LOS ANGELES -- Here we go again.

Such was the reaction on the floor of the Democratic National Convention to news Thursday -- just hours before Vice President Al Gore was to give his acceptance speech -- that a new grand jury was reportedly investigating President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair.

"The timing is as obvious as the nose on anybody's face. This is the news that will be breaking as Al Gore makes his speech," said Rep. Louise Slaughter, a Democrat from upstate New York.

"This is beyond suspicious," she added. "I think it's an outrage."

Ron Klink, a House member challenging a Republican incumbent for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, called the report "more of the same."

"Here we go again," he said. "It's more politics. That's what the whole thing has been about."

But he said Democrats could turn it to their advantage, arguing that word of yet another probe into the White House scandal makes the task of beating Republicans in the November election easier, not harder.

"Here is a party that wants to do with indictment and investigation what they can't do at the ballot box," he said.

According to CNN and other news organizations, independent counsel Robert Ray formed a grand jury on July 11 to hear new evidence in the Lewinsky case.

His predecessor Kenneth Starr's investigation led to Clinton's impeachment in December 1998 on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice stemming from his affair with Lewinsky when she was a White House intern.

The Senate acquitted Clinton in February 1999.

Gore, who was in Los Angeles preparing Thursday to make his formal speech accepting the Democratic nomination for the presidency, has fought hard throughout his campaign to distance himself from the White House sex scandal.

Gore's selection of Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman, who berated Clinton publicly in Congress for his behavior, was widely considered part of that effort to move well away from the scandal's taint.

"This is not a problem for Al Gore. It's a problem for Bill Clinton, and the Clinton era has essentially ended," insisted Jesse Jackson Jr., son of activist preacher Jesse Jackson and a congressman from Illinois. "The American people don't associate Bill Clinton's problem's with Al Gore."

"We will not be sidetracked ... and not spend all of our time and conversation about that woman," he added.

Indeed, some on the crowded convention floor seemed distinctly eager not to talk about the latest chapter in the Clinton saga.

"This convention is about Al Gore and Joe Lieberman," said Rep. Bill Luther, a Democrat from Minnesota. "That's what it ought to be about.

"It's not time to be raising those issues," he said.