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When people struggle to comprehend how it was that Bill Clinton became the first American president put through impeachment proceedings in over a hundred years, they will inevitably--like it or not--have to confront a set of telephone conversations between a confused young woman (distraught at the end of a prolonged emotional and sexual relationship with the leader of the free world, conducted in furtive encounters in his office) and the coworker who claimed to be her friend but was surreptitiously taping every phone call (either to feed information to parties hostile to Clinton or gather material for her own book deal). Those tapes eventually found their way into the hands of Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, who became so hot and bothered by their contents that he launched a grand jury investigation into Clinton's relationship with Lewinsky and the way he handled their "breakup." For anybody who clings to the notion that the impeachment trial of William Jefferson Clinton represents a noble struggle over the ideals of democratic leadership, The Tripp/Lewinsky Tapes is a bracing dose of reality. From the hours and hours of intimate "girl talk" between Tripp and Lewinsky, producer Geoffrey Giuliano has culled 90 minutes of bathetic highlights. If Tripp's recordings are the raw stuff of history--as Giuliano's introduction posits--they're also a reminder that the American history taught in most classrooms is an idealistic fairy tale. (Running time: 1.5 hours, 1 cassette) --Ron Hogan
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