Letter: Columnist among many who are missing point about Clinton

Nevertheless, let me offer you my slant on this impeachment situation. It is a slant that has been consistently avoided, not only by Safire, but also by most of the other pundits we are supposed to follow respectfully. It goes like this:

Fifty years to the day before Clinton's Aug. 17 testimony, Alger Hiss was compelled to make a grudging, overdue admission that he had known Whittaker Chambers in the Communist underground. With his admission, Hiss' delicately woven tapestry of lies began to unravel, leading eventually to his imprisonment on perjury charges -- although, as a Soviet espionage asset, Hiss had committed capital crimes.

Lost amid the furor over the Lewinsky affair is the fact that Bill Clinton stands credibly accused of crimes every bit as grave as those committed by Hiss -- specifically, consciously undermining America's national security in exchange for illegal campaign donations from China.

The disclosure by campaign donor Johnny Chung that he had funneled $110,000 from the Chinese military into Clinton's campaign fund established a money trail running from the highest echelons of the Chinese legislative body directly into the oval Office.

If Clinton, like Alger Hiss, is brought down on a perjury charge rather than held accountable for high treason, a paradoxical precedent will be set: Personal misconduct by a president will be regarded as a graver crime than the prostitution of his office in the service of a foreign power.

Frank Pelteson

archive