If the release of the Starr Report represents the biggest test of Bill Clinton's political career, for the World Wide Web, the medium chosen by Congress to broadcast the report, it promised to be no less of a watershed.
With previous high-profile online media events dogged by technical difficulties - the verdict in the Louise Woodward case was intended to be released online but ended up being handed to journalists on photocopied sheets after a power failure - the Starr report was an opportunity for the web to demonstrate its muscle.
The early signs were not good. Within an hour of Congress' vote authorising publication of the report, the Library of Congress web server, nicknamed Thomas (after Jefferson), was already showing signs of strain, taking upwards of five minutes to achieve a connection. Thomas, launched in 1995 to increase the flow of legislative information to the public, displayed a hopeful message on its front page: "To avoid overcrowding please check back periodically."
With hard-copies of the report becoming available to journalists in Washington, established media were inevitably first with details of the report. At 2.10 p.m. Washington time (5.10 p.m. Irish time), 10 minutes after the estimated time of online publication, John King of CNN read from the opening pages of the report live on-air. However, 50 minutes later, CNN became the first organisation to publish the full report on its site, www.cnn.com.
Other publishers, including Fox Television and The Irish Times, quickly followed. Users accessing the report were able to browse the entire document, and judging by the length of time taken to download the sections relating to Monica Lewinsky, chapters II (Initial Sexual Encounters), III (Continued Sexual Encounters), and VI (Resumption of Sexual Encounters) were proving the most popular.
By contrast, the sections relating to grounds for impeachment were instantly available. Meanwhile, back at Thomas, all attempts to access the site were met with a depressingly familiar message: "There was no response. The server could be down or is not responding."
In an attempt to ease the weight of traffic, the report was `mirrored' - duplicated - on two other US government sites. Both were inaccessible. Anyone trying to access these sites faced the web's central paradox: the promise of simultaneous access for politicians and public can quickly turn to frustration at universal lack of access.
By 4.30 p.m. Thomas appeared to have given up altogether, carrying the following statement: "The Library of Congress is aware of public statements announcing the availability of the Independent Counsel's report at this site. As yet, the House of Representatives has taken no action regarding the public availability of this report."
Earlier, the race to publish online had been joined by other news organisations. The Washington Post promised to carry the report on its site, as did Fox News and AoL, with the Post's efforts slowed by the need to delete the most sexually explicit sections on the orders of the newspaper's publisher, Don Graham.
The Post's website did however win the first round, publishing the complete text of the White House `prebuttal' at 1.37 p.m. Washington time, a little over an hour after it was released to the media.
But if ever there was an example of the democratic principles the web is said to embody, it is that no matter where you were, from the Oval Office to Ouagadougou, the same delays applied. And once you'd managed to access the report, the real challenge began: finding the quickest way to search all 455 pages for occurrences of the word "cigar".
The Starr Report is expected to break all previous records for web access.