Letter: President’s cost for misbehaving should be obvious

Wednesday, Aug. 26, 1998 | 10:07 a.m.

Then, he lied about it to his staff, his Democratic party leaders and finally the nation. An adulterer and outrageous liar as the president? As Al Neuharth, founder of USA Today, wrote recently: "He is unfit to sit in the Oval Office."

What do we do? We do like parents do when their children misbehave. We punish him. We remove him from office. Ken Starr must make his report. Congress must impeach him and kick him out of office. That's the only way that the younger generation can get the message about the costs of misbehaving. This has been my moral misgivings about this sordid mess.

As a lifelong Democrat, I also have political fears. Should Clinton survive impeachment, he will be a crippled, ineffective leader. And the pro-rich Republican Congress will have a free reign. Gingrich, Lott, Kasich, Armey, Archer and Domenici will trot out to give further tax cuts to the rich at the cost of cuts in Medicaid, Medicare, education for the nonrich and many Democrat-begun social benefits. We will see a revival of the failed Reagan "trickle down" economic philosophy.

We will get more and richer millionaires and billionaires. Meanwhile, the nonrich will struggle to make a living. The rich-poor gap will widen. For the nonrich, the prospects will be grim. And I am sorry.

Orville Goplen