Clinton, Lewinsky to Testify

Re “Clinton to Give Taped Testimony on Lewinsky,” July 30:

Bill Clinton has been trying to invoke the divine right of kings and now it has come down to his final attempt. He is not a king, he is a citizen just like you and me. The morally bankrupt American public ignores that he seduced a 21-year-old girl and lied about it. She was dazzled by a man who is described as the most powerful man in the world. It is a sad day for the country. It seems we will be forever mired in a moral sewer created by Clinton, aided and abetted by members of the media and his many spinmeisters who maintain that it is no big deal!

JOE BENOIT

Valencia

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Only a cad would have an extramarital affair and then talk about it.

JOE LYOU

Gardena

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Linda Tripp intentionally deceived Monica Lewinsky by secretly recording private phone conversations. And now, she is trying to deceive the American public into thinking that she is “just like me” and is “one of us” (July 30). She also says she did not want to get involved in the Clinton matter. My heart and my soul are weary of this “special” prosecutor and his “witnesses.” Regardless of the facts in this matter, Kenneth Starr does not impress me.

BRIAN KOWALCHUK

Los Angeles

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Lewinsky and her mother have been granted full immunity by Starr (July 29). Who won and who lost?

Lewinsky needed to strike a deal with Starr in order to escape prosecution of herself and of her mother. The obvious solution is to tell Starr that you’ll say whatever he wants to hear. In short, Lewinsky’s words can’t be trusted, since it seems highly likely that she is simply following the time-worn American tradition of covering her own behind at someone else’s expense. Sadly, in this case it will be at the expense of the presidency of our country, as the ensuing weeks of muckraking will show.

JOSEPH BLAND

Solvang

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We hear that regardless of what Lewinsky will testify to we should just take it with a grain of salt because of her lack of credibility. What about Clinton? His credibility is somewhat in question to say the least. These two people deserve each other. Too bad the American citizen has to try to determine which of these two will lie the least.

MARY J. MONK

San Clemente

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Is it probable that President Clinton is extending the rope for Starr to hang himself?

RAMSIS BOCTOR

Arcadia

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I have wondered why the Republicans, with Starr as point man, have been so willing to spend so many millions of dollars on Whitewater/Lewinsky just in hopes of getting something on a lame duck president. Robert Scheer’s July 28 Column Left zeroed in on just why big tobacco with its lackeys, Starr, Lott and Gingrich, would do anything to discredit the only president who has come close to hurting the tobacco industry. How many Americans really realize that the guy who is digging for dirt on the president is the lawyer for tobacco interests?

Starr has been allowed to conduct this vendetta without anyone to slap his hand. And what do I get to find out for all those millions of dollars? I get to learn about Clinton’s sex life. I had to wait until FDR, Ike and JFK were dead before I learned about their extramarital affairs. Believe me, that was plenty soon enough.

DAWN SHARP

Claremont

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A disapproving public may cost the Republicans their control of Congress. Americans are hardly amused by a non-elected official assuming great power and hounding a popular president out of office on the assumption that he is guilty of what is widely perceived as the norm in the capital.

Changing the status of the Secret Service and exposing presidents to mad killers like the one that ran amok in Washington is another of Starr’s reckless and dangerous acts.

MAX ROBINSON

Los Angeles

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The Clinton-Lewinsky saga seems to be part of a giant Ping-Pong game spanning the decades. Since Watergate, the Republicans have awaited their chance to waylay a Democratic president.

Sooner or later, as it must, the control of the Congress will return to the Democrats. You can bet the Democrats will then be lying in wait to return the favor by doing in yet another Republican president.

There may be a saving grace, however. In an era where there is little philosophically to differentiate the two parties, this game may provide a means of telling the Republicans from the Democrats.

JIM TANDY

Eagle Rock