Letter: Bush destroys what Clinton accomplished

Monday, July 23, 2001 | 9:05 a.m.

I would like to "weigh in" on the debate on the significance of the Clinton presidency, especially regarding the views recently expressed by letter writer Kent Ririe and Sun Editor Brian Greenspun.

Ririe is suffering from some sort of delusion when he speaks of the "honorable men who were religious and God-fearing" and who founded this country and who previously occupied the White House. With the DNA evidence in hand we know that Thomas Jefferson carried on an extramarital relationship with Sally Hemmings while he was president. Our beloved founder Benjamin Franklin was a known womanizer. As far as ethical lapses in the White House, there were none worse than by Republican Presidents Harding and Nixon: the latter having single-handedly destroyed Ririe's myth of the American President.

As Greenspun mentioned, where President Clinton excelled was in doing his job. Under his presidency we had eight years of unprecedented economic growth in the country. He shepherded a balanced budget, a surplus in the U.S. Treasury and began steps to pay down the national debt. It was better for the working person (lowest unemployment in decades) and for investors (record growth in the stock market). Clinton performed well in the face of unrelenting multiple investigations, then Articles of Impeachment from an extremely partisan Republican Congress, eventually proving one act of malfeasance: He lied about a sexual relationship.

Ririe's poster-boy president has managed to destroy much of what was accomplished during the Clinton years in just seven short months. The economy is in decline and thousands have lost their jobs. We should no longer be fooled by the conservatives' argument that integrity in the White House is what this country needs. What this country needs is a president who can do his job for the people, and the current occupant of the White House is failing miserably.

TED O. HALL