House Judiciary Committee member, Ms Sheila Jackson Lee, gestures while returning to the House Chamber on Capitol Hill on Saturday after she and fellow House Democrats walked out in protest over Republican tactics. 

Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP 

One political observer has compared the political situation in the US to a bad Italian opera, where everyone is simply dead at the end. It is, perhaps, more like bad Italian pornography.

 The escalation of hatred and grudges between Democrats and Republicans has reached an unimaginable crescendo, and has exposed the wounds of America's long-simmering culture wars.

 As President Clinton prepares in Washington for a trial in the US Senate on articles of impeaching accusing him of perjury and obstruction of justice, a man in Los Angeles is preparing to destroy those who would destroy the President. His name is Larry Flynt, a multi-millionaire magazine publisher who is more than a proponent of sexually explicit fare.

 Mr Flynt, love him or hate him, is an ideologue, a champion of free speech and the right to have any kind of sex you wish, with whom you wish, without the interference of government or of the so-called Christian Coalition.

 When the campaign by the special prosecutor, Mr Kenneth Starr, to impeach Mr Clinton for his deceit concerning his affair with Ms Monica Lewinsky began to pick up steam, Mr Flynt placed a full page ad in the Washington Post offering to pay $1 million to anyone who could prove they had a sexual affair with a member of Congress, or a high-ranking government official. His aim, he said, was to expose hypocrisy.

 "My whole objective was about hypocrisy," he said. "If these people on the Hill are going to sit in judgment, they should not have skeletons in their own closets. Sex should be a private matter."

 Mr Flynt hired a Washington firm of former CIA and FBI officials to help him assess the responses to his ad and confirm their credibility. One of the first investigations surrounded Mr Newt Gingrich, then Speaker of the House.

 Mr Flynt began negotiating with several parties, people described as having an association with a prostitution ring, for a series of credit card receipts that showed Mr Gingrich paying for services.

 In the midst of that negotiation, Mr Gingrich resigned suddenly.

 Then Mr Flynt and his team began discussions with four women who claimed they had extra-marital affairs with Mr Robert Livingston, the incoming Speaker of the House. Aware of the investigation, Mr Livingston abruptly announced he had strayed from his wife of 33 years "on occasion", but that she had forgiven him and their marriage was solid.

 On the morning of Saturday's impeachment vote, Mr Livingston suddenly resigned, ending a 22-year Congressional career, stunning colleagues and close friends who thought the matter was closed.

 What happened?

 The Irish Times has learned that Mr Livingston became aware that Mr Flynt had in his possession audiotapes of sexually explicit telephone conversations between Mr Livingston and a woman. It was the nature of the sexual talk that was so disturbing, said this source. It was clearly a sexual relationship of a sado-masochistic or dominant-submissive nature.

 At one point in the conversation, Mr Livingston asks the woman a question to the effect, can't I be the victim next time? (The precise wording of the question could not be confirmed.) What was clear was that Mr Livingston was clearly interested in playing a sexually submissive role.

 Mr Flynt, for the record, did not wish to disclose the specific nature of the evidence he has against Mr Livingston. "It was much more than he said in his initial statement. He knew our investigation was under way."

 With a sly smile, Mr Flynt looked into the camera at CNN and said: "Let's say I understand why he resigned. I'm happy if our efforts had anything to do with it."

 Now that Mr Livingston has resigned, Mr Flynt says he is uncertain whether he will make the evidence public. The inference emerging, of course, is that Mr Flynt will not release his evidence if the targets, such as Mr Gingrich and Mr Livingston, resign.

 Mr Flynt says he will make more disclosures about other Republican leaders in the next two weeks.

 The White House, meanwhile, is aghast, concerned that Americans will think this kind of scorched earth political warfare is emanating from them. 

In defence of that perception, Mr Clinton called on Mr Livingston to change his mind about resignation. It is unlikely, of course, that Mr Clinton knew of the contents of the tapes.

 The latest wave of scandal has prompted calls for a ceasefire from both sides. Most of the mainstream media seem to have forgotten Mr Flynt's history as a sophisticated agent provocateur, and a zealot whose ends justify his means. Nothing is more repulsive to Mr Flynt than Mr Starr's sexual witch-hunt, and the Republican Party's embrace of it. Says Mr Flynt: "Desperate times call for desperate measures."

 Nobody is predicting when the political cannibalism will cease. The White House is trying to devise a plan to function and implement policy as the Senate trial gets under way, probably on January 6th or 7th.

 One proposal from the Republicans is to split the Congress' schedule, so that it would deal with legislation for half the day and the trial for the other half. The White House opposes this plan as it fears a prolonged trial.

 The longer the trial in the Senate goes on, the more the US would appear paralysed by the affair, and the more likely that Democrats and the American people would turn around and push for Mr Clinton's resignation. Already two Democrat members of Congress have said they would consider asking for Mr Clinton's resignation.

 Despite Mr Clinton's assertion yesterday that he would serve until the last day of his term, some White House senior officials are concerned.

 "That is the real danger here, resignation," says one White House source. Staffers have also stressed to the President that an acquittal in the Senate is not a sure thing, despite conventional wisdom that the Senate's 55 Republicans would never be able to amass the required 67 votes to convict Mr Clinton.

 Indeed, conventional wisdom never predicted that Mr Clinton, for an affair with an intern, would become the first elected President of the US to be impeached.