President’s Alleged Affair

I believe I’m like many Americans who don’t feel they have the right to interfere in the private sexual lives of consenting adults. In the case of Bill Clinton, what I care about is how well he is dealing with the economy, with issues of health care and education and world peace. These things really matter.

What really bothers me about this so-called scandal is not whether Clinton had an affair, but the fact that one woman had the temerity to secretly record what was supposedly an intimate and private conversation, and then give that recording to self-serving politicians who constantly spout anti-big government rhetoric, but who don’t mind snooping into the private lives of people they don’t like. I am tired of this hypocrisy and just want it to stop!

Stop the trash talk and get back to the real work of governing!

NEIL REICHLINE

Sherman Oaks

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By twice electing the president, the country effectively rendered its verdict on the Paula Jones case as trivial at best and misbegotten at worst. Accordingly, we should not be overly concerned with things that flow from it, including, dare I say, even perjury.

However, we should be concerned when the president conducts his personal life in reckless and inappropriate ways that, were they to become public, as apparently they have, would embarrass and, more importantly, distract the country and himself from the things that really matter.

LANCE E. GARBER

Los Angeles

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The behavior of Linda Tripp is reprehensible. No decent human being subversively tapes an intimate conversation with a friend. What’s with Kenneth Starr? This is literally hundreds of miles and several years away from the Whitewater deal. I never liked Clinton but the actions of Starr and Tripp disgust me.

BILL SERANTONI

Thousand Oaks

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Alexander Cockburn’s Jan. 23 Column Left is a crude attempt to obfuscate what is a most serious matter, which he never mentions: the allegation that the president told someone to lie under oath in a legal proceeding.

When Cockburn blames the “Inquisition” with, “What a pitiful spectacle for this nation,” he almost gets it right. However, if these allegations are true, it is, instead, the president whose behavior is the pitiful spectacle.

DAVID A. IZZARD

North Hills

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First it’s Paula Jones, now Monica Lewinsky. Who is out to get the president? The Republicans, Starr, the media? Jones could have brought charges against him when he was governor, but she waited, for what reason? Money, not only? Who influenced her to come forth at this time?

If the president is guilty, that makes him a bad husband, not a bad president.

SUE and AL DEBRE

Los Angeles

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Like Achilles, Clinton too has an area of vulnerability. Unfortunately, it is not his heel.

If Clinton’s “fatal flaw” brings him down, it will be a tragedy for all of us. What upsets me more than adultery or even perjury is Big Brother.

According to Starr it is legal for the government to tape a person’s conversations with a “friend,” and then use the tapes to extract information about one’s lover’s possible misconduct with other women. What is Monica Lewinsky guilty of that her privacy should have been invaded in order to find possible information that might demonstrate that the president suffers from some kind of compulsive sexual disorder? The independent counsel is stealing our most precious possessions.

Whether we see the president as pitiful or contemptible, our rights as Americans are tied to the likes of Starr. In the end it is not the president’s adultery that will change our lives, but Starr’s voyeurism.

MARJORIE HALPERN HOLDEN

Manhattan Beach

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Clinton is more fun than Nixon. Give me girls versus CIA-reject burglars any day. Politics is about sex, money and power. We look for a president with some sex appeal, otherwise known as charisma. So when we catch them at it, we crucify them?

Another plausible answer is that a fantasy was weaved on the tapes by Monica, who overstates her relationship, encouraged by Tripp (great name but looks like trouble), who is looking for the journalism scoop of the century. Goodbye, O.J. Everybody’s got their knives out for Clinton.

JOHN OWEN

Los Angeles

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Let’s fire Starr and turn the investigation over to the National Enquirer. In addition to saving taxpayer money, the Enquirer will bring some much needed dignity and integrity to this increasingly insane investigation.

DAVID MARKO

Los Angeles

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Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky--who cares? I didn’t marry Clinton; I voted for him to run the government. Who voted for Starr? The judges who allowed him to expand his vendetta are the ones who should be impeached.

BRENT MEEKER

Camarillo

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How long would a Republican president get away with something like this? The careful words, the measured response, the non-denial denial? If Clinton isn’t guilty of perjury, obstruction of justice and conspiracy, why isn’t he shouting his innocence from the rooftops?

MICHAEL J. SCHAB

Hermosa Beach

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I finally understand why Clinton all but genuflected when he got the chance to shake hands with John Kennedy as a teenager and why he spoke so passionately in defense of Richard Nixon at Nixon’s funeral a few years ago. It’s now clear that he possesses the former’s personal morality, and the latter’s honesty.

BILL CRAIG

Huntington Beach

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Famous (presidential) last words: “I am not a crook” (Nixon). “I did not ask anybody to lie” (Clinton).

As my grandfather once said, “Now, there’s someone who missed a good opportunity to keep their mouth shut.”

HOWARD B. SCHIFFER

Santa Barbara

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Media scrutiny of public officials’ private lives is becoming so intense that soon those who have the ability and drive to serve the public won’t do so. Who does that leave to lead?

JOSEPH B. BLUME

Tustin

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Since I teach government to teenagers for a living, it follows that I’ve never had high expectations for the morals of presidents or for the intelligence of office workers who go alone to job interviews in hotel rooms in the middle of the night. We are, after all, a nation that still liked Ike and watched TV movies about Kennedy’s peccadilloes.

But values have deteriorated to new lows with the partnership of Starr and Tripp. Can there be a better definition of treachery or of violation of privacy than in their vile actions? Shame on America. It’s her loss.

LINDA MARGULIES

Newhall

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For the well-being of America, let’s bring Dick Morris back to the White House.

DERMING WANG

Diamond Bar