‘Bennett the Menace’

Just when I was beginning to think I had detected an ever so slight shift back toward the ideological center in your editorial comments, “Bennett the Menace” sneered out at me. In one short editorial, you managed to label Bennett as “abrasive,” “a favorite of the far right,” and a “shoot-from-the-lip” candidate. You missed “loose cannon on the deck.”

A reasonable person might infer from all this that The Times might find Bennett more congenial if only he were just another faceless bureaucrat skilled in the art of avoiding all statements and actions regarding anything which matters.

Speaking as a veteran of a quarter-century’s experience in Los Angeles classrooms and as a registered independent voter, I rather think (former Secretary of Education) Bennett’s “abrasive” style has been a refreshing breeze in an institution which especially suffers from acute bureaucratic paralysis. My only reservation stems from his failure to give more serious attention to the home, still the primary determinant of the quality of schools--editorial writers and school bureaucrats notwithstanding.

It very likely will take a Bill Bennett to “tell it like it is,” to dispel the notion that “the drug problem” exists because of the Mafia, Manuel Noriega, the “Medellin cartel,” or whomever. It will take someone with the backbone of a Bill Bennett to confront the real reasons we have a drug problem. And the truth in a matter such as this can be expected to be greeted by the trendier “movers and shakers” in somewhat the same manner as Dracula when confronted with a crucifix--which, by the way, was nothing if not “abrasive” for poor, tormented Count Dracula.

FRANK C. KIRBY

Redondo Beach