I will bite. Just on the facts:
A. The impeachment vote fell along party lines, just as about everything else in his presidency and in the recent Florida brouhaha.
B. He lied under oath about his private life. He swore to uphold the consitution of the United States, his public duty. What is the relationship between these? This is about as stupid as discharging officers from the military for having discrete adulterous affairs.
C. Bush is a politician. Clinton is a politician. Probably the only president in this century who was a man of his word was Jimmy Carter, and while undoubtedly a man of impressive integrity, he wasn't exactly effective as president.
D. In partisan politics, especially in the last 20 years, things like "constitution", "ethics", "the good of the country" (remember the gingrich revolution?) are useful largely for their impact in soundbites. What is important is maintaining one's party in power.
E. But remember, it's in neither party's interest to destroy utterly the other party; one party wants to be dominant, but not absolutely so. They will compromise on some issues, because a disenfranchised public is a threat to the stability of our current government.
Here's one model to consider:
You have two parties, each one controlled by a core group that will be the principal beneficiary of the passing to political office of members of that party. Right now, these core groups for both parties are fairly easily identifiable as corporate (cf. the discussion of the fate of "Gore stocks" and "Clinton stocks"); in other words, competing (but not terribly distinct) groups of fairly wealthy individuals. There's also a slim amount of core ideology, but that's becoming less and less articulated with every election.
To win an election, though, these groups need to obtain the popular vote. This is done not so much by selling an ideology (this is amurrica, after all: we're practical people), but by extending the promise (and they better make good on it) of sharing in the benefits of power to certain sectors of society (this is why the "Character" issue is so useful: essentially you sell your candidate and promise nothing in return). Of course, you can't make the same promise to all sectors: that would be costly and pointless. All you need is 51% (or, in W.'s case, far less) of the popular vote.
This is where the importance of the other party comes in. It gives you an adversary, a scapegoat and a co-conspirator. By setting the party up against the opponent, the leaders can promise much less to the non-core-groups ("Character" or "Competence"), and still get their votes. The presence of the other party allows a convenient excuse for failure ("Somalia was Bubba's fault for not getting out of there", "Somalia was Bush's fault for getting in there in the first place"; "The Republicans shut down government to force their will on the people"; "The Democrats shut down government...").
Obviously if the other party were too weak, or nonexistent, this game wouldn't work. We'd have accountability, and there would be room for much-feared popular movements (which would threaten the existence of whatever core group survived).
So, both Republicans and Democrats seek to perpetuate the two-party system. Remember when the threshhold for receiving Federal Presidential Campaign funds was 2%? Ross Perot started a popular movement, and the next election that threshhold was bumped to 5%.
F. The political "will" of the country is a flexible thing; it has always been that way, as those of us who play WWII games should know pretty damn well. Nationalized health care lost in part because of the the nation's health care industries paid enough money in advertising to take every man, woman and child in this country out to lunch. Slick Willy probly didn't get impeached because of his artful composure (=Spin) during the process. Sure you could argue Specter's flowchart and the fact that Bill's affair wasn't exactly an affair of state, but the prevailing opinion in political circles is (and has been) that images, photo-ops and soundbites form public opinion more than doctrine, ideology and facts.
And, as I claim above, it's in everybody's interest to keep the political will of the country in the middle.
G. Agreed that economic cycles have little to do with who's in power. I don't think there's any collusion here. Boom-bust cycles are common and regular, and this one was heading bust a year and a half ago.
H. "Revenge Mode" is SOP for both sides. A special investigator whose tenure is almost as long as the two-term presidency, and the only thing he can turn up is the President lying about getting blow jobs?
I. Bye bye Marriage and Death taxes, hello tax cut? Three words:
Read my Lips.
H.
