Where’s the Virtue in Hypocrisy?

After reading “Putting Us Back on the Path to Virtue” (June 23), I nominate William Bennett for a Pulitzer Prize in hypocrisy.

This man was part of the Reagan-Bush mob that gave us such social atrocities as Wall Street bandit Ivan Boesky with his “greed is good” mantra; Charles Keating and other S&L; gangsters; Pentagon hacks who OKd $400 toilet seats; the Panama “incursion” that killed hundreds of innocent people just to get former CIA sweetheart Manuel Noriega; world-class liar and Senate wanna-be, Ollie North, and much, much more.

Oh Mr. Bennett, peddler of virtue, why didn’t you speak out in the 1980s when these atrocities were unfolding?

JAY HOFERR

Los Angeles

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I regularly took part in a Lawyer in the Classroom program, speaking to classes in grades 8 through 12 until a couple of years ago. I found the children interested only in learning how to assert their rights, with no concern for their responsibilities.

This comports with the growing attitude of many parents who will fight school administration to gain acceptance of their child’s “rights,” as in dress codes or discipline, but who refrain from supporting school rules.

Children who get their way through parental intervention quickly lose regard for rules. If the school rules are to be ignored because Johnny or Susie simply does not like them, how far a leap is it to ignore other of society’s rules?

GERALD M. SINGER

Encino