The independent counsel investigating U.S. President Bill Clinton in connection with the Whitewater scandal has determined that neither the president nor his wife "knowingly participated in any criminal conduct . . . or knew of such conduct." The investigation, announced Mr. Robert Ray in a summary released last week, is now closed. But if "Whitewater" is over, the investigatory machine it established has not shut down. Related investigations continue and the scandal will be irrevocably tied to the Clinton presidency. The impact of Whitewater spread far beyond the White House. It destroyed reputations and claimed lives. It unleashed a partisanship in American politics that will take years to bridge. Worst of all, there is little hope that the real lessons of Whitewater will be absorbed by the individuals and institutions that should study it most.

Whitewater shadowed the entire Clinton presidency. During the 1992 campaign, Mr. Clinton was forced to answer questions about the failed 1978 real-estate development. It mushroomed into a full-scale investigation in 1994. In six years, two special prosecutors, Mr. Ray and his predecessor, Mr. Kenneth Starr, spent more than $52 million as they dug into it and a web of controversies: the suicide of one of Mr. Clinton's closest friends, the alleged misuse of FBI personnel files, hush money, and the affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

For all that time and money, 12 people have been convicted. Mr. Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives. Mr. Clinton and his wife have been exonerated, however -- and not just once, but three times. In a 1996 report to the U.S. Resolution Trust Corporation, the federal agency that dealt with failed savings-and-loan associations like that associated with Whitewater, the law firm of Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro completely cleared the Clintons of wrongdoing in the case. Two years later, during the House impeachment hearings, Mr. Starr told the House Judiciary Committee that he would not seek indictments of the Clintons over Whitewater. And now Mr. Ray has reached the same conclusion.