Hillary Clinton

Re “In Pursuit of Traditional Power,” by Dee Dee Myers, Opinion, June 6: Do I understand the scenario correctly? Hillary Clinton is a person with “old-fashioned” beliefs. The misplacement of her telephone records and her spectacular success in commodities speculation--did these also stem from her concept of “old-fashioned beliefs”?

If, as Myers mentions, Mrs. Clinton is running for the Senate in order to distance herself from the president, are her contributors and we supposed to fund her inability to resolve the problems in her life?

Mrs. Clinton would be, as the governor of New York suggested, well advised to stay out of the “rough and tumble” campaigning that takes place in New York, with the vulnerability of her background and motivation.

MARSHALL KLINE

Los Angeles

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Can someone splash Myers with some water? Reading her love letter Opinion piece praising Hillary Rodham Clinton, you’d think Clinton was the first woman to ever run for national office. Perhaps she’s testing some new spin for the Democrats; Ms. Clinton now a “moderate.” But an honest assessment of the political landscape shows at least a half-dozen women of presidential timber. It’s just that they’re all Republican.

CLAYTON VERNON

Austin, Texas

* If Myers really believes that “only government can make the kind of sweeping changes that improve people’s lives,” we are lucky to have her out of Washington. Does she really believe government is responsible for the revolution in computers, the Internet, the outpouring of lifesaving drugs and surgical treatments, the tens of millions of jobs that have been added to the economy, or the increase of a trillion dollars or more in the personal wealth of Americans?

All of these are sweeping changes that have improved people’s lives, but to attribute them to government is to deny the enormous power of what people can accomplish through private means. Government has its place, but it is certainly not the be-all, end-all of human existence.

A. DONALD ANDERSON

Ojai