Debate Over Impeachment

* It certainly didn’t take much time. Republican Reps. Sherwood Boehlert and Benjamin Gilman of New York, Mike Castle of Delaware and Jim Greenwood of Pennsylvania now plead with Sen. Trent Lott that they really didn’t mean for the Senate to remove the president from office (Dec. 22). Now they say they only want censure. Where were they when the Republican revenge juggernaut was careening over the edge? Hiding out behind the big guns, I guess. One can only hope that their constituents remember this when the next election rolls around.

DONALD S. BRODER

Los Angeles

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Former Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter should be ashamed of themselves. In advocating not only censure for President Clinton but also a deal that an admission of lying cannot be used against him later, they seek to create two standards of law (Dec. 22). Prosecution for you and me for perjury but a free ride for the chief lawbreak . . . er, lawmaker of the land. Lying to a court and to a grand jury to avoid prosecution is serious and impeachable. Why are Ford and Carter afraid of the constitutional process?

MICHAEL COONEY

Glendale

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Patrick Buchanan’s attempt (Column Right, Dec. 22) to equate Watergate with the current House vote on impeachment would have one believe that each was a highly partisan affair. He states that 100% of the Democrats [on the House Judiciary Committee] voted against impeachment, just as they voted to impeach Nixon, while conveniently forgetting to mention that six Republicans had voted for Nixon’s impeachment as well.

The reason that the House Democrats joined in support of the president after the House vote was in response to exactly this righteous, partisan, out-of-touch attitude of the Republicans. Calls for President Clinton to follow the examples of Newt Gingrich and Bob Livingston are simply Buchanan’s pontificating to the wind, while public support swings ever more in the president’s favor.

SEAN F. HOLLAND

Los Angeles

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If the men and women of the Senate have the slightest bit of respect for our Constitution, they will have a trial. President Clinton deserves a trial. Any person accused should know his or her accuser and have the right to a trial. Any effort to plea-bargain for a censure is admitting guilt and therefore should be cause to remove the president from office.

We owe it to the president to have a trial so he can clear his good name or be removed from office. The senators must do nothing more than be jurors. No grandstanding, no soapboxes.

DAVID GREGG

Mission Viejo

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Please forgive this old curmudgeon, who is definitely past his prime, but am I to suppose if Clinton were to rob liquor store, would his approval rating soar above 90% (“Support for President Jumps in Wake of Impeachment Vote,” Dec. 22)?

JAMES HARDIE

Rancho Palos Verdes

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Can somebody explain to me why the Republicans are doing everything they can to boost Clinton’s popularity?

MIGUEL MUNOZ

Los Angeles

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Re “Impeachment Boosts Clinton’s Approval Rating,” Dec. 20: Americans, and history, will remember the impeachment of Clinton as a badge of honor awarded by a bitter minority of right-wing Clinton haters.

RICHARD A. HEIN

Fullerton

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The Republican Party is following the law, not the latest opinion poll, in impeaching our “counterculture” president.

I’ve never been prouder to be a Republican.

MARSHALL S. BERKE

Valley Village

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Funny how, no matter how they try to tear down President Clinton, he keeps getting more popular. Maybe because he has done such a good job in the face of six years of unrelenting assault.

It must drive those GOP fanatics crazy.

LINCOLN HAYNES

Rancho Palos Verdes

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I have long suspected that conservative political cartoonists are humor-impaired. Michael Ramirez has proved it. His cartoons are seldom humorous and rarely subtle or clever. But most disturbing is his penchant for violence, the most egregious example of which was the Dec. 22 cartoon, depicting President Clinton in the Oval Office, a bloodied chain saw on his desk, surrounded by the bloodied corpses of “The Truth,” “The Country” and “The Law.”

Perhaps more than anything, Ramirez’s cartoon reveals the blood lust and hatred that infects the souls of the right-wing fanatics who have carried out their own Washington chain-saw massacre on the twice-elected president of the United States.

DOUGLAS W. DODD

Bakersfield

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While admittedly a wrenching process for the entire country, resignation is indeed the only way to restore honor to our government and put this embarrassing spectacle behind us. Let’s just get it over with quickly and have all of the House Republicans step down right now.

RICH CAPPARELA

Santa Monica

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Now I’ve heard everything! According to Earl Ofari Hutchinson, the reason behind the effort to impeach the president is really racists who resent him for his support of issues important to African Americans (Commentary, Dec. 21). To paraphrase another quote and adapt it for the ‘90s: Calling your opponent a racist is the last refuge of a scoundrel who cannot win a debate otherwise.

DON HEADLAND JR.

Morro Bay

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Hutchinson’s article hit the target. Racism is alive and well and lives in the marrow of the Republican Party. The voucher movement will be of benefit to whites; vouchers will never fully fund black children who want to get out of public schools that are underperforming. Look at the targets the Republicans chose from Clinton’s Cabinet: Mike Espy, Ron Brown, Joycelyn Elders--what do these people all have in common?

When the Republicans say they want a “colorblind” society, what they mean is “please don’t bother us with your problems.” Outside of attacking affirmative action, what have they ever done about race?

KATHE R. MOORE

Los Angeles

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It is now up to the Senate to establish whether future perjurers will be described as having testified to presidential standards or merely Clintonian standards.

BRIAN BECK

Whittier

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It is not what I want to resolve the impeachment problem, but it is a suggestion which likely would satisfy most people: A Senate resolution with two prongs passed by at least a two-thirds vote, 1) declaring it the sense of the Senate that Clinton committed perjury before the grand jury, 2) tabling the articles of impeachment. Without going into details, even into debate, the significance of the impeachment would be attested to, but the matter of punishment would turn out as the majority of the public (not including myself) wishes. There would be no need to refer to “reprehensible behavior” because certainly perjury is just that.

GILBERT S. BAHN

Moorpark

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Hmm. The last time our leaders arrogantly chose not to represent the will of the people, we threw a revolution. Tea, anyone?

BRODERICK MILLER

Los Angeles