Impeachment Drama Ends

* In the end there is an upside to this whole sorry mess. Bill Clinton, because of some foolish and reckless personal behavior, has subjected himself, his family and the nation to endless pain and humiliation. However, I believe in the long run, he will be remembered as a man who stood up to, faced down and ultimately exposed his persecutors as right-wing zealots who were out to bring him down since the day he took office and who put partisanship way above statesmanship.

I also believe it’s a pretty safe bet that a good number of those self-righteous hypocrites will no longer be around to muck up the business of running our country come election 2000.

R.W. WEINSHENKER

Los Angeles

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* The Senate has spoken. It is acceptable to lie under oath. Our justice system has been invalidated.

JON JOBE

Tustin

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* As for Congress, a pox on both their houses. And while we are at it, a pox on that White one as well.

BRUCE A. TROTMAN

Palos Verdes Estates

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* So Rep. Henry Hyde thinks he and his Republican impeachment managers were “real heroes” (Feb. 13). You can’t print what I think they were.

TOM ARDIZZONE

Granada Hills

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* Finally, it’s over. Let us resolve to resist rigorously the future efforts of the relatively small groups of organized moral absolutists whose rigid views and outspoken behavior drove a large number of Republican congressmen to an outrageous, partisan travesty.

DICK NORTON

Los Angeles

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* Would any of those who characterized the impeachment process as a purely partisan Republican undertaking care to explain why five Republican senators voted to acquit the president on the obstruction of justice charge and 10 voted to acquit on the perjury charge, yet not a single Democratic senator voted to convict on either charge?

E. NORMAN GEORGE

Redondo Beach

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* Congratulations to the Republican Party for having successfully accomplished the following:

1. Gambling everything and losing on impeachment, a political strategy that they should have known was doomed from the start.

2. Transforming Bill Clinton(!), a man whose character was considered dubious by the voters from day one, into a conquering hero.

3. Virtually assuring their status as the minority party in the next Congress.

MARK DAYTON

Santa Ana

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* Is our country in as depraved a condition as the polls in The Times indicate (Feb. 14)? Have we fallen to the point where we honor a man who is lacking in ethics, morality, honesty and truthfulness? What does this say about us?

MEDABELLE BRIDGER

Apple Valley

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* The precious pontification of the articles in the Feb. 14 Opinion section was quite beside the point. To most people the impeachment was an obviously partisan attempt to make a mountain out of a molehill. The great evil after six years of intensive investigation and $50 million turned out to be nothing more than an attempt to evade publicly admitting a tawdry extramarital affair. To have it pursued by adulterers was grotesque.

Despite the wriggling and dancing about the law, the plain fact is that evasion about a consensual extramarital affair is not lying about the Gulf of Tonkin, Iran-Contra or the Bay of Pigs. Interestingly, although these lies had long-term international consequences and people got killed, they did not arouse such congressional ire. Finally, for those of us who remem- ber Eisenhower’s liaison with his WAC driver, Roosevelt’s very private secretary, Kennedy’s penchant for women, etc., this impeachment was much ado about nothing.

Politics should be more than a team game. It should be a mechanism for solving real problems. Now that the impeachment charade is officially over, it would be nice if the press accordingly turned its attention to real problems and forswore further show biz.

ARTHUR YUWILER

Woodland Hills

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* Not a Clinton fan, I will nevertheless share the following. Downtown in Los Angeles, in the Main Street lobby of the U.S. District Court building, a statue of Republican hero Abraham Lincoln is accompanied by a plaque bearing this aphorism: “No law is stronger than is the public sentiment where it is to be enforced.” How ironic.

Senate members were influenced more by alleged public sentiment than by law. And their verdict occurred on the 190th anniversary of Honest Abe’s birth.

ROBERT N. WOLD

Laguna Niguel

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* Out of the GOP’s yearlong attempt to oust President Clinton for denying sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky, I can only say the GOP has an acute lack of good judgment and maturity. Clinton did the honorable thing by replying evasively to questions that should never have been asked about his personal relationship with Lewin- sky, who is neither a minor nor a foreign spy.

This incredibly time-consuming and bizarre spectacle of U.S. self-absorption has profoundly lowered international respect for the U.S. as a trusted world leader. We owe this extended diversion from the government’s business to independent voyeur Ken Starr, teamed with a bunch of immature but zealous GOP members of Congress, who have continuously thrown stones at our president from their glass houses.

ROBERT PORTER

Irvine

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* “There were no winners, everyone lost in some way.” I think not. The world was the winner. Everyone who followed the trial, from American citizen to extremist totalitarian leader to the most common peasant, was treated to a dramatic test of our democracy, giving new vision and new meaning to their circumstance.

Yes, players were hurt, tempers flared, truths were questioned, agendas revealed, vengeance considered. Common processes in any struggle. But here entered the Constitution. Created to enforce human rights through equitable governance. Its message will not be lost to this world.

RUSS LINDQUIST

Long Beach

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* The legislative branch has just sent a message: It is OK for the CEO and commander in chief of the United States to have an adulterous affair in the White House office, then lie about it, attempt to prevent it from becoming known--and get away with it, with impunity.

The president and the defense team must be very proud of themselves.

R.H. BRUBAKER

Torrance

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* Re “Trading Congress for Natural Gas,” by Joseph Cooper, Commentary, Feb. 15: Where (the hell) was this (obviously intelligent) attorney hiding for the past year while the nation and the world were being subjected to half the nation’s (obviously stupid, not to more than mention lying) lawyers?

ROB GEORGE

Hermosa Beach

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* Would somebody please let Starr know his job is (or should) be over? If you invited him to a party, would he be that guy who won’t leave when the party ends?

TOM GRANER

Hermosa Beach

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* The nation’s long soap opera is over.

AL MEYERHOFF

Los Angeles