It will be some time before the considered response of the American public to the videotape of President Clinton's grand jury testimony is known. But at this juncture, it seems unlikely that the tape will, of itself, have a seismic impact on public opinion. The four-hour tape, much of it tedious and repetitious, was far less than the political Exocet that some in the Republican party had promised - and that some appear to crave. The prosecutor's team landed some glancing blows on Mr Clinton but there was no knockout punch. There was no incriminating soundbite. And there were no histrionics. Despite the intensely personal nature of the cross-examination this was, for the most part, a controlled, calm performance by the President under the most trying circumstances.
For all that, President Clinton did not emerge entirely unscathed from his testimony before the grand jury. At times he appeared equivocal; the manner in which he clung to his own narrow definition of "sexual relations" - as meaning only full sexual intercourse - was tortuous and not always convincing. On other occasions, the President seized on legalisms and sought to rely on his prepared statement.
But there was also the strong sense, as one watched President Clinton being interrogated by five lawyers, that the whole Starr inquisition is as much a persecution as a prosecution - as one legal observer noted shrewdly yesterday. Indeed, the unprecedented decision of the House Judiciary Committee to release the tape (as well as the 2,800 pages of accompanying documentation compiled by the independent counsel Mr Ken Starr) will tend to confirm the view that Mr Clinton has become the victim of a very partisan legal process.
Ironically, the cross-examination on the tape did not in any significant way bolster the prima-facie case that the Starr Report makes against Mr Clinton of perjury and obstruction of justice. There was much sexual witch-hunting and much in the way of a general trawl through the President's private life. But evidence of "high crimes and misdemeanours" of a kind which might warrant impeachment remains conspicuous by its absence. The President may be guilty of recklessness and poor judgment, of behaviour which has undermined the dignity and authority of his office, but this scarcely merits impeachment or resignation.
The hope now must be that after this much-hyped broadcast the American public and Congress will put the impeachment issue to one side. The need for strong, effective international leadership from the United States on the world economy, on the Middle East, Russia - and not least in helping to consolidate the progress that has been achieved on this island - could scarcely be more apparent.