‘Greed and Glitz’

Although Charles Krauthammer entitles his column (Editorial Pages, March 23), “Greed and Glitz--a Double Insult,” I got the impression that classier glitz would have mollified Krauthammer’s anger at the Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos. “What is most dismaying about the Marcoses’ limitless corruption is not its scale but its pettiness . . . corruption without a hint of grandeur.”

Krauthammer, however, doesn’t seem to suffer from a lack of grandiosity. He not only implies that choosing between various brands of corruption is acceptable, he also encourages the reader to place value on its form and grandeur. He has no trouble differentiating between the Shah of Iran’s grandiose, thus more palatable corruption, and Marcos’ plebeian aspirations.

The author also considers himself an expert on grand ambition and its cost to others. He states that Marcos only committed crimes against property and thus is not a “moral monster.” Do the murders, the coercion, the unrelenting abuse of the Filipino people not constitute crimes against the soul?

Krauthammer seems to forget that the United States has supported Marcos until very recently. I suspect that Marcos’ “grand scale pettiness” upsets Krauthammer and others precisely because because after all these years of political and economic support, we find that we have been had by a “crowned thief” and not even a cultured one.

RINA FREEDMAN

Los Angeles