozen other women leaders.
"To have our will overthrown by a bunch of dirty old white men trying to use sexual issues wrongly . . to impeach a president, this is really a disgrace to Washington, to the Congress, to the United States," said Ms Friedan, author of The Feminist Mystique.