As Americans spent the weekend absorbing the Starr report, there was a lull after the frenzy of the release of its sensational contents. But President Clinton is determined to ride out the coming storm.
His White House legal team has rushed out a second rebuttal document denouncing Mr Starr's report as a "hit-and-run smear campaign" and for its "pornographic specificity". But this tactic risks prolonging for months the arguments over the President's sexual acts which would be an appalling vista for already disgusted Americans and could end up making his position untenable.
The legal team is determined to argue that when the President denied twice under oath that what occurred between him and Ms Lewinsky was "sexual relations", he was not committing perjury. This might be legitimate in a court trying a perjury case but it is a huge risk to use the same argument before the mainly hostile body which will be deciding the President's fate - the US Congress.
Now that Mr Starr has given Congress the evidence he believes warrants impeachment under 11 headings, the President's fate rests with the politicians. But the politicians are waiting for a lead from the men and women outside Washington - their electorate - before deciding if a President who has been humiliated and disgraced before the world like none other should finish his term of office or be impeached and dismissed.
The first polls are not worth much as they were taken as the report was being distributed and none of the respondents had a proper chance to digest it. A CNN/Gallup poll showed that those who approve of the way the President does his job actually rose two points to 62 per cent. And this was as the Internet and media outlets were spewing out the most salacious details of his relationship with Ms Lewinsky.
But a member of the President's cabinet told this correspondent that it will be a week or more until reliable reactions can be assessed. Professional pollsters would agree.
Already the disgust factor is widespread. Newspapers from Middle America are calling for Mr Clinton's resignation to spare the country a long-drawn-out impeachment process when the "what is sex?" issue will be gone over in even more tawdry detail.
For many Americans, it would be a relief if the President resigned and let the upright, boy scout Vice-President Al Gore take over. Then the Starr report could be consigned to the oblivion devoutly wished by a country which feels it has been held up to enough ridicule around the world.
But for the moment, anyhow, this is not going to happen. The President "absolutely will not resign", say his lawyers and his press secretary. He himself at the emotional prayer breakfast last Friday departed briefly from the breast-beating to announce that he was instructing his lawyers "to mount a vigorous defence. . . but legal language must not obscure the fact that I have done wrong."
To those who spent yesterday morning watching the President's lawyers doing the rounds of the chat shows, they seemed to be torturing the English language to argue that what Ms Lewinsky has described as 10 sexual encounters were not "sexual relations". The lawyers are careful not to say that Ms Lewinsky lied but point out that they have not seen the transcripts of her evidence.
But again, by going down this road the lawyers risk prolonging the "what is sex?" arguments to a point where the President's standing in the country will collapse under the weight of ridicule.
For the moment, however, the impeachment machinery is cranking into action. The House Judiciary Committee will start working its way though the 445-page Starr report, the 2,000 pages of appendices and the 18 boxes of transcripts and tapes.
The Republican majority is anxious to get this preliminary work done before Congress rises in early October for the election campaign. What happens after the election in November is less clear. The new Congress will not sit until early 1999 so will the outgoing House of Representatives get on with the impeachment process up to Christmas and then hand over to the new body?
The prospect of this dragging on and resulting in a demoralised White House and a distracted President is forcing some leading Democrats to float the idea of a plea bargain, as it were, whereby the President would cooperate with Congress and escape with a severely-worded censure motion. But in return he would probably have to drop the "legal parsing" of his lawyers and instruct them to abandon the claim that he did not commit perjury.
The President's former chief of staff, Mr Leon Panetta, has told the Washington Post that the time has come for him to stop "the legal quibbling about whether he lied about that sexual relationship" and start co-operating with Congress.
Democratic Senator Bob Kerrey has gone on television to say that the "President's lawyer and the President are now saying two different things", based on Mr Clinton's confession of sinning at the prayer breakfast.
His former Labour Secretary, Mr Robert Reich, said that he believes the President will not be impeached but severely censured.
Republican opponents have been unusually restrained in their comments, with some exceptions. It seems clear that the leadership has urged this restraint so that the Starr report can do its own work on weakening the President without the need of Republican attack dogs.
The Senate majority leader, Mr Trent Lott, said yesterday that "this is not a constitutional crisis. This is a Clinton crisis." He advised him to consult with senior Democrats about resigning.
The House Speaker, Mr Newt Gingrich, who a few months ago was vowing to beat the drum with every speech on what he called the Clinton scandal, is now saying there should be no rush to judgment until Mr Clinton has had a chance to read the report. This is good tactics for the Republicans. Incidentally, the President's lawyer is saying that Mr Clinton has no intention of reading the report.
Vice-President Gore, whose private feelings about what is going on would be fascinating to know, has continued to describe Mr Clinton as "my friend", praised his policies and at the weekend said that the Starr report should not be the "basis for overturning the judgment of the American people" when they voted for him twice to be President.
Mr Gore is careful not to pass any judgment on the President's conduct. He cannot be seen to condone it but he cannot risk a public distancing himself from the President by expressing moral disapproval. The one cabinet member who has been reported as doing this, Ms Donna Shalala, at last Thursday's meeting, was reprimanded by Mr Clinton, according to the Washington Post.
Beneath the apparent closing of cabinet ranks and Democratic attacks on Mr Starr and his "sex police" there is huge anxiety. The country has yet to speak, to say whether sex and lies should turn out the man they have twice elected to be their leader, knowing he was no saint.
Ms Paula Jones feels vindicated by Mr Starr's report, her former spokeswoman has said.