1998 and All That - The Lewinsky affair nailed-at last.

'WE'VE been over and over this." That's what George Stephanopoulos would say. That's what any other Clintonite would say. That's what they always say when confronted with inconvenient facts or questions. Stepha nopoulos pioneered this technique in the 1992 campaign, when he tried to make Gennifer Flowers go away. He pretty much succeeded, too. Isn't the public weary of this? he would say. Can't you get on to something else? What are you, some kind of obsessive? A Clinton-hater?

We have, it is true, been "over and over" the Clinton messes, including the Lewinsky affair. But not well enough. The Clinton fog machine belches day and night, trying to obscure what ought to be plain. The president himself revises and spins at every opportunity. He will likely spend the rest of his life beclouding the events of his presidency-portraying himself as the would-be victim of a lawless right-wing cabal. The American Society of Newspaper Editors had a taste of his act at a recent meeting. Clinton put on a remarkable performance, and a typical one. He knows his lines to a T.

"I made a terrible personal mistake. I think I have paid for it. . . . On the impeachment, I am proud of what we did there, because I think we saved the Constitution of the United States. First of all, I had to defeat the Republican revolution in 1994, when they shut down the government, and we beat back the Contract on America. [This is what Clinton and other Democrats call the GOP's "Contract with America."] Then we had to beat it in the impeachment issue. Then we had to beat it when I vetoed the tax cut last year."

And "I am not ashamed of the fact that they impeached me. That was their decision, not mine. And it was wrong. As a matter of law, the Constitution, and history, it was wrong. And I am glad I didn't quit, and I'm glad we fought it. And the American people stuck with me, and I am profoundly grateful." Yes, "I'll deal with impeachment" in the presidential library to be built in Arkansas. "But you have to understand: I consider it one of the major chapters in my defeat of the revolution Mr. Gingrich led, that would have taken this country in a very different direction than it's going today, and also would have changed the Constitution forever, in a way that would have been very destructive to the American people."

The president even had a book recommendation. Two, actually. "If you want to know what's really been going on, you have a good book here, Mr. Toobin's book. You have the Joe Conason and Gene Lyons book, which explains how this all happened."

Say this for Clinton: He clearly knows who his friends are. A Vast Conspiracy by Jeffrey Toobin tells the story of 1998 just the way Clinton likes it. Even better, from the Clintonite point of view, is The Hunting of the President by Joe Conason and Gene Lyons. It's hard to say who were the greatest Clinton apologists of the entire impeachment drama, but Conason and Lyons would be hard to beat. The work of these two columnists could hardly be distinguished from the machinations of Sidney Blumenthal, one of Clinton's most poisonous aides. In fact, it was, to a large degree, the same work.

So, we have a crying need: for a book that will set the record straight; that will lay out the facts in a sober, unsensational manner, free of cant and spin; that will disperse some of the fog. That book, thankfully, has arrived. It is The Truth at Any Cost: Ken Starr and the Unmaking of Bill Clinton by Susan Schmidt and Michael Weisskopf. This is the book that the White House has feared, and will do everything in its power to discredit. It is a blow to Clintonian revisionism, or fictionalizing. It is an antidote to Toobin, Conason, Lyons, and the rest of that claque. Because it is a true book, coming amid a sea of lies, it is a necessary book. Also an enormously gratifying one.

Susan Schmidt is a reporter for the Washington Post, Michael Weisskopf a reporter for Time. They were among the handful of journalists in Washington who went hard after the truth of the Lewinsky story, refusing to be intimidated by the White House or by their skeptical or embarrassed peers. Others in this group included Michael Isikoff of Newsweek, Lisa Myers of NBC, and Jackie Judd of ABC. These reporters were hardly political partisans; chances are, none was a registered Republican. But they were professionals. For their efforts, Blumenthal labeled them "assets of the enemy." The White House constantly railed at them, or whispered about them, tagging them as biased or out of step with their colleagues. (This last bit, sadly, was true.)

The Schmidt/Weisskopf book contains many new details, some of which have received attention in the press. The Starr team came very close to indicting Mrs. Clinton for Whitewater; the death of a key witness, James McDougal, probably saved her. Clinton confessed his guilt to one of his "spiritual advisers" early on-some six months before his partial confession to the public. The Justice Department, represented by Janet Reno and her deputy Eric Holder, joined heartily in the campaign to undermine Starr, a duly appointed law officer of the government; Reno and Holder were no more honest in the Lewinsky matter than they have been in the Elian Gonzalez affair. James Carville taped phone calls from tipsters claiming to have salacious information about Starr and his staff. And so on.

But what the book mainly does is remind us of what we already know. It memorializes between hard covers a year-1998-subject to endless myth and mischief. We remember the piles of hush money paid to Webb Hubbell. The dirty arts of the snoop Terry Lenzner, employed by the president of the United States. The comical yet dangerous figure of William Ginsburg. The farce played out by Susan McDougal, who, in her prison suit and shackles, pretended that she was resisting pressure to make false statements against Clinton. Betty Currie, cowering in the midst of that press mob, burning an image of victimhood into the public mind- her lawyer had refused to let her leave by an underground exit, unnoticed. The "protective-function privilege," a novelty and crock, invented to keep Secret Service agents from testifying. The phony attempt to paint Starr's subpoena of receipts from a bookstore as an assault on the First Amendment. The stupid injection of race into the case: Will it be the D.C. jury or the Virginia one? And the awful mendacity of Steven Brill, who launched his magazine with an article that almost ruined the independent counsel. The article was grossly untrue-in a magazine devoted to policing the media for accuracy and fairness.

Above all, we remember the lies, reeking on nearly every page, coming from almost everyone on the Clinton side: the president himself, of course, and his wife. Then Currie, Vernon Jordan, Paul Begala, and a hundred others. Let's not forget the ex-intern herself. It's easy to dismiss Monica as a hapless Valley Girl, caught in a situation beyond her maturity. In this book, however, she comes off as far more shrewd, manipulative, and venal. The reader nearly suffocates from the volume of lies advanced by Team Clinton. How could there be so many, so persistent, and so easily exposed? This story, ultimately, is an age- old one of truth versus lies. It seems too simple-too black-and-white. Too partisan, even. But there it is.

At the center of the drama are two men, Starr and Clinton, alike in no important respects. "Although they were both trained in the law," write the authors, "it was as if they had apprenticed on different planets." Starr had "a nearly religious reverence for the rule of law"; Clinton, not. One effect of this book is to remove the horns that have been placed on Starr. He is a rather inspiring figure, with an inspiring life story, even if it lacks razzle-dazzle. To revisit what the White House and its allies did to him is almost traumatizing. But Starr steadily refused to defend himself, until it was too late. "Facts and law," he would tell his exasperated staff, "facts and law." Truth had always been his friend, and it would out. Decent-minded people would be grateful for his efforts. From his parents and church, he had learned to "set your face against the popular mood." And when he met the force and forces of Bill Clinton, he got clobbered. Referring to the polls, one of Clinton's aides exulted, "He's down in Gingrichland!"

Repeatedly, Starr's sensitivity to the president allowed Clinton to slip the noose. Starr declined to subpoena Clinton early, instead issuing six invitations to him, trying to entice him to speak voluntarily. Starr thought that the president was in a terrible bind, and-if you can believe it, and you should-sympathized with him. Clinton held off, giving himself time to learn what others were saying, which enabled him to shape his lies just so. If Starr had kept The Dress and its fateful evidence to himself, Clinton's perjury before the grand jury would have been even more flagrant; but Starr, thinking it only fair, tipped him off. A funny creature, Starr. He forbade those in his office to refer to Clinton as anything but "the president" or "Mr. Clinton." The authors say that the White House viewed Starr as "totally out of step with modern society." Is that right? Maybe so. Starr, given his religious views, wouldn't mind-"Come out from the world and be separate," etc. But then, Starr had what turned out to be a very worldly job.

This book will make ordinary readers mad; it should make others ashamed. How Maureen Dowd, for example, can confront the evidence in this book and still damn Starr as a sex-craved pervert is a mystery. The book is plenty sophisticated-independent-counsel territory can be murky-but it also reminds us of some kindergarten lessons about government. At one point, one of Starr's lawyers, Stephen Binhak (who voted for Clinton twice and celebrated the 1992 victory in Little Rock), said the following about Paula Jones: "The lowliest person in the country can sue the most exalted and get a fair day in court. That's what this is all about."

The Clinton fog machine, of course, will continue to do its work. But at least there will be this book-something to brandish, a resource to trust. Schmidt and Weisskopf have indeed gone "over and over this." Others will now have less need to do so. It certainly won't help the authors to be praised and thanked in NATIONAL REVIEW. But they have proven that journalists, especially when they are most needed, can be public servants, too.