Newt Gingrich

Newt Gingrich has admitted that he violated tax and campaign laws and that in his name and over his signature inaccurate, incomplete and unreliable statements were given to the House Ethics Committee (Dec. 22). In other words, he broke the law, engaged in a cover-up and got caught.

For over a year he has been loudly protesting his innocence and criticizing anyone who would dare doubt his veracity. This whole time, either he knew he was lying or he never bothered to find out the truth. Someone needs to ask the speaker when he first discovered that he had violated the law and why he didn’t come clean earlier.

ANDREW CUSHNIR

Mar Vista

* The high moral indignation trumped up by Democrats in the House is comic vaudeville at its best when one considers the tax-evading privileges this collection of double-talking opportunists assigns themselves as abusers of the House gymnasium, cafeteria, banking, mail franking, travel junkets and other inside-the-Beltway indulgences. To ultra-partisans of this self-serving stripe, teaching a college course is such a minor and honest endeavor it seems a violation of normal ethical behavior.

It’s time for partisan buffoons to put aside their baggy pants and rubber noses, give up the low comedy and start trying to imitate responsible lawmakers.

WILLIAM N. McNAIRN

Palos Verdes Estates

* So Gingrich is claiming that a document falsely stating that GOPAC never raised money for or contributed services to his televised course--a document drafted by his attorney and submitted to him for review before being signed by him and sent to the House Ethics Committee--was all his attorney’s fault.

While it is refreshing to have Gingrich find somebody to blame other than liberals, Democrats, or “left-leaning counterculture McGoverniks,” I wish he would have paid just a little more attention to his stern and uncompromising lectures on the need for people to accept personal responsibility for their actions.

GEORGE J. LUJAN

South El Monte

* Every Republican on the Sunday morning talk show circuit mentions Whitewater when called on about GOPAC. If Gingrich isn’t ousted as speaker for lying, after banishing former House Speaker Jim Wright for much less, you can bet Bill Clinton will be thrown a Republican raft for Whitewater.

Ultimately this hand is a two-man game. Will the president fold, or will he force Gingrich to ante up the speakership? It may just depend on the cards Clinton is holding on the Whitewater deal.

JAMIE COURT