Al Gore

Henry I. Miller’s Column Right (May 20) was an astounding attack that harked back to the darkest days of red-baiting xenophobia. “Gore’s green internationalist agenda”? “The schemes of radical environmentalists”? “Gore has led an assault on entire sectors of American industry”?

Vice President Al Gore is a leader in the slightly more liberal of our two increasingly similar major political parties. You can think his environmental positions go too far, or not far enough, or are exactly balanced, but no informed person could be taken in by Miller’s vicious rant.

TOM TRAUB

Pasadena

* If only we “radical” environmentalists (gee, and I thought protecting the planet might be considered a “family value”) were 1/10th as effective as the bogeymen in Miller’s fervid imagination.

Indeed, if only the Democratic Party had 1/100th the backbone in actually advocating environmental protection--gosh, maybe then we wouldn’t be in a period of planet-wide species extinction unrivaled since the demise of the dinosaur!

MARK L. WILLIAMS

Studio City

* Re “Can Gore Replicate Bush’s Jump?” by William Schneider, Opinion, May 18: George Bush was the beneficiary of having been the anointed heir of an extremely popular president and of the apparent strength of an economy built on the largest peacetime expansion of defense spending in our history. Gore may not be the beneficiary of a popular president but he may well benefit from an economy that created jobs in the private sector without having to resort to a massive increase in spending by the federal government. Jesse Jackson and others can justifiably raise concerns about an economy that has dropped the overall unemployment rate to its lowest level in 25 years while the unemployment rate in the inner city stubbornly hovers at around 10%. On the other hand, unlike previous expansions where the jobs didn’t exist, the jobs do exist today, if only those in the inner city had the skills and education to fill them. Therein lies the greatest challenge for Gore and the Democrats.

MICHAEL SOLOMON