Paula Jones, it seems to us, was in a position to claim moral and legal victory in her sexual harassment suit against President Clinton and go home.
She had, according to reports, a $700,000 settlement offer - the amount she initially asked for - from the president's attorneys. One-third of that sum would go to the two lawyers who have been at her side for more than three years.She has her name on a landmark, 9-0 Supreme Court decision affirming that the president is an ordinary mortal before the law.
She had an offer of a general statement of regret from Clinton, an apology in all but name.
Jones declined to accept the settlement. Her clearly exasperated lawyers, Joseph Cammarata and Gilbert Davis, then asked to leave the case, an act that raises the question of whether their own unpaid legal fees will be a matter of litigation down the road.
Jones is holding out for a full apology and an admission that her version of events - that a state trooper brought her to a hotel room where then-Gov. Clinton solicited a sex act - is the truth. Jones is being encouraged in her holdout by a new player in the case, Susan Carpenter-McMillan, described as a public relations consultant and conservative activist.
Jones may regret her decision. Clinton no longer has any political stake in avoiding a trial. He has survived other embarrassments; he'll survive this one. And Jones does not have an open-and-shut case. It is her word against the president's what happened in that Little Rock hotel room six years ago.