LETTERS: NATION MUST UPHOLD HIGH STANDARDS

To the editor:

If there is one lesson we should accept from the current political turmoil, it is that we as Americans must continue to define who we are as a nation, and what we stand for. And we must accept that the acto of creating that definition will be a partisan and contentious effort between people who hold fervently to their sometimes opposing beliefs. Perhaps it was the hope of the Founders that the heat of that continuing debate would weld us all together.

It is difficult for us to imagine today that men and women risked all they had -- property, title and life itself -- to fight for the idea of freedom. Today another fight looms for another idea: truth. Are we an honorable and truthful people, ro are we a nation of politically expedient, result-oriented individuals who can change their code of ethics to suit current rrends? Do we set the bar high in our expectations, or excuse even the most base behavior? Do we stand for something bigger than ourselves, or is it all a matter of how it affects us individually?

When I read U.S. Rep. Richard Gephardt's comments regarding the resignation of Bob Livingston, I shuddered. He said, "No one standing in theis House today can pass a puritanical test of purity that some are demanding that our elected officials take. If we demand that mere mortals live up to this standard, we will see the best, most able people unfairly cast out of public service. We need to stop destroying imperfect people at the altar of an unobtainable morality." The vice president called this Gphardt's best speech. This is truly frightening rhetoric. By Gephardt's comments are we to assume that virutes such as honesty and marital fidelity are "unobtainable morality"? So Mr. Gephardt asserts that even the "best, most able people" cannot live up to these simple virtues. If this is true, then we are surely lost as a nation, for even the "best, most able people" cannot keep a promise or be counted on to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God.

I understand that a shuman beings we are imperfect creatures, that we will stumb.lle and fall. But I also believe that if we lower the standard so that no one is embarrassed when he stumbles and falls, it's just a short slide to all of us crawling in the mud. Let us set the standard high so that if we fall at least it was in pursuit of a high and noble goal. i have never brlken my promise of marital fidelity, nor have I lied to and deceived people I wa ssworn to protect and serve, and I firmly believe that I can expect the leaders of my country to at least live up to that standard.

This whole mess should not be about Mr. Clinton's deplroable weakness as a man or about the inherent partanship of the political process. It should be about something far more vital. The central discussion should be about who we are and what we stand for.

MICHAEL SIMMONS

Cape Girardeau