Dear Editor:
I disagree with Professor Byron Daynes’s assessment of the Clinton-Lewinsky matter. In the Sept. 17 issue of The Daily Universe, Daynes wrote, “In Nixon’s case, there was a most serious threat to the political system and to individual privacy that is absent in the Clinton case.”
I do not know what Daynes considers to be a “serious threat,” but I cannot think of any threat more serious to the political system than what Bill Clinton has done.
Through his tactics of deceit and delay, Clinton has not only destroyed his own credibility, he has infected the electorate with a most pernicious notion — that honesty, integrity, and morality are of no importance in a leader; so long as there is a chicken in every pot all is well. Such an attitude can only lead to greater corruption in American politics.
As for individual privacy, has Daynes so soon forgotten the fiasco involving the improper use of FBI files by the White House? Or what of the so-called “scorched earth” campaign that the administration seems to be conducting against its political enemies? Perhaps these are among the reasons that Sen. Robert Byrd, a liberal Democrat, took to the Senate floor to lament that “Many of the mistakes that Nixon made are being made all over again.”
We can only hope that the crisis will end in the same way the Watergate scandal did 24 years ago — resignation.
Christopher D. Jackson
Louisville, Ken.
