Letter: China trek a reminder of Clinton’s successes

Tuesday, July 28, 1998 | 10:36 a.m.

President Clinton was elected by a majority of Americans nationwide. His policies reflect prevailing family values more than the Republican talking heads. He has pushed for greater medical coverage for working and middle-class Americans and opposed the tobacco lobby. He has also championed the rights of families through education and day-care reform.

He enjoys support from a great majority of women in his pro-choice policy. In foreign affairs, he has had a good rapport with world leaders. His ability to openly criticize Chinese leaders on civil rights in their own country while improving our relations was commendable. Congressional leaders such as Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott would have preferred a return to Cold War stone-silence and brinkmanship, hardly a reasonable approach.

On the other hand we have Kenneth Starr, not an elected official, but a tool of a powerful minority who want to throw out an elected president by embarrassing him into resignation or finding a pretext for impeachment. President Clinton has not committed the "capital offense" envisioned in the Constitution as grounds for impeachment.

He is in substance being accused of adultery by hearsay evidence obtained through illegal wiretapping, in reference to a private civil case, which is a moot case thrown out by the court of jurisdiction.

Starr has violated or stretched the Constitution at every turn, intimidated witnesses and their families, leaked grand jury information, etc. It is ironic that Gingrich, Lott and company would criticize the president about China's civil rights, and at the same time wink at Starr's Orwellian Big Brother act right here in America.

Arnold Tranes Middletown, N.Y.