MISSOURI COMMENTARY: THREE YEARS: ENOUGH TO MAKE A CASE?

Ken Starr is the soft-spoken, but determined, independent counsel. He has never been a prosecutor or a defense lawyer. He is, however, investigating for the purpose of possible criminal indictment most everyone in the White House -- from the president and first lady on down.

Starr has been at his work for over three years. He has spent $34 million and has twenty-one lawyers assisting him. His personal supervisory work is part-time. He may eventually exceed the spending record for an independent counsel ($47 million by Lawrence Walsh in the Iran-Contra inquiry), but mercifully for the nation he will not let the investigation duplicate Walsh's seven years.

David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, gets irritated with Starr's delays and forays, "Every time he steps out of his professional role, he demonstrates a tin ear for politics and gives ammunition to his enemies," Keene said.

In April, Starr told the Arkansas federal judge that he needed more time because he had found "extensive evidence" of a possible cover-up. When will we see it? Who will be hit?

The tea leaves read that Starr would like to close up shop, but cannot decide between a quick kill and death by drips and drops. Reading tea leaves is all that anyone can do. No one knows what is going on in Starr's head but everyone would like to pretend that he or she does know.

The newest "fact" seems to be that one of Starr's most trusted assistants is leaving him for a second time. Surely, the guessing goes, this means the curtain is about to come down. Also, the janitor in the building is about to retire and certainly that has to mean something.

Starr knew he couldn't indict the Clintons solely on the word of David Hale and Jim McDougal. In the words of one Little Rock writer, "Hale and McDougal are our tow major league liars." Starr knew he needed more than two of them.

He seems to believe if he could also put Susan McDougal and Webster Hubbell on the stand, the testimonial weight of four tarnished witnesses might be enough.

Susan McDougal, however, is apparently prepared to stay in the slammer for the long haul. Meanwhile, Hubbell's main interest seems to be in writing a book that might squeeze out a few bucks.

Starr spent years and tons of millions of dollars scrutinizing every aspect of the actual Whitewater transaction in minute detail. To date he has not been able to gather enough evidence to indict the Clintons or their White House associates.

The Special Prosecutor is now the Solipsistic Prosecutor. Starr is no longer reviewing what actually happened in Whitewater, but rather what his own investigation was told about those events years later by those being investigated.

To that end, Starr would like to prove that Hillary Clinton committed perjury in connection with the Castle Grande real estate deal that is a sidebar story to the Whitewater transactions.

Perjury, of course, is a serious matter -- it was the downfall of Alger Hiss, for example. Most of the Watergate malefactors were similarly convicted not of the underlying crimes (such as burglary) but of obstructing the latest investigation into those crimes. But perjury is a difficult case to make unless the sworn testimony clearly conflicts with the truth as known. With respect to Castle Grande, Mrs. Clinton testified "I don't believe I knew anything about any of these real estate projects." The fact that Mrs. Clinton's billing records showed 60 hours of work over a 15-month period will not perjury make.

Would Starr be satisfied with filing a perjury charge against two of Mrs. Clinton's advisers, Maggie Williams and Susan Thomases? How would it go over if Starr spent $34 million plus and three or four years and all he could come up with at the conclusion was an accusation that Williams and Thomases misled Starr's own investigation?

Lacking anything better, Starr might try to put the squeeze on Hubbell. Perhaps some tax charges might loosen him up? Starr's people leak a thought or two and one of their more persistent gems is that "Web knows a lot more than he says."

Remember in April Starr told that federal judge in Arkansas that he needed more time because he had found "extensive evidence" of a possible cover-up. That was spring. We are now heading into fall. One would think that by World Series time he could tell the judge whether the "possible" had become probable.

~Tom Eagleton of St. Louis is a former U.S. senator from Missouri.