By JOHN SOLOMON
Associated Press

WASHINGTON – In a dramatic victory for President Clinton, a judge threw out Paula Jones’ lawsuit Wednesday and said her claim of sexual harassment wasn’t worthy of a trial even if the president’s alleged behavior was ”boorish and offensive.”

Jones ”has failed to demonstrate that she has a case, and the court therefore finds that there are no genuine issues for trial,” U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright wrote in Little Rock, Ark.

”While the court will certainly agree that plaintiffs’ allegations describe offensive conduct, the court … has found that the governor’s alleged conduct does not constitute sexual assault,” she ruled.

Her 39-page ruling abruptly halted a sensational lawsuit that had haunted the White House for more than three years and threatened to place his sexual conduct with a variety of women before the nation in a historic trial.

Clinton, wrapping up a six-nation tour of Africa, was so stunned by word of the ruling that he asked if it was an April Fools’ joke. The president is ”pleased that he has received the vindication he has long awaited,” press secretary Mike McCurry said.

Jones’ lawyers said an appeal is ”very likely” and that while they were disappointed with the decision, ”this ruling does not vindicate or exonerate Mr. Clinton.”

”It is a shame that unless the ruling is reversed on appeal, there will now never be a determination of who was telling the truth and who was lying,” her law firm said in a statement.

”I’m shocked,” said Susan Carpenter McMillan, Jones’ spokeswoman. ”I’d be less than honest if I didn’t tell you I was completely blown away by this decision.”

While the White House cheered the decision, Clinton’s legal woes are far from over. Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr is pressing his criminal investigation into whether Clinton lied about having sexual relations with White House intern Monica Lewinsky and encouraged her to cover it up.

”Judge Wright’s ruling today has no effect on our authority, and we will continue working to complete the investigation as expeditiously as possible,” Starr said in a statement just hours after the ruling.

The White House brushed off the lingering issues. ”This has been a fact of life and no doubt other things will remain a fact of life for him,” McCurry said. He said Clinton had shown ”extraordinary discipline” in not being distracted.

In her ruling, Wright said that whatever went on in the Arkansas hotel room in 1991 between Jones and Clinton, then the state’s governor, she had failed to prove she was harmed emotionally or in her career as she contended.

”The plaintiffs’ allegations fall far short of the rigorous standards for establishing a claim of outrage under Arkansas law,” Wright wrote.

Whatever went on in the Excelsior Hotel in Little Rock ”was brief and isolated; did not result in any physical harm … did not result in distress so severe that no reasonable person could be expected to endure it,” the judge wrote.

”Although the governor’s alleged conduct, if true, may certainly be characterized as boorish and offensive, even a most charitable reading of the record in this case fails to reveal a basis for a claim of criminal sexual assault,” she added.

The political jeopardy for Clinton if the trial had gone forward was evident in the last few weeks, when both sides in the lawsuit waged a sensational war of words in court filings that included details of alleged relationships between Clinton and a half-dozen women. Throughout, however, the president’s approval ratings remained at record highs.

Jones’ lawyers introduced secondhand allegations – denied by the supposed victim – of an alleged sexual assault by Clinton two decades ago. They prompted a former Miss America to acknowledge she had consensual sex with Clinton in 1983. And they led former White House worker Kathleen Willey to appear on national television with allegations of an unwanted sexual advance by Clinton near the Oval Office.

Clinton’s lawyers argued that Mrs. Jones’ case was motivated by partisan vitriol and based on sensational claims whose legal merits were ”garbage.”

In the end, their legal arguments prevailed. ”I think Judge Wright should be complimented on her courage,” presidential lawyer Robert Bennett said. ”She is right on the law, and she is right on the facts.”

Wright was a law student of Clinton’s in the 1970s at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, but was appointed to the bench by President Bush.

The Rutherford Institute, which has been paying the legal costs of Mrs. Jones’ suit against Clinton, said it would continue in its appeal – even if it means going to the Supreme Court.