LETTERS: THE DAY AMERICA DIED

To the editor:

America has died, and someday when they dig through the ashes they will say, "This was a great nation once, but it became more interested in sordid details of a personal mistake than it was in focusing on what was important."

William Jefferson Clinton committed some indiscretions to which he admitted. He expressed sorrow. And he asked for forgiveness. Is that why America died? No.

We as a nation turned Ken Starr loose with an unlimited budget and no time frame. He has been involved in investigating the president for four years, and he has spent over $44 million in his search for something wrong. Well, he found something, and it was wrong, but at what price?

Never again will a Secret Service agent be able to do his job with the level of excellence we deserve. From this moment on, the agents will be looking over their shoulders wondering if they will be called to testify before a grand jury. They will not want to know some personal things for fear that they will be called to reveal them. So they will back off, just a step or two. But that step or two will cost us the life of a president. It is just a matter of time.

Other countries judge their leaders by what they do in the performance of their jobs, not what they do in private. I am sure many of them are laughing at us.

What the president did was wrong, but let me use this analogy to explain how I see it.

We are all flying on an airplane called the United States of America. The pilot is the president. Crowded in the cockpit with him are hundreds of politicians, lawyers and people who hate him, and they are doing their best to challenge every move he makes. Don't they realize that if the plane goes down we will all die?

There are other planes in the air, like Iraq. The pilot of that plane is Saddam Hussein. He would love to shoot us down, but when the attention of the president should be on flying the plane, it is on trying to explain his every move to these people.

I am not a lawyer, but if you give me a team of investigators, $44 million and unlimited time, I will bring you a referral on the pope with an addendum on Billy Graham.

I always thought a grand jury kept its testimony secret. This testimony has been put on the Internet and is being sold in bookstores all over the country. We have ruined the grand jury. If someone is called to testify before a grand jury for organized crime and they know the testimony will be made public, they will not tell the truth, because they might be killed.

The folks in charge in Congress are going to do their thing. They are going to investigate and find out whether the president should be impeached. The head of the group doing that job has admitted to having an affair some years ago. Two members of Congress, one man and one woman, have admitted to having an affair. I believe if those people in Congress who have also had affairs excuse themselves, there might not be enough people left to call the meeting to order.

This nation needs more compassion and less judgment. Did Mr. Clinton lie? Perhaps. But if he did, he lied when he was asked a question that should be nobody's business but his own.

We have created a situation where no intelligent, knowledgeable person will want to run for president. It is not worth it. So what will we end up with? Someone who cannot do the job.

All the numbers are great. Inflation is down. People are working. The budget is balanced. But the man who helped bring that about is a human being, and we want to crucify him. I seem to remember we did that once before.

With something like 250 million people in the country, the Starr investigation has cost us about 20 cents each. There are four people in my household. I would like my 80 cents back, and I would like to see us get on with business -- important business.

I am happy about one thing. I have lived long enough to have seen America at her best. I am just sorry that I was here to see her at her worst. This investigation by Ken Starr has not just brought down a man who happened to be president. It has destroyed the office of president and has moved our nation from magnificence to mediocrity.

BILL COOMER

Cape Girardeau