King’s Legacy and Republicans

Re “A Legacy That King Would Not Have Wanted,” Commentary, Jan. 13: Finally someone got it right. This impeachment isn’t about lying, perjury, sex or abuse of power. It is about racism, sexism and homophobia. White Southern congressmen and religious leaders have hated Bill Clinton for years because he is, in their estimation, a traitor to his class.

Sens. Trent Lott, Jesse Helms, and Strom Thurmond are all former Democrats who jumped the civil rights ship. Lott and Rep. Bob Barr are still playing footsie with the Council of Conservative Citizens, just a little bit more respectable than the Klan, but still an anti-black and anti-Semitic organization.

It is time for California Republicans to wake up and recognize that their party no longer exists at the national level. We keep sending men and women to the Congress and they flounder around, led by the most powerful group of bigots and hypocrites since the death of the Democratic “solid South.”

BILL FRYE

Los Osos

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Applying Earl Hutchinson’s paradigm, one might also conclude that without Martin Luther King and others the Democrats would have moved toward President Johnson’s momentous Civil Rights Act. Hardly. I like to think that, were King alive today, he would give a nod to (gasp!) Larry Flynt. For King would indeed rail against the Barrs, Livingstons, et al., who are the current poster boys of American hypocrisy. Even the polled public recognizes that hypocrisy helped snare the president.

Most students of American history remember that it was the Democrats who turned a blind eye to justice and then allowed and maintained the racist laws and institutions which emerged with blatant cruelty in the South, and acquiesced to their emergence in the North and elsewhere.

More insidious, however, is the lack of commitment to extend justice to all, whether nonwhite or poor, by the president or the arrogance of superpowerdom toward smaller nations (e.g., Iraq, Cuba). King would also point that out as he did when he spoke out against our war upon the Vietnamese.

F. DANIEL GRAY

Los Angeles

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At least when we go to a circus, the clowns know they’re clowns. Considering the circus in Washington, it is distressing to note that the performers don’t know they’re clowns. The Democrats, who are climbing in bed with pornographer Flynt, are defending the indefensible; the Republicans are prosecuting the unprosecutable; and the chief clown, Bill Clinton, is hitting everyone over the head with his comic bladder, acting as if none of this has anything to do with anything he did. Incredible.

One thing that is nice about a traveling circus is that it goes on the road. We, unfortunately, are stuck with a circus in residence.

PATRICK O’BRIEN

San Juan Capistrano

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I noted with amusement the Sen. Helms quote (Jan. 13) in which he stated that anyone in the office of president who is responsible for the ridicule of our country around the world is guilty of a high crime and an abuse of office. Ironic. I cannot think of another national politician who has brought more ridicule to our country for so many years than Helms. His record speaks for itself.

KEN WEISS

Woodland Hills

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Your Jan. 13 front-page color photograph of a smiling Henry Hyde gleefully holding up articles of impeachment filled me with disgust for the man. There’s no pretense of concern for the gravity of what he and the GOP are doing here; he’s getting immense pleasure and satisfaction out of these partisan shenanigans and nothing says it louder than that smarmy grin.

I don’t think the man whose family he ruined with his adulterous “indiscretion” is smiling.

DAVID GRAY PORTER

Anaheim

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ET, scanning Jan. 14 headlines, undoubtedly deems the retirement of Michael Jordan--an undoubtedly sacred being--from professional basketball far more important than the trial of an American president. Shouldn’t that tell us more than most of us want or really care to know about why this planet is one really messed up place?

HORACE GAIMS

Los Angeles