Trooper’s Story in Jones Case

Re “A Trooper Shuts the Gate on Jones’ Case,” by Robert Scheer, Column Left, March 24:

Arkansas State Trooper Danny Ferguson changes his story to point the finger at Paula Jones, not President Clinton. Ferguson is the only witness who can independently confirm the initial charges. David Brock, who wrote the original story about the Jones case for American Spectator magazine, now apologizes to Clinton saying, he was hired to destroy Clinton: “I conspired to damage you and your presidency.”

Brock’s remorse over his journalistic “charade” has not been echoed by The Times, which back in 1993 published a lengthy article of its own based on the same dubious sources.

The Times had the courage to publish the above in the column by Scheer. Now, do you have the same courage to do what Brock has done, admit you were misled by Ferguson, and that you now apologize to the president? Or will you become part of the right-wing press?

EMMETT and MARJORIE LONG

Claremont

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It amazes me how close Arianna Huffington comes to the truth without actually getting there (Column Right, March 24). It is not, as she says, that “most Americans who have a logical bent--and a life--have better things to do than spend time on the phone answering strangers’ questions about other people’s sex lives.” People with a logical bent--and a life--have better things to do than worry about other people’s sex lives in the first place.

DANIEL BRAUNSTEIN

Sugarloaf, Calif.

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In “Should Law Be Politics Savvy?” (Opinion, March 22) Daniel Lowenstein says that if the Supreme Court had not allowed Jones’ lawsuit to proceed, the present mess in Washington would not exist. I thought the mess was created by Clinton’s outrageous behavior and his ongoing refusal to take responsibility for it. Silly me.

BEA FORBES

Palos Verdes Estates

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If my memory serves me right, it wasn’t too long ago, at the beginning of the Clinton sex scandal, that our “honorable” president made the statement that he was instructing his staff to cooperate fully with the attorney general’s appointee, Kenneth Starr, and/or the grand jury investigation. Yet it appears Clinton suffers from memory lapses, because once again we see another flip-flop; and like his other promises, this one, too, evaporates into the atmosphere.

President Clinton invoked executive privilege (March 21) to block grand jury testimony of senior White House aides Bruce Lindsey, deputy White House counsel, and Sidney Blumenthal in the Monica Lewinsky inquiry. As if this wasn’t enough, Robert Bennett, Clinton’s lawyer, seeks dismissal of Jones’ lawsuit because he fears a political frenzy by the media. Hogwash.

To me that is a self-admitted cover-up.

FRANK P. CALDERON

Lynwood