Downfall of Sen. Cranston

In response to Ellen Hume’s column “Cranston: A Sad Tale of a Good Man Gone Wrong” (Opinion, March 3):

Hume’s condemnation of Sen. Alan Cranston completely misses the point. Clearly, Cranston is one of the few members of the Senate who has vigorously pursued issues of public interest (i.e., California Desert Bill, California Wilderness Act, the ratification of the 1987 Nuclear Arms Treaty, etc.) while also watching out for certain special interests. Most members of Congress do not bother with issues that do not specifically benefit their political constituencies or provide lucrative campaign contributions.

The real story here is that Cranston is being sacrificed by his colleagues in order to save their political skins. The other disturbing reality is that the system which created the Keating Five will persist untouched, barring campaign finance reform and clear-cut rules on acceptable constituent services, long after our senior senator has left office.

Finally, I want to say that it is very easy to sit behind the walls of ivory tower academic institutions and use terms such as “the public trust” and “overstepping moral boundaries” in outlining the way things should really be. This separation from reality is what led to the Dukakis debacle of 1988 (for which the Kennedy School bears a lion’s share of the blame). In our nation’s capital, the rules of the game remain unchanged and long-term public policy is still sacrificed daily for short-term political gain.

DAN IRVING, San Diego