Tar Blair with Bush, not Clinton
Re “At ease with sleaze,” editorial, Jan. 13
Your editorial was overly critical of President Clinton. Some perspective is in order. Under Clinton, we had balanced budgets. He did not intentionally misrepresent facts so as to lead us into a war in which more than 3,000 Americans soldiers were killed. He did not appoint religious, right-wing extremists to the federal courts. His vice president did not have ties to a mega-corporation that profited from a deadly war. He did not distribute billions of dollars of our tax money to only religious fundamentalist groups.
In light of the vast gulf between the Clinton presidency and the current Bush presidency, a few pardons and some hanky panky with an intern cannot tarnish the overall ethics of one of the most effective and successful presidencies in recent history.
EDWARD TABASH
Beverly Hills
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Yes, British Prime Minister Tony Blair may finally be getting a small bit of his comeuppance, but comparing his obscenities with Clinton’s is sort of like comparing Iraq to a street-corner mugging. If you want to talk about sleaze, the current occupant of the White House and his cronies and claque are a far more appropriate example of an ethical abyss. From the Halliburton rip-offs to pharmaceutical company palm-greasing to selling off our national parks and forests to the highest contributors, the Bush bunch makes even Blair’s scandals look like a tempest in a Teapot Dome.
ALAN MYERSON
Culver City
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This editorial states that Blair and Clinton have much in common, including an unfortunate number of ethical lapses. It goes on to compare the ethical problems of the two leaders and correctly points to other similarities between them. The editorial missed the point, however, that Clinton was an above-average president whose place in history will be further elevated in time. Blair, on the other hand, with all of his intellectual power and promise, will soon resign as prime minister disgraced by his unswerving allegiance to and support for Bush in matters of the war on Iraq and its terrible aftermath. Although the editorial does refer to the yoking of Blair to Bush, this coupling is otherwise dismissed, to which I take exception. These major ethical lapses that call into question the very integrity of Blair will defame him forever.
BRUCE MCFADDEN
Palm Springs