Impeachment Trial in Senate

For once I find myself agreeing with James Pinkerton (Column Right, Jan. 7). The Republican Party should indeed cut its losses, vote for censure and move on with the county’s more important matters. However, I disagree with his assertion (and with people like William Bennett) that Bill Clinton’s high approval ratings have anything to do with the demoralization of American society as a whole.

Instead, Pinkerton can turn again to his own party for the cause: The hatefulness of Newt Gingrich and the obvious partisan agenda of the Kenneth Starr investigation did more to alienate voters and make Clinton look like a victim than our “sex-saturated” culture.

The very zealousness of the conservative right is its greatest weakness. Most Americans do not approve of Clinton’s behavior, yet a great many would rather let his administration continue than hand over ultimate power to a group of holier-than-thou statesmen who want to run the country according to their self-constructed rules of behavior.

BOB LOZA

Burbank

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At the opening of the trial the senators solemnly swore “that in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of President Clinton, now pending, I will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws, so help me God.”

As we know that practically none of the senators are actually impartial, should we be looking forward to another 100 or so impeachment trials for violating their oaths as jurors?

This just gets better and better, doesn’t it?

REILLY POLLARD

Goleta

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Where else can politicians ever get as much attention as they are now--their ponderous thoughts as headlines in the national news every day, their pictures plastered all over every front page in the country. While it was easy for the Senate to criticize the House, it will now be difficult for senators to remove themselves from the spotlight by bringing this to a quick close.

The public needs to get the proverbial hook to force the political performers to get off the stage (and back to national business)!

SANDRA SUTHERLAND

Encinitas

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If a Senate trial is supposed to be so potentially disastrous for the Republican Party, how come it was the Democratic Party that was so desperate to avoid it?

EDWARD LINN

San Diego

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Republican congressmen, who released thousands of pages of explicit impeachment testimony, now want to call witnesses to testify to more. Just what the country needs. A party for the Porn Agains.

P.H. WILLON

Palos Verdes Peninsula

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In answer to all the people writing in, angry because the Republicans “stole their vote” with the Clinton impeachment: If you’re dumb enough to vote for a draft dodger, an adulterer, a con man and a perjurer--and, while they may not have found him guilty of being a crook, there is far too much smoke in Arkansas for there not to be a fire--you don’t deserve to vote.

JOHN WAUGEN

Anaheim

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Do we really want the Clinton scandals to come to an end? The economy has never been better with Congress and the president too preoccupied to meddle in the affairs of the rest of the country.

MIRIAM JAFFE

Thousand Oaks

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Never have I heard anything so hypocritical as Clinton’s call for greater civility and an end to the “politics of personal destruction” (Jan. 2). He himself is the principal destroyer and will continue to demonize anyone who stands in his way.

JAMES HYDE FORBES

Palos Verdes Estates

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Anyone who thinks President Clinton would resign knows little about sizing up people.

Anyone who thinks Clinton hasn’t been punished has little imagination.

DOROTHY WHITE

Huntington Beach