Impeachment

* I’m one Republican who believes that Bill Clinton should never have been impeached. Nonetheless, I am outraged at the hatchet job done on Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) by Ben Joravsky because Hyde is leader of the House impeachment prosecutors (Opinion, Jan. 17).

Joravsky calls Hyde a “down and dirty . . . street-fighting” political hack. And how does Joravsky back these charges? “All you need to know about Hyde is that he hails from DuPage County (Ill.),” he says. Nowhere in his article does Joravsky back his accusations with specifics. This is guilt by association at its worst!

Granted that DuPage County is a mecca of Republican activism; it still doesn’t give Joravsky the right to smear, without supporting evidence, a nationally respected congressman who has served in the House for over 24 years.

RUDOLPH A. MAGLIN

San Juan Capistrano

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* What “circumstances at the far edge of the morally permissible” does Rep. Hyde “imagine” would create a situation “when, with the gravest matters of national interest at stake, a president could shade the truth in order to serve the common good” (Jan. 17)?

Shading the truth for the common good?! Does the “morally permissible” have edges that extend that far? In what parallel universe is such behavior defined as re- sponsible leadership while personal indiscretions are condemned as crimes against the state?

BARBARA J. BECKER

Irvine

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* Re “Feinstein, Boxer Represent 2 Blocs Needed by Clinton,” Jan. 15: Why is it when Republicans rally together it’s “partisanship” and when Democrats rally together it’s “solidarity”?

JOHN FINDLATER JR.

Los Angeles

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* Re “GOP Chief Seeks Probe of Flynt,” Jan. 16: Let me see if I’ve got this straight. The anti-tax-and-spend, anti-big-government Republicans have spent $40 million of taxpayers’ money digging up dirt to drive the president from office, and now they want the government to throw Larry Flynt in jail for spending $1 million of his own money to show everyone what foolish hypocrites they are.

Just one question: How much is Flynt paying them to act this way?

PAUL ROSENBERG

Long Beach

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* Karen Grigsby Bates went over the line (“In the Senate, Hearing the Sounds of the Noose and Jim Crow,” Commentary, Jan. 15).

To associate Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) with “black bodies swinging from . . . nooses” is the lowest form of character assassination. You call this journalism?

HAROLD BOGIN

San Clemente

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* Can you name even one president who hasn’t lied when he thought it necessary? We give our presidents the power of presiding as distinct individuals. Each, in his sole and final judgment, serves this nation as he sees fit, subject to the popular referendum known as an election. The noose of impeachment should not become an initiative referendum.

HOWARD HARRELSON

Inglewood

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* How can any intelligent, rational American not view Bill Clinton’s tampering in Clinton vs. Jones as abuse? Executive, legal, sexual or otherwise?

CURTIS M. BRUBAKER

Los Angeles