Goodman on Richard Nixon

I would like to thank Goodman for providing me a sense of quiet, early morning sanity with which to begin my day. Goodman gave ringing voice to feelings of outrage that most of us are never allowed (or allow ourselves) to express. When a lack (or lapse) of moral standard manifests itself in personal behavior or political acts that are clearly devoid of conscience, repentance, or merely simple statements of responsibility, and when such acts or behavior result in personal sorrow, political and social demoralization, or professional and financial destitution, we should allow ourselves to not forgive, to not forget, to not accept the pasteurization and watering-down of those acts and their effects, simply because time has created an ever-increasing distance between the event and the present.

Goodman ended her article with the words: “Not enough, Mr. Ex-President.” Just as our bodies at time cry out for the need of cleansing, a full systemic to wash out the internal chaos we inflict upon ourselves, so do we need and deserve a moral high-colonic, a statement of responsibility, conscience and repentance from wrong-doers.

ARTHUR B. RUBENSTEIN

Hollywood