September 25, 1998 - Recently, I have come across something astrologically interesting that affects the timing of this clash of the titans in a much more telling way than the slow grind of Saturn and Neptune.

Before getting around to that, however, I want to comment briefly on the events since my last installment, which was written just before the President gave his grand jury testimony. Two weeks ago, Starr released his report on the President's sexual escapades, charging him with perjury and obstruction of justice, and listing several other charges that the Independent Counsel felt constituted impeachable offenses. The firestorm has been horrific, the flames of it fanned first by the release of the highly graphic report on the Internet, and then by the playing of the President's taped grand jury testimony everywhere, including that big screen in Times Square in New York.

Despite this, at least up to this point, Clinton still has high job approval ratings (though low personal ratings), and the current consensus shown by opinion polls is that he does deserve some form of sanction, though not impeachment. Clinton is on the ropes, pummeled from all sides, and while all of this surely goes along with Saturn-Neptune's effect on his chart, at this point (amazingly enough) he looks less like a fighter ready to hit the canvas than Muhammad Ali doing "rope a dope." And there seemed to be a little bit of Br'er Rabbit in White House protests before the video of his testimony was released, as the combination of Clinton's made-for-TV personality and faceless prosecutors asking intimate questions in a surly fashion made many who saw it sympathetic, raising the stakes for House Republicans in their effort to pursue their political ends as well as their Constitutional duty.

Those who have been reading my column in American Astrology know that this is a time during which the planetary emphasis begins to shift from Clinton to Starr, something which seems just as unlikely in the midst of the current furor as it is astrologically necessary - necessary in the sense that the planets move as they will, with little regard for the meaning of life, or the significance of sex, lies and tapes. What I have been saying since I first wrote on this back in May for the September issue of AA (see the quote above) is that August was crunch time for Clinton and that Starr, in so many words, had to finish Clinton off. He has certainly taken his best shot - and I sometimes wonder whether he has been reading my column - but has he done the job? And does the current backlash against further pursuit of the Clinton-Lewinksy investigation pose any threat to Starr?

For now, however, consider this:

This is a compilation of all conjunctions, semisextiles, sextiles, squares, quincunxes and oppositions between planets (three-degree orb) at the times of five historical events which seem to be similar in nature to what is happening now with Clinton, the Congress and Starr. These are: the conviction of Charles I for treason, the censure of Andrew Jackson by the Senate, the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson, the resignation of Richard Nixon and the impeachment of the Governor of Oklahoma in 1923. The Sun-Jupiter-Saturn contacts are expected (I have long called this the "ritual transfer of power" configuration), but there are three highly interesting entries in that table. One is the Sun-Mercury entry and the other two are Venus-Uranus and Venus-Pluto. In fact, the Venus-Uranus aspect alone is highly visible in a longer list of events that includes abdications, forced resignations, impeachments and even assassinations. There is no getting around the importance of the total aspect picture on a given day, but those Venus-Uranus contacts by themselves seem to play a critical role in such events. What part, then, might Venus play in Clinton's fate? And Starr's. Stay tuned.