Clinton Defender Criticized, Lauded

Professor Robert B. McLaren of Cal State Fullerton attempts to help his many students answer the “call for balanced consideration” (Orange County Voices, Aug. 23). I write to help him.

McLaren and President Clinton need to know that good government is composed of probity, order and procedure and not of economy, education and health care.

McLaren joins the blame-and-deflect team. He suggests Ronald Reagan helped kill 160 Americans at Lockerbie. He makes bald statements like “Starr’s strong-arm tactics are well known,” as if that were true. McLaren implies that Lewinsky is an attention-hungry girl like those who cried “witch” centuries ago in Salem.

McLaren suggests that Clinton’s whistle-blowers are bashers, a threat to the nation, self-aggrandizers, lifetime liars, self-righteous assailants, strong-arm bullies and obstructors of justice, and need to be investigated.

McLaren has not studied Starr and Linda Tripp, who, I believe, have a clear sense that the temple of justice shall not be besmirched by lies and intimidation. For them, transparency is essential, and the slightest attempt to mislead should not be excused but attacked with the weight of truth.

JARVIS BROWN

Fullerton

* I was heartened by Robert McLaren’s tour de force analyzing the real scandal going on in Washington.

It was such a breath of fresh air compared to the hash served up by Kevin Phillips in Opinion the same day. Phillips would have us believe that Bill Clinton’s scandals since his election pushed voters to elect Republican majorities to Congress in 1994 and 1996.

But after the 1994 election we read in these same pages that it was revulsion against big government and failed health care reform and the “don’t ask, don’t tell” executive order regarding gays in the military.

It would be nice if Phillips and the stable of writers for Opinion would get their story straight. McLaren’s careful analysis looks at the big picture and suggests the obvious: Republicans have never forgiven Clinton for winning in 1992, and they will do whatever it takes to “get him.”

Since they can’t compete against him on the level of ideas, they must resort to whatever subterfuge it takes to bring him down.

Of course, the GOP has had considerable help from Clinton himself, with his personal idiosyncratic weaknesses. But the real moral outrage is that there are forces which will stoop to anything, including unproved slander and lies, to besmirch this president’s reputation.

This is done by folks who are sanctioned by their own self-righteous appointment as the nation’s moral guardians. Ken Starr and company are in ideological sync with this element. It suggests that their true aim is to pull off a coup d’etat against the elected head of state, for what in their estimation are “high crimes.”

STEPHEN J. MATHER

Anaheim

* Robert B. McLaren’s diatribe is not cluttered with facts, which follows a well-known characteristic of Clinton supporters.

McLaren and his college gang imply that Lewinsky, Starr, Ronald Reagan and the media are more scandalous than Clinton and his gang.

For him to say that “Ronald Reagan ordered an unprovoked bombing attack against Libya . . .,” in the face of Moammar Kadafi’s reputation for terrorist activity, is more than ludicrous.

McLaren would have us believe that “success in balancing an economy” was wholly Clinton’s, not the Republican Congress’. Further, what has Clinton’s “zeal on behalf of education, employment and health care and of his establishing vital business links abroad” produced?

His success in education has been in sweet-talking union leaders to funnel over 90% of their campaign funds to Democrats, while more than 40% of the members are Republican.

He is still licking the wounds of his health-care program. His failure in foreign policy is legendary except for his adeptness for raising illegal campaign funds.

How would Walter Cronkite respond today to his February statement to the university-sponsored event that “There isn’t a shred of evidence. All we have are rumors, innuendoes and gossip.”

Even after Clinton’s Aug. 17 admission of misleading the public, McLaren’s pre-law students continue Cronkite’s premise on the basis of a self-serving Clinton use of the word “inappropriate.” Media commentators who dared to charge that Clinton “had flat-out lied” are blamed in the column for perpetuating a “media scandal.”

BOB BALL

Anaheim

* Will someone please tell me how our tax-supported universities have become such hotbeds for leftist political activism and moral bankruptcy?

Professor Robert B. McLaren’s article reveals the spiritual and intellectual paucity of a “moral development” class in an academic institution bent on pursuing its own political agenda, unfortunately at the expense of genuine truth-seeking.

Until I returned to school 10 years ago in pursuit of a master’s degree, I had believed that higher education was devoted to a search for the truth, accomplished by full discussion and study of both sides of any disputed issue. What I found instead was leftist indoctrination, with no room for dissent. So much for the 1st Amendment at our state universities.

At the helm of this academic ship of state (and Professor McLaren’s “moral development” class), I would hang a banner reading: “Damn the truth, full speed ahead.”

PATRICIA GAUNT

Tustin