WILLIAM McIlvaney's comment today on the awesome circumstances engulfing the American President (The Jury Room) was like a breath of fresh air after the miasma of prurience-titillating accusations coming from a small, interested, sector of American politics. Kenneth Starr, Newt Gingrich, and their weird bedfellows did not bargain for the vast undertow of generosity, of forgive-and-forget, that exists within the American psyche.
Speaking of generosity, I have the strong impression that McIlvanney, like Burns before him, would wipe all tears from all eyes.
Peter Mallan,
23 Tinto Road, Glasgow.
September 26.
THAT William McIlvanney's talent with words should be used as it was in today's article about the Clinton affair is sad indeed. I despair of the direction our society is taking when The Jury Room is used in the defence of the inexcusable, and when such blurring takes place in the evaluation of what is right and wrong in human behaviour.
Is Starr to be blamed for the muck he discovered in the can of worms he was instrumental in opening? He was appointed by the highest legal authority in the land to investigate allegations of wrongdoing by Clinton when still Governor of Arkansas, and if his investigations have led to the uncovering of the filth in the Lewinsky affair should he be blamed for the truth of his report to Congress?
Should his witnesses, no matter how unsavoury, be impugned because of their character and motivation in the matter? If the President sleeps with dogs he ought not to complain if he catches fleas.
McIlvanney in attacking the morality of the accusers loses sight of the essential truth of the affair. The truth is that the President of the United States lied under oath and in so doing falsely branded others as liars and failed in his promised duty to the citizens of America to uphold the law. Whether his transgressions were sexual or of any other kind is completely beside the point, as is the indigation about the revealed nature of his relationship with Lewinsky.
One has a right to expect honesty and integrity from the leader of the most powerful nation on earth, instead of which Clinton subjects us to a barrage of lies and semantic evasions which would not be tolerated in any court of law if they emanated from a less exalted and privileged person than the President of the USA. God help the so-called free world if this is the type of person who leads us.
Perhaps the value of McIlvanney's observations can best be judged by the fact that he equates the good manners of abstaining from the passing of wind at table with hypocrisy and that he uses Gingrich's rather unfortunate Christian name in an attempt to belittle the man.
J Pieri,
18 Garngaber Avenue,
Lenzie.
September 26.
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