In spite of what Orin Hatch would like to have us all believe, having an affair with an intern and then failing to come clean about it after months of being hounded by a small army of subpoena-wielding attorneys may be tacky — it just isn’t impeachable.

You see, the original intent of impeachment was to boot presidents out of office who actually deserved it.

It was not intended to be used as a petty, underhanded tool of political embarrassment.

For years now, the Republican Party has been stinging from the Watergate debacle, and Bill Clinton is the first democrat to hold the office who was even remotely impeachable.

Jimmy Carter only lusted in his heart. He never even came close to creating valuable presidential souvenirs out of intern dresses. Aside from a little malaise, the man was squeaky clean.

Bill Clinton has screwed up; no one denies that. But the scale of his mistake is the real question.

He has not done anything which would seriously meet the requirements of impeachment — unless he were serving his term in a Warner Brothers cartoon.

There are virtually no members of the House of Representatives who want to consider beginning impeachment proceedings. The main reason for this is that they want to serve another term.

The American public is overwhelmingly supportive of the president, and only a small number want to see him impeached.

The only obvious, logical recourse is censure.

Censure is exactly what this situation requires because it is a gentle slap on the wrist; a little black mark that goes down on the permanent record as a part of history.

It exists as a punishment so that future generations will know that a term of service was less than spotless.

In times past, censure was pretty harsh punishment, indeed.

Of course, that was before Watergate.

Those among us who continue to clamor for impeachment are determined to do so for purely political reasons.

They want to see this president embarrassed, disgraced and displaced to attach an equal stigma to the Democratic Party in the hopes of erasing the one left by Tricky Dick.

The plan would undoubtedly backfire. All the public relations gurus in Washington couldn’t make impeachment spin fast enough to sell it to the American public.