It is a surrender to a developing sexual McCarthyism.

But he thinks the Republicans and Kenneth Starr have engaged in sexual McCarthyism and flirted with a police state.

Both the USAT front page "cover story" and an inside story at the Post refer to the newly poisoned atmosphere as "sexual McCarthyism."

"I think it's outrageous; it's sexual McCarthyism," said David Oestreich, a Manhattan businessman who was a house guest in East Hampton.

Mr. Nadler, a Democrat from Manhattan, promptly rose on the House floor to denounce "a developing sexual McCarthyism."

Representative Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, said that Congress had lost the "distinction between sins and crimes," and argued against the "sexual McCarthyism" that has become prominent.

Democrats will counter by arguing that Kenneth Starr unleashed the dogs of sexual McCarthyism with a report that Larry Flynt has now praised for outdoing Hustler magazine in prurience.

Some of Mr. Starr's critics have, in a sense, already tried to answer this question by using the phrase "sexual McCarthyism" to describe his tactics.