LETTERS: OBSESSIVE GOP CAUGHT IN ITS WEB

To the editor:

What is this terrible, single-minded obsession the Republicans have to get President Clinton? It can't be just doing their duty, as Henry Hyde and his equally well-experienced gang of shooters say. So what is the Republicans' uncontrollable driving force to get Clinton at any and all cost?

There's no comparison between Richard Nixon and President Clinton. Nixon's acts were criminal, and 18 of his hand-picked dirty-tricks gang went to prison. No one in Clinton's Cabinet has been convicted of anything. No doubt the Republicans still harbor that get-even attitude. They shouldn't.

When they investigated Clinton for six years with a pack of bloodhounds and $40 million-plus and couldn't find anything illegal, it was past time to close this case and try to help Clinton do something for this country that is useful. But not these Republicans. They were so desperate they began using more dishonorable methods. They sneaked into Clinton's personal life and tricked this busy president into defending himself from something that was personal and none of their business. Now they plan to get Clinton disbarred from practicing law after he leaves office. Shame on them.

Ken Starr's microscopic investigation of Clinton, surprisingly, revealed more divorces, more affairs, more mistresses and more children born out of wedlock in the Republican Party than there are among Democrats. The Republicans have been hiding behind a phony family-values mask, and it has been removed. Another high-ranking Republican has bit the dust. New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani has a mistress.

The Republicans should apologize to Clinton for the vengeance they have wreaked upon him needlessly and thank him for rescuing this nation from the failed policies of Reagan and Bush, which they supported. Clinton showed them up, and maybe that's the reason the Republicans hate him.

Clinton's domestic policy in 1993, which passed by a single vote, turned this nation around from the monumental deficit spending he inherited. And Clinton did it with Starr's pit bulls nipping at his heels every step of the way.

I expect when reasonable minds prevail, Clinton will go down in history as one of the greatest presidents. Sure, he was a little ornery, but he wasn't as bad as his accusers. Let him alone, you Republicans. You may not get his law license, and he might sue you all and maybe pardon himself before he leaves office. Most of us wouldn't blame him, because the Republicans use a different moral code on Clinton which they don't apply to themselves.

W.T. WOODS

Bertrand, Mo.