Casting Stones at Clinton

What an outrageous headline: “Can Anyone Cast 1st Stone at Clinton?” (Aug. 31)! The last time I counted, there are 535 members of the House and Senate and you’ve named just a handful of people who have had “sexual indiscretions.” Your story is another example of the attitude, “Well, everybody does it. It’s no big deal.” My answer is, “Most people don’t engage in this kind of behavior and, yes, there are plenty of people who can cast the first stone.” We’d better demand that we continue to have some standards in this country or we’ll end up having none. The president’s behavior is not only tawdry, it is reckless. And I believe we deserve better from any elected official.

By the way, I don’t remember your being this cavalier when Justice Clarence Thomas was merely accused of “talking dirty” to Anita Hill. Have the standards dropped that much or are your pro-Clinton biases showing?

SHERRY CHARLEY

Santa Clarita

* Your article should have been headlined, “Can Anyone Else Cast a Stone at Clinton?” The article seems to suggest that members of Congress might think twice before charging Clinton with inappropriate sexual behavior. It seems to me that those members of Congress who have been involved in inappropriate sexual behavior have adequately demonstrated that they don’t always think twice before acting. But, and perhaps more importantly, the press has demonstrated that it has had extreme difficulty in thinking twice before casting stones at Clinton. And if we really want to dig, how many prominent journalists, reporters, editors and publishers, who have already cast their stones at Clinton, can withstand an investigative assault of the type waged by the media upon the president?

Maybe your reporter was correct after all. “Anyone” means not just members of Congress, it means members of the media also, and it includes you and me.

ROBERT LEVIN

La Jolla

* Kudos to Alexander Cockburn (Column Left, Aug. 27), who hit the nail right on the head: Only the self-righteous media harlequins care much about the Monicagate affair; the American public rightly recognizes Christ’s writing on the sand: “He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone.”

N.C. LAYUMAS

Los Angeles

* I find it both amusing and appalling that you chose to print a Clinton-bashing column by Jonathan Turley (Commentary, Aug. 26), one of the latest smug right-wing stooges posing as a scholar who has launched himself into a career of third-rate punditry based on the Clinton misfortune. It seems the editors at The Times have also been seduced by this bag of hot air, but then The Times has always been in the forefront of Clinton bashing.

MICHAEL STIPANICH

West Hollywood

* Thanks for printing Ron Carlson’s refreshing, humorous and badly needed column (Aug. 26). Pulls the whole tawdry, embarrassing and totally private affair between two consenting adults, Clinton and “that woman” Lewinsky, into a seldom-used perspective. Carlson is a true artistic wordsmith.

LOYOLA M. BANNON

Huntington Park

* Before we give President Clinton kudos for balancing the budget, I think we need to understand he did that by taking massive amounts of money from our defense programs. There are two reasons this makes me very nervous: 1. Radical leaders who consider the United States their enemy now have the technology for mass destruction, not the least of which is deadly nerve gas. 2. Our weakened military has little ability to defend us against a potential nuclear attack that could cause mass destruction.

Will we regret losing our defensive edge should one or more of the known hot spots erupt into a devastating war? With the worldwide economic turmoil and significant political unrest, the issue cannot be ignored.

KEVIN O’NEIL

Costa Mesa

* According to an Aug. 28 article buried at the bottom of Page 18, Monica Lewinsky asked Betty Currie to take back presidential gifts, not President Clinton. All during this national upheaval, Currie has been the one person who has stood out as never lying, not even to help the president, so why should she lie now? And how long has Ken Starr and his team of inquisitors known this important fact? They’ve leaked everything possible that would be damaging to President Clinton but not one thing that would be favorable to him.

BETTY GEISMAR

Mission Viejo

* It’s not about sex. It is not even about lying or obstruction of justice. It is about ideology and hardball party politics. Pure and simple.

Bill Clinton is a good man who has done more for this country than Starr could ever hope to. The American people should support President Clinton at this critical juncture. He deserves our support.

BRUCE SHAPIRO

Santa Monica

* Re “Clinton Inches Toward Lewinsky Affair Apology,” Aug. 29: The problem with William Jefferson Clinton’s troubles is, he occupies the office of the U.S. president. The presidency is all we have; in that office the commander in chief of the military, the chief law enforcement officer, the head of government and the head of state all come to rest. And yet the person who holds those titles and that office is an ordinary citizen.

It is the best of all worlds or the worst of all worlds, depending upon that ordinary citizen’s character and actions. Where Clinton places is yet to be determined. For his sake and ours, we wish him, this ordinary citizen, the best. But despite all our hopes, we think Clinton is in a hole of his own making. What bothers us most of all is we feel that Clinton is not adhering to the first law of holes: When one finds oneself in one, one stops digging.

ROBERT WILKINS

Apple Valley

* I’ve been hearing several of the president’s supporters lamenting how many times the president is going to have to apologize for his unethical behavior. Indeed, the president himself has recently joked, rather inappropriately I might add, about becoming an expert at “asking for forgiveness.” Correct me if I’m wrong, but my count of the president’s apologies stands at zero.

CURT MATSUNE

Walnut

* Whenever someone does something good or bad, public or private, there is always a ripple effect that is impossible to stop. You have published many letters from Clinton supporters who, apparently, have never learned this basic law of the human condition.

They proudly say that they don’t care if he is a liar and has committed adultery, among other things. They accept his unethical acts and point instead to his many dubious accomplishments, as if another president with better character wouldn’t do as well. Faust would be proud.

Now that we know the ethical standards of his supporters, in their own words, what moral values do you suppose they are teaching to their children?

ELLEN WEISS

Los Angeles

* Never in history have politicians and the media worked so hard to change public opinion, rather than represent and reflect it.

ALITTA KULLMAN

Laguna Hills