Once again, there is debate over how far the press should go in probing the private lives of politicians. Robb is fighting back. He has hired libel lawyers, and in a letter to NBC’s Tom Brokaw, prepared the ground for a lawsuit by accusing the network of acting with “reckless disregard for truth.” In his zeal to smother the story, Robb strained the credulity of Beltway insiders with his version of the 1984 evening with Collins. Robb claimed they shared a bottle of wine and that she gave him a massage–but that was all. “He must be an incredibly disciplined Marine to go that far and then say ‘That’s enough’,” joked a Democratic House staffer.

The jokes of the late-night talk-show circuit are sure to be sharper, and Robb is obviously anguished. He compared his encounter with Collins to “the moth that gets a little close to the flame one time.” Upright and uptight, he is struggling to rationalize his behavior and to deflect some of the blame onto his political enemies and the press. While most of the allegations against him are not new–they dogged him during his ‘88 campaign for the Senate–they are resurfacing at a time when they could damage his chance to be on the national ticket in ‘92. Some Democrats questioned Collins’s motives in coming forward now with kiss-and-tell tales about an event that allegedly occurred seven years ago. (She was troubled in part by what she claims were threats from a Robb aide if she talked. Robb denies any threats were made.)

Does it matter if Robb had an affair? His late father-in-law, Lyndon Johnson, was a legendary philanderer, and no one wrote about it while he was in office. Unlike Gary Hart, who dared reporters to “put a tail on me,” Robb has not flaunted his private life. But he is sanctimonious and given to preaching family values, qualities that make him a target for reporters eager to unmask hypocrisy. Safely off in the Mideast when the scandal broke, Robb let his senior aide, Steve Johnson, field questions for four hours. Asked if Robb’s pursuit of Collins showed that he had “a character flaw,” Johnson was philosophical: “Everyone who is running for president is going to go through this kind of car wash at least once.” The real character test will be how Robb handles this crisis.