Disclosures on Herschensohn

Let’s recap the facts as reported by your newspaper. Shortly after the primary, Barbara Boxer enjoys a 22-point lead over her opponent. Then, despite the Year of the Woman, Bill Clinton’s popularity, the deification of Boxer’s “running mate,” and the enormous drag at the top of his ticket, Bruce Herschensohn’s mud-free campaign pulls within a point of victory three days before the election. Desperately, a top Democratic Party official dumps a mountain of sleaze, which is dutifully reported to the public by those paragons of objectivity, the members of the news media. Result: Boxer reverses a permanent slide and ekes out a narrow victory.

To this fact pattern The Times ascribes the headline “Senate: Race Unaffected by Attack” (Dec. 21).

It doesn’t wash, Times. If your conscience is not comfortable with the theft of a U.S. Senate seat, you should not have driven the getaway car. It’s difficult to reconcile the coverage of Boxergate with the condemnation of George Bush’s use of “bimbo eruptions” and arrive at any conclusion other than that you and others in the media willingly participated in a corruption of the democratic process.

ALAN GURA

Beverly Hills