Buckley on Gender Gap

* William F. Buckley Jr. (Column Right, Nov. 5) incorrectly concludes that a defect in women’s ability to reason is at the heart of this election’s gender gap. Quoting Buckley: “It is hard to avoid concluding that women tend to be more credulous.” This conclusion is based on his claim that in the final days of the campaign Clinton “declared himself the messiah of universal literacy,” and that women naively believed that this was a reasonable presidential goal and misrecognized education as a federal rather than a state respon- sibility.

I challenge Buckley to tell us where President Clinton made the claims he attributes to him. Clinton’s centerpiece for educational policy is tax credits or tax deductions for college tuition. Why exactly is this tax expenditure--an investment in human capital--any less “reasonable” than similar tax expenditures which favor business capital? Tax deductions are certainly no more inherently reasonable for a business luncheon than for a child’s college education.

NICOLA MAZUMDAR

San Clemente

* Buckley’s column is a perfect example of why the gender gap exists: Republicans just don’t get it. Contrary to what Buckley seems to believe, women are intelligent enough to know the difference between a genuine campaign pledge and an empty promise.

The truth is, women do care more about certain issues than men, including education, health care, family leave and, yes, abortion. Instead of addressing those issues, Republicans would rather take the support of women for granted, and they seem perplexed when this tactic does not work.

Buckley goes on to illustrate why Clinton’s claims that he will combat illiteracy must be empty. Besides obvious policy choices such as allocating more funding to the schools that need it most, there is plenty Clinton can do on the issue. What about simply setting the moral tone for the nation? It seems the same people who’d have us believe that a president sends kids flocking to try marijuana by making flippant remarks about drugs are unwilling to admit that the same president could have a positive influence on those kids by speaking out about literacy.

As long as Republicans continue to use their contradictory and insulting logic to explain away the growing defection of women from their party, they will continue to misunderstand--and suffer from--the gender gap.

JERRY MAHONEY

Los Angeles