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Published on 12/21/1998 All articles from this issue

Letters to the Editor

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Reality check for Congress

As each wave of zippergate crests upon our bow, we are no doubt experiencing an instinctive, knee-jerk reaction that chafes up against our more deeply-felt, moral and ethical standards.

And it often takes a moment of thought and reflection to digest how one really feels. For example, Rep. John Conyers, speaking for the conservative Democrats, pronounced last week, "I'm personally outraged that we would decapitate the commander in chief at a time when we are at war abroad."

DECAPITATE? Really. And at WAR? Come, come now. A long-delayed, mostly undefended, long-range surgical strike against carefully selected targets? That's hardly WAR. I think of it as peace maintenance.

And then ultra-conservative Republican Henry Hyde pompously countered: "The nation's chief has shown himself unwilling or incapable of enforcing its laws, for he has corrupted the rule of law." More hogwash and high-handed demagoguery. The president is the chief executive. The attorney general is the chief law enforcer. An astonishing number of police officers in this country themselves have records. Many of our judges have been found breaking laws. In the words of Richard Gebhart, we are not a country of saints and angels, but of mortal people.

Moreover, I argue that any violations of law by President Clinton's actions serve not to contradict but rather to reify that our nation is founded upon law, by the due (and ostensibly fair) process that he then rightfully triggers, as well as any civil or criminal review and/or procedure that naturally follows.

Roger W. Burnell

Los Altos Hills