The historic rumble started after the Senate Democratic leader compared the shrill radio host to foreign fanatics, and complained that he and his family receive threats when Mr. Limbaugh airs a diatribe against him. "What happens when Rush Limbaugh attacks those of us in public life is that people aren't satisfied just to listen, they want to act because they get emotionally invested," Mr. Daschle said. "And so, you know, the threats to those of us in public life go up."

After the discovery of anthrax in his office mail, Mr. Daschle deserves sympathy as well as the best possible protection. But as the losing Democratic leader, his remarks were ill-advised. Combined with his mild-mannered public persona and almost whispery voice, his complaint had a whining sound. Threats are part of public life, especially for Democrats and liberals.

Yet Mr. Limbaugh's friends and fans in the mainstream media, from Fox News to NBC to The Washington Post , weren't content to scold Mr. Daschle. They behaved as if Mr. Limbaugh is a paragon of respectability whose listeners would never, ever threaten anyone.

It isn't so far-fetched, however, that a loony or two or a dozen among the millions who listen to Mr. Limbaugh every day might threaten Mr. Daschle. Why? Because of what Mr. Limbaugh has actually said about Mr. Daschle-and because a serious physical threat has already occurred at least once as a direct result of irresponsible broadcasts by Mr. Limbaugh and others.

On May 11, 1999, Hardball host Chris Matthews coaxed Kathleen Willey into naming Cody Shearer, a longtime Clinton friend, as the man who had allegedly used threats to silence her. That this was a wholly false (and easily disproved) assertion didn't matter to Mr. Limbaugh, who repeated the inflammatory slander the following day and even spelled out Mr. Shearer's surname on the air. Several days later, Mr. Shearer started to receive death threats.

Then on a Sunday afternoon, Hank Buchanan, a brother of Pat and Bay, decided to visit Mr. Shearer's Washington home. He broke into the garage, slashed the tires of two cars and threatened three other people with a handgun before fleeing. Hank Buchanan was apprehended and sent to a mental institution. Mr. Matthews made an on-air apology to Mr. Shearer and to his viewers. And while that was the end of the matter, the assault by the deranged Buchanan showed that ugly broadcasts may have tragic consequences.

That instructive episode was forgotten when Mr. Limbaugh's media friends rushed to his defense. Mr. Daschle was mocked universally, while Mr. Limbaugh basked in the sympathy of the same mainstream media he laughably describes as "liberal." To take just one example, NBC's Tim Russert conducted an hour-long interview with the radio host that was one of the softest he has ever soaped on any guest.

The Washington Post 's eminent media critic Howard Kurtz-who covered the Buchanan-Shearer episode-described Mr. Limbaugh as "more policy-oriented than many of the people who shout on cable night after night," although noting that he can sometimes be "tough" and "hyperbolic." How hyperbolic were his remarks about the Senate Democratic leader? Anybody who relied on Mr. Kurtz's column or listened to his CNN Sunday program would hardly know. And the media critic concluded it was Mr. Daschle who had unfairly demonized Mr. Limbaugh.

Readers of online media criticism at Spinsanity.com, FAIR.org and DailyHowler.com could learn, however, that Mr. Limbaugh has literally demonized Mr. Daschle for years. "How many different versions of Satan, the devil, have you seen in your life?" he asked his listeners in July 2001. "Is Tom Daschle simply another way to portray a devil?"

When the Republican line changed for the election year, Mr. Limbaugh denounced Mr. Daschle repeatedly as an ally of the "axis of evil." On Nov. 15, while audibly pounding his desk, he called Mr. Daschle "a disgrace to patriotism … Hanoi Tom," and accused him of seeking to "sabotage the war on terrorism for your own personal and your party's political gain." In short, a traitor.

How should the Senator have replied? He could have noted how odd it is for Mr. Limbaugh, who avoided the Vietnam draft, to question the patriotism of an Air Force veteran like himself. Or he could have adopted the strategy of Senator John McCain, another frequent target of the radio demagogue's bombast.

After comparing Mr. Limbaugh to a "circus clown," the Arizona Republican apologized. "I regret that statement," he told an interviewer on Fox News the other night, "because my office has been flooded with angry phone calls from circus clowns all over America. They resent that comparison, and so I would like to extend my apologies to Bozo, Chuckles and Krusty."

To complete his appointed tasks as independent counsel, including a report on his five-year investigation of the President, Mr. Starr has installed an associate who has worked in his office for only the past five months. And that newcomer may suffer from a disabling conflict of interest, as Mr. Starr must have been well aware when he recommended his successor's appointment. In this clumsy departure, there is a depressingly familiar sense of déjà vu .

Precisely what is left to be done by the Office of Independent Counsel-months after the impeachment fiasco and Mr. Starr's admission that there is no Whitewater case against the Clintons-seems rather murky. The independent counsel statute (whose termination Mr. Starr's fumbling tenure insured) does require a written report.

But according to the usual sources, two matters remain open for the newly sworn independent counsel, Robert W. Ray: the firings of the White House Travel Office employees, and the alleged intimidation of Kathleen Willey, a witness in the Paula Jones case.

It is remarkable that the Travel Office case is still open, more than six years after the events in question took place. The dismissal of those seven White House employees was investigated by the Justice Department and at least one Congressional committee before Mr. Starr took over. After an exhaustive inquiry, his prosecutors reportedly concluded long ago that no crimes had been committed and no indictments would be sought for what was, in essence, an ugly bureaucratic embarrassment.

There is, however, one possible if not particularly legitimate reason for keeping this moldy case alive: the role allegedly played in the Travel Office firings by Hillary Rodham Clinton. Conflicting testimony as to whether she gave the order to dismiss the employees has been in the public record for years; the differences are no closer to being resolved now that memories are dimmer. Will some present or former member of the White House staff suddenly be indicted to induce an accusation against her?

Even if there were real reasons to continue pursuing the Travel Office case, Mr. Ray is a poor choice to handle it. His first important job as a prosecutor was given to him by Rudolph Giuliani in January 1989, just weeks before the then-U.S. Attorney resigned to run his first race for Mayor. Was a prosecutor who owes that sort of debt to Mrs. Clinton's potential political rival really the only lawyer qualified to take over from Mr. Starr? Perhaps Mr. Ray was selected for that very reason-as Mr. Starr and the judicial panel that oversees his office have unfortunately given the public ample reason to suspect.

As for the Willey case, it too gives off a bad smell. She has claimed that various individuals connected to the White House tried to induce her to change her testimony about the President's alleged "groping" of her in his office. Yet the only provable crime related to her accusations occurred as a result of a leak from Mr. Starr's office last May.

That was when Ms. Willey, with the evident connivance of the independent counsel, appeared on CNBC's Hardball show to talk about the case. Under pointed questioning by host Chris Matthews, she named Cody Shearer, a longtime Clinton friend, as a target of the Starr investigation. Supposedly, Mr. Shearer was the mysterious "jogger" who accosted and threatened her outside her house before she gave a deposition in the Jones case. After Mr. Shearer offered incontrovertible proof that he was in California at the time of that alleged incident, Mr. Matthews correctly apologized.

But in the meantime, the public accusation against Mr. Shearer-repeated on radio by Rush Limbaugh-had already instigated a bizarre and dangerous incident. Apparently inflamed by Ms. Willey's vague charges, a mentally ill man (who happens to be a brother of Patrick Buchanan) appeared at Mr. Shearer's Washington home with a gun and threatened him and his housemates.

That near-tragedy was the direct result of Mr. Starr's partisan abuse of his authority. The independent counsel's decision to permit Ms. Willey to discuss his investigation on television-a privilege that wasn't granted to other Starr witnesses like Monica Lewinsky-was one of the most grossly unprofessional acts ever committed by a Federal prosecutor. Moreover, Ms. Willey herself is hardly a credible witness anymore, after her public humiliation on the witness stand during Mr. Starr's vengeful trial of Julie Hiatt Steele.

No matter how sincere or zealous Mr. Ray may be, he has been stuck with two politically tainted cases and a conflict of his own. And Mr. Starr has departed the independent counsel's office in the same way he arrived there, under a shadow of partisan politics and legal chicanery.