Presidential Investigation

Whatever possessed your staff to allocate two-thirds of its Commentary page to the disjointed, rambling braying of Gore Vidal (“The Real Crime Is Going Against the Will of We the People,” Aug. 12)? Compared to this fearfully unedited tirade, Hillary Clinton’s famous sound bite about the vast “right-wing conspiracy” against her husband sounds like the Gettysburg Address. Had Vidal’s piece been submitted by a citizen of less notoriety (literary or otherwise), its trajectory to the round file would have been painfully short.

Vidal should be aware that a very large number of “we the people” care deeply about truthfulness and integrity among those holding high office, and have grave concerns about our current chief executive’s apparent shortage of these attributes.

PAUL C. REISSER

Thousand Oaks

*

Three cheers for Gore Vidal! He has finally defined with relentless logic and his customary rapier wit what is happening to this country. The Silent Majority (if it ever existed) long ago ceased to be silent and is now in charge. The new Silent Majority are those who approve of President Clinton’s management of the country’s policies but say little. It is time to pull the plug on the petty autocrats and their masters who are perverting justice and holding our nation up to ridicule. Vidal’s opinion piece is a wake-up call.

MARTIN ELKORT

Los Angeles

*

Vidal and Hillary, for that matter, have clearly lost their patience with democracy and want to get on with the business of declaring Clinton to be king. He is, after all, very popular and thus above the law. And anybody who disagrees is of course a member of a conspiracy, a vast right-wing conspiracy, and by golly, if the FBI doesn’t have a file on us by now, it should have. There are dark forces at work, trying to control our brain waves. Oh, and by the way, will somebody please throw Kenneth Starr in jail?

Now I understand how dictatorships are allowed to happen. Certainly, Vidal would graciously agree to be minister of propaganda.

BILL KONERSMAN

Pasadena

*

Bumper stickers already printed. Gore for President. Vidal, that is.

STANFORD WHITMORE

Encino

*

Laura Ingraham’s article (“Clinton’s Business-as-Usual Approach Is Not a Virtue,” Commentary, Aug. 10) captures the dilemma perfectly. President Clinton holds a daily media event in which he preaches “values” to everyone from schoolchildren to corporations. These diversionary events are coupled with a policy of refusal to address the scandals together with daily attacks on anyone who tries to shed light on them.

The sad truth is that so far this approach has worked. What does it say about our own values if Clinton’s ratings stay high in spite of the daily hypocrisy? It remains to be seen, but I believe the American people won’t be fooled much longer. The president is always a de facto role model and Clinton is a role model we can’t afford.

DON JORTNER

Rancho Palos Verdes

*

Someone needs to let Ingraham know that while President Clinton has been accused of everything, he has been charged with nothing. While she can say that his “moral legacy has been eviscerated” and he has “potential charges of perjury and obstruction of justice,” saying it does not make it true.

In fact, illegal leaks from the grand jury would indicate that part of Monica Lewinsky’s “pouring her heart out” included testimony that the president did not ask her to commit perjury or obstruct justice. If that is the case, it would seem that Starr should fold up his tent, write up a $60-million report that there is no reason to impeach the president and get back to work full time for the tobacco industry, where he belongs.

PAT ORMSBEE

Corona del Mar

*

Re “Democrats Urge Clinton to End Lewinsky Drama,” Aug. 11: It’s only drama to the politicians and the news media. To everyone else in America, it’s farce.

HOWARD R. COHEN

Los Angeles

*

Do the majority of Americans really care? The only judge and jury should be Hillary herself. How much have the taxpayers of America spent already for an issue that doesn’t affect us personally or economically--$40 million or $50 million? Doesn’t America have bigger fish to fry?

How many hungry people could we have fed or homeless people could we have housed? How many children could we have immunized or treated with necessary medical care? How many schools could have been upgraded, or needed textbooks bought or teachers hired to teach our future leaders? Instead, Starr gets to spend the tax money from our hard-earned paychecks to search for the history behind the president’s zipper! Financially logical? Not!

JEFFREY B. CARMACK

Los Angeles

*

So Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein criticize Starr and absolve President Clinton (Aug. 10), saying Clinton’s malfeasance does not rise to the level of President Nixon’s. They conveniently forget that Nixon’s group surreptitiously obtained only one FBI confidential file, while Clinton’s aides accumulated over 900 (whatever happened to Craig Livingstone?). Nixon was unfortunate to have had tapes in the Oval Office, and Clinton equally unfortunate to have had a dress (with a woman in it).

And of all people to deplore leaks to the press from any source, it’s pure effrontery for Woodward and Bernstein to do so, in that their whole reputation was built 25 years ago on leaks from Deep Throat; or was that character a figment?

PAUL S. McCAIG

Dana Point

*

The notion that the White House is digging up dirt on the Republican Congress is terrifying. It is the moral and legal equivalent of jury intimidation. The corruption of these people (Clintonistas) has no limits. Bob Packwood never made such immature threats. In fact, I’ve never heard of anyone guilty of sexual misconduct and sexual harassment threatening to dig up dirt on a jury or a prosecutor in order to stop them from taking legal action. Such an effort by the White House would be nothing less than blackmail of government officials. It would be like a nonviolent form of terrorism.

ERIC FOX

Malibu

*

For the American people, the overriding tragedy of the current Washington witch hunt, one that will have permanent negative consequences for all future presidents of any party, is not that the amateur Mata Hari, Linda Tripp, thinks she’s “us,” but that the near-perfect Joe McCarthy clone, Kenneth Starr, thinks he is.

BRUCE BURROUGHS

Sherman Oaks

*

The Aug. 9 article by Elizabeth Shogren was only one person’s opinion. Hillary Rodham Clinton has always been a strong example, even before she became the first lady. Her work for children’s advocacy is tireless. When she decided to tackle a very difficult issue such as health care for every American, she sincerely wanted to help this country. It’s too bad for us that she didn’t get the chance to succeed. Our health care, or lack of it, is in desperate need of overhauling and repair. To say that only now, because she has been successfully fund-raising and focused on more acceptable issues, she at last is a shining first lady, is to sell her short and do her a great disservice.

How easy can it be living in a goldfish bowl? She has held her head up high and worked hard from the first day of this administration. She is a great lady and truly cares about America’s greatest resource, our children.

FRANCES TERRELL LIPPMAN

Los Angeles