The Clinton controversy

Re “Clinton and the meaning of ‘is,’ ” Opinion, Sept. 26

Andrew Klavan’s point is well taken. Had Bill Clinton been as strong a president as Ronald Reagan, he would have known exactly how to handle Osama bin Laden: Arm him and use the CIA to train his freedom fighters-cum-terrorists. And had Clinton been as committed to truth as our current president, he would have realized that lying is morally permissible only when it helps start an unnecessary war.

JOSHUA D. ROSENFELD

Redondo Beach

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The Republican line has apparently gone from Clinton having been “craven” to “defensive” to “medieval.” What will Karl Rove have them try next? No one can be taken seriously who looks to Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity for their news and dismisses the New York Times (and probably the Los Angeles Times if he were not being published here) and then says that Reagan “was the greatest president of the century’s second half.”

It looks like Klavan is writing a right-wing script for ABC, generating stories about things that never happened and cutting out everything Clinton did in going after Bin Laden.

MILT WAXMAN

Los Angeles

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I’m neither a Democrat nor a fan of Clinton, but the attempts to somehow blame him for 9/11 are ridiculous. It just shows how badly the right wing needs to deflect attention from how bad a job President Bush is doing. The real shame is not the events before 9/11 but this president’s response when the overwhelming support of the rest of the world was on our side. To squander that support is perhaps the biggest political blunder of any president. “W” stands for worst of all time.

MIKE GEIGER

Huntington Beach