There was a "variance" between the versions of President Clinton and Ms Monica Lewinsky about "very specific, very intimate details", but this did not prove that he had committed perjury, a member of the president's defence team told the impeachment trial yesterday.
As his lawyers were defending him in the senate yesterday, President Clinton, accompanied by Ms Hillary Clinton and the vice-president, Mr Al Gore, was in Buffalo, New York, following up his successful State of the Union address the night before. First polls showed strong public support for most of the proposals, especially those to save social security from going bankrupt.
In the senate trial, White House defence counsel Mr Gregory Craig said the conflicting testimony between the president and Ms Lewinsky was "the heart of the entire matter", but no prosecutor would normally press charges of perjury where it was a question of "he says, she says" and there was no corroborating evidence.
Mr Craig asked why the Republican prosecutors or managers should have accepted Ms Lewinsky's version rather than Mr Clinton's on the question of how he touched her. It was "staggering" that the prosecution should argue that the president should be removed from office on this basis.
Mr Craig was entering on very delicate ground here and may have helped the Republicans' argument that witnesses such as Ms Lewinsky should be called to settle conflicts of evidence.
The prosecution case is that Mr Clinton committed perjury when he denied having "sexual relations" with Ms Lewinsky on the basis of a definition which included intimate touching. Ms Lewinsky has testified to a grand jury that the president did touch her in that way but he has denied it.
Mr Craig opened the second day of the defence case before the senate with a broad attack on the prosecution's impeachment article accusing the president of multiple perjury. Mr Craig accused the prosecution of "dubious" practice and said that the article was "really bad".
Mr Craig said the "most frightening thing" about the first impeachment article was that it alleged perjury generally but "does not allege a single perjurious statement". He also accused the Republican managers of going further than the conclusions drawn by the independent counsel, Mr Ken Starr, when he drew up his report.
Before the trial resumed yesterday, senators met privately to discuss the controversial question of witnesses. The Republicans who have been moving towards calling witnesses seemed closer to this when they emerged from their meeting. A vote will be taken on this issue next week.
A spokesman for the senate majority leader, Senator Trent Lott, said: "This all doesn't need to go beyond mid-February, even with the deposition of witnesses."
Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah said some witnesses could help Mr Clinton. "I don't know why the White House is so panic-stricken about it," he said yesterday.
The defence lawyers will wind up their case today, then the senators will have two days to pose written questions through Chief Justice William Rehnquist who is presiding.
An ABC News poll taken after the State of the Union speech showed Mr Clinton's job approval rating steady at 66 per cent, with 77 per cent saying they approve of the proposals in the speech.
The president did better in a CBS News poll which showed his approval rating at 72 per cent and 81 per cent saying they liked the proposals.