This civil suit, however, has a loftier focus than that of Paula Jones. And, if successful, it could prove to be globally consequential, because it deals with the president's legal ability to wage war.

On April 30, 17 members of Congress filed a civil suit against the president before Judge Harold H. Greene of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The suit cites the exclusive role of Congress to declare war, as cited in the Constitution as well as the War Powers Act. It asks Judge Greene to declare that President Clinton is violating the Constitution by waging war without the explicit authority of Congress. The legal wrangling, which has gotten little coverage, could accomplish what House members have been unable to: force the president to come to Congress for permission to continue leading NATO's intervention.

The suit was filed on the heels of the surprising April 28 series of House votes on the NATO campaign: No on ground troops, 249-180; no on removing all troops within 30 days, 290-139; no on declaring war, 427-2; and a shocking 213-213 deadlock on the resolution the Senate passed four weeks ago authorizing the president to continue airstrikes, despite support by Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert and leading House Democrats.

To add to the mixed messages, on Thursday the House is expected to vote in support of $12.9 billion to fund the military operations it won't support -- even though President Clinton requested less than half that. House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, has explained this as a way to support our troops, while not necessarily supporting the policy that put them there.

Publicly, the White House shrugged off the discouraging April 28 votes, apparently dismissing what the legislative branch thinks about its military intervention. "The House is obviously struggling to find its voice," says National Security Council spokesman David Leavy. "It voted 'No' on declaring war, 'No' on sending in ground troops, and it tied on whether to support an air campaign. They sent a mixed message as to what their stance is. But we've got to press ahead. There's broad support for this campaign among the American people, so we sort of just blew by" the House votes, he said.

But on the floor of the House last week, the attitude of Democratic House leaders wasn't so flip -- especially when it came to the 213-213 vote on continuing airstrikes. "The lobbying on this was some of the most intense that I've ever seen," says Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, who voted against the measure. "I think people were stunned that this thing went down."

Kucinich says that there was a secret reason House leaders lobbied so intensely: for constitutional reasons, the White House wanted to get some legislative record of the House signing off on the war. "This wasn't a simple matter of the Democratic Caucus endorsing the president's actions," he says. "It had tremendous consequence ... In looking at it further, I realized that the president would, in fact, be empowered to conduct war without further restraint by Congress."

Despite the fact that President Clinton wrote the House a letter on the day of the April 28 vote assuring members that he wouldn't send ground troops without checking with Congress, Kucinich says that there were signals that the White House was planning on using the vote in support of airstrikes as a future blank check.

"They were passing [the Clinton letter] out on [House] floor to Democrats before the vote," Kucinich reports. But then, Kucinich heard that White House spokesman Joe Lockhart had told reporters that, were the vote to go the way the White House wanted, the president wouldn't be required to seek congressional approval on any further actions in Kosovo. "We'll talk to [House] leaders, but we won't have to go back," Kucinich paraphrases. "So Lockhart had already nuanced it into something that was less than what the letter said."

The White House continues to insist it doesn't need the permission of Congress to mount military action against Yugoslavia. "We believe the president does have the authority to conduct this campaign," says NSC spokesman Leavy. "There's constitutional precedent. In 1995, we engaged in military action in Bosnia in order to bring the Serbs to the negotiating table. President Bush sent 20,000 troops to Somalia. What we've done is consistent with the War Powers Resolution."

"The whole War Powers Act is a very vague and hazy area," adds a senior White House official. "It's never been tested to the Supreme Court level."

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