To the editor:
Your analysis of events from the article "Week one of the impeachment trial: bipartisan agreement delivers setback to the White House" is insightful and well reasoned.
It is flabbergasting to me, Joe Normal American working guy, how Washington continues with this farce. It is true psychosis.
I'm not sure I agree with the motivations of the Clinton haters that you allude to. I think it is a grotesque eruption of the American old guard. They are trying to hold on to their historical successes. Successes such as how the my generation could let people like R. Reagan and George Bush represent my country. Now they are trying to establish the "old world order" by obliterating a popularly elected, new generation president.
My wish is that we could focus our need for an enemy on to some real problems, instead of making up this very dangerous attack against the president of the United States. There are plenty of real problems, but only those of us lucky enough to travel out of this country have the opportunity to see some of the real struggles going on.
I appreciate very much your thoughtful thinking on this. I am very disturbed by the events in Washington.
Sincerely,
GM
* * *
Your analysis of the political character of the impeachment trial is exactly right. What more can be said about it?
You might not appreciate the comparison--you might reject it altogether--but I am reminded of the impeachment of Governor Huey Long. The action was brought by lackeys of the Standard Oil Company who were incensed by Long's imposition of a per-barrel tax on oil produced in Louisiana. The proceeds were intended to finance, among other things, the progressive projects of the Long administration. Long fought back, not on narrow legalistic grounds, but by exposing the reactionary and anti-democratic character of the opposition. He went to the people, as the Clintonites are fearful of doing, and he won. Long's allegedly dictatorial style notwithstanding, he knew at least who his enemies were and he knew their vulnerabilities.
AB
Madison, Wisconsin