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Penalizing the Prez
David Plotz's piece
"The Case for Community Service for Clinton" advances an excellent
analysis of the political requirements for an acceptable punishment to
accompany censure, if indeed censure is chosen in lieu of impeachment. The key
point is that there must be a humbling element, without complete humiliation,
and that a purely financial penalty such as a fine would not be enough.
One approach worth
considering is the loss of Clinton's post-presidential privileges. I am
thinking particularly of the post-presidential pension and office expense
allowances. Beyond any actual financial loss (which Clinton could probably
recoup with a high-paying post-presidential job) there is likely to be a
perceived element of strong moral rebuke associated with the forfeiture of
retirement benefits. Perceived analogies would be to "rogue cops" who are not
prosecuted but must resign from the force and lose their pension (at least on
television). Loss of office expense allowances would carry an implicit message
that, while we don't want to force you out of office, we really don't want to
hold you out as an honored ex-president. Indeed, even Richard Nixon did not
suffer these two penalties.
In
essence, while Clinton would not be forced to resign or leave office, he would
suffer a penalty that is often associated in the public mind with officials who
are required to resign to avoid being removed or criminally prosecuted. The
penalty, in effect, would be bad spin.
--Donald B.
Susswein Bethesda, Md.
Lip
Service
Re David
Plotz's piece "The Case for Community Service for Clinton": There's only one
kind of service he understands, and he has to have someone else do that!
--James L.
Boals Lancaster, Pa.
Trapped
in Monicagate
Michael Kinsley writes in
his Sept. 28 "Dialogue" entry: "And there's no question whether
Slate
readers want more Monica. Their e-mail says no no, but
their mouse clicks say yes yes." This is not a contradiction. Rather, it is an
extension of a well-known game theory model called "The Prisoner's
Dilemma."
Take the following example:
Suppose the world consisted of only two people. If both know nothing about
Monica, then both are happy. If both have information about Monica, then both
are unhappy. If one has information about Monica, then that one is happy, but
the other one is very unhappy, since he or she is at a disadvantage. Now,
assume that information about Monica is published. Unless the two people have
an agreement not to read anything about Monica, both defend against extreme
unhappiness by reading the info, settling for moderate unhappiness. Expand this
to hundreds of millions of people, and it's obvious that no agreement can hold,
especially when some of them actually do want the information.
Our
situation is comparable to the situation
Slate
now faces about
whether to print damning information about the hypocritical politician. If you
don't print it, someone else might beat you to it, and you'll have to talk
about it anyway. Does this mean that you will be happier when the information
comes out?
--Andrew
Berman Seattle
Working
Relationships
Considering Michael Kinsley's
defense in the "Politicians and Privacy" dialogue, I would add that although
I do not find invasions of privacy acceptable, people do wish to know something
about the relationship between the individual and his or her work.
Biographical criticism is
important, not only for the three reasons that Kinsley expressed in his initial
argument, especially the point on hypocrisy, but for historical reasons. We
have no problem accepting biographical criteria for literature. In fact, there
is an entire school of criticism devoted to the relationship between author and
work. Why shouldn't politicians' lives be open to examination in the same
way?
For
historical reasons, attention should be paid to the private life of the
politician or to the idea of the "work" as an expression of the politician's
inner being. If it turns out that the politician is a fraud or a hypocrite, we
should be able to know this--as long as the methods of revealing such knowledge
do not invade the person's privacy in an unfair or Kenneth Starr-like way.
-- Jacque
Martin Paris
Nuts to
Us
As one
with family members whose lives are literally threatened by peanuts in their
environment, I fail to find the humor in Seth Stevenson's article "Nuttiness" on the subject
today. If you think this is amusing, think how much fun you could have with
paraplegics or muscular dystrophy issues--much bigger universe, many more
sniggering opportunities. A sad, adolescent performance you should be ashamed
of.
-- Ed
Tenny Washington
Nuts to
Everyone
Peanuts are a wonderful
source of nutrition, et al., for some 99 percent of our population, not to
mention the fact that peanut products are easy to keep, very popular, and
generally inexpensive!
Parents and their children
must be responsible for determining, as early as possible, which
allergic reactions will be a part of their lives. It is absurd to rely
upon any "controlling legal authority" to do that for you!
Peanuts
and their products are astoundingly good for us, as is the industry that keeps
them before us. Killing either on the basis of gene pool considerations for
fewer than 1 percent of the population would be criminal.
-- Donald B.
Hammond Alexandria, Va.
The
Killer Nut
Peanuts
can kill and have killed. This is not a laughing matter.
--William C. Siroty,
M.D. Board Certified, Allergy and ImmunologyMason, N.H.
Really,
Ms. Prudie!
I do not read "Dear
Prudence" as a rule. However, this morning I dipped into the column to see
if I was missing anything, and I found a letter citing a previous Prudie
column, saying, "Prudie finds the appellation 'Ms.' ridiculous and crosses it
out whenever possible, believing that single women are 'Miss' and married ones
are 'Mrs.' (The nice thing about divorce is that then you get to choose between
the two forms of address.)"
Does
Prudie mean to imply that women are not equal to men in this society and that
therefore it is important to know a woman's marital status immediately, while
men are allowed to remain judged for who and what they are, regardless of their
marital status? I find this inane and the title "Ms." an excellent solution to
women's entry into equality in the workplace and society. I do not think it is
anyone's business whether or not I am married (I am) and have kept my "maiden"
name as many married women now do. I am sorry to say that the Dear Prudence
column remains one I will not visit in the future and, I suspect, one that does
not have the highest ratings among the
Slate
offerings.
-- Ms. M.
Curtis London, England
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