Journal; Monicagate Year Two

There are only 29 more shopping days until Jan. 21 -- the first-year anniversary of Monicagate. The only thing certain about Year Two is that anyone who prognosticates about it with certainty has no clue.

This hasn't stopped the predictions. Time and Newsweek journalists have forecast the exact count of the House impeachment vote on TV. James Glassman, the syndicated financial columnist, has declared that a Senate trial ''won't damage either stocks or the real economy.'' (Phew!) Alan Simpson, the G.O.P. Senator turned Harvard professor, says that his party need not worry about any political fallout because ''the attention span of Americans is, 'Which movie is coming out next month?' ''

Alas, these certainties have to be set against the record of those that came before. Wasn't Bill Clinton going to be out of office in January, or after the Starr report, or the inquisition video, or -- whatever? Virtually every known expert, regardless of ideology, predicted a pickup of Congressional seats by the G.O.P. in November, and when that proved wrong, the same seers predicted that the Democrats' strong showing meant that impeachment was ''over'' (in the word of George Stephanopoulos). For its part, the Supreme Court had certified that the Paula Jones trial was ''highly unlikely to occupy any substantial amount of [the President's] time.''

Yet no one foresaw the demise of Newt Gingrich or (Vogue excepted) the rise of Hillary Clinton. And whatever happened to the ''talking points,'' to Kenneth Starr's reports on Whitewater and Filegate, to Mr. Clinton's on-camera temper tantrum before the grand jury, to a negotiated censure deal, and to the widespread conviction that even if the Judiciary Committee voted articles of impeachment, they would fail on the floor of the full House?

In this context, believe Washington's current truisms at your peril: that an explicit Presidential confession to ''lying'' will sway a crucial number of G.O.P. moderates in a party run by its right wing; that a last-minute plea bargain or parliamentary maneuver will prevent a Senate trial; or that a trial might be brief. In the past week alone, Orrin Hatch has publicly predicted both that it ''could tie up the Senate for a year or more'' and will reach ''a quick end.'' Who knows? Since a simple majority of senators can reverse any ruling by the presiding judge, the Chief Justice, precedent means little. Besides, in Andrew Johnson's day, there wasn't TV with its bounteous opportunities for grandstanding by lawyers and politicians alike.

Looking back on Monicagate Year One, one can see only two fixed points, both consistently underrated by the fortune-tellers: Mr. Clinton's superhuman resilience, which keeps him clinging to office no matter what, and the equal tenacity of his opponents, who won't stop trying to bring him down no matter what the polls. Their battle, in which the American middle is held hostage, is a holy war that not only dates back to Mr. Clinton's first victory but to the Vietnam era. In the lines drawn by The Wall Street Journal, which has published four thick books of anti-Clinton screeds since '92, the goal is that Mr. Starr, ''a hymn-singing son of a fundamentalist minister,'' succeed in ''prosecuting the entire culture that gave birth to what Bill Clinton represents.''

The weirdly prurient Mr. Starr, of course, no more represents all Christians or conservatives than the duplicitous, unprincipled Mr. Clinton represents the sexual or moral ethos of ''the 60's generation'': they are both caricatures of their constituencies, elevated to symbolic archetypes by the year's polarizing events. But both these antagonists are now merely footnotes to the bitter culture war they've helped re-ignite.

That is why this week's falsest prediction is that the Senate would return to the country's ''real business'' were there no impeachment trial. Hel-lo? As we enter Monicagate Year Two, isn't it past time to concede that the war it so garishly represents is the real business of the country? A Congress paralyzed by the ideological strife of partisans on both sides did nothing about Social Security, H.M.O.'s, campaign finance reform, taxes or much else during Year One either. Neither it nor we may ever get back to that business unless the unfinished business festering for 30 years is settled first.