Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, July 4, 1994 TAG: 9407270005
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A4 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
But I, and apparently many others, believe it was true justice that North was so acquitted. After all, his much-touted crimes were themselves only technicalities, trumped up by an imperial Democratic Congress, which, for the first time in America, tried to criminalize a dispute between the executive and legislative branches. Lawrence Walsh, Congress' special prosecutor, spent millions of tax dollars investigating North. The results? No drug smuggling, no stealing funds, no perjury. His main conviction was for the things he did to protect a covert operation from being exposed by an irresponsible Congress.
If you insist his ``obstructing Congress'' was really a crime, then at least admit he did it to protect the security of the United States, and the lives of American hostages in Lebanon. A strange sort of ``crime'' indeed.
Oh yes, there was also the conviction for accepting an illegal gratuity. It seems North allowed a friend to build a security system around his house to protect his family from death threats by the Abu Nidal terrorist group. The friend, retired Gen. Richard Secord, didn't charge him for the job. Not much of a crime there, either. But after a multimillion-dollar investigation, it was all Walsh could show his congressional bosses.
Could it be your real problem with North is not his ``crimes,'' but that he's a pro-American conservative, against abortion, stands for traditional morality, and has survived every attack the liberal media can throw at him?
TOM TAYLOR ROANOKE
What goes up must come down
I WON'T waste time writing about political candidates or their agendas. However, this letter applies to the various political parties' campaign workers.
How about going back to posters plastered from one end of the state to the other, and taking them off trees, power and phone poles, etc.? Clean up your act, why don'cha?
MARTY PHILPOTT ROANOKE
The dead demand the first payoff
THIS letter is from the grave.
Absolutely no one could survive living in a packed military barracks with 70 or more smokers. Experts will assure you we're all dead. Therefore, the government should willingly compensate families of those whose lives were so needlessly sacrificed in the amount of $1 million each. And if just possibly some serviceman, through extraordinary immunity, is still around, then he (or she) deserves $10 million.
When the count among veterans is completed, the liars can begin figuring again.
PHILLIP W. SMITH BOONES MILL
Dishing the dirt on the president
JERRY Falwell and his followers seem to pile untruth upon untruth.
Brenda Bland (June 10 letter to the editor, ``Falwell is telling it like it is'') says that he has guts to release the truth. She must have missed the May 14 article that appeared in this newspaper (``Falwell markets anti-Clinton video'' from the Los Angeles Times) in which Falwell was quoted as saying he didn't know any of his accusations against Clinton to be true, but these tidbits were being rumored around and he felt everyone should know what was being said. Obviously, he wasn't concerned with the truth, only whatever dirt he could broadcast that would injure Clinton.
This is a man of God? This is a minister who teaches the Ten Commandments, one of which reads, ``Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor''? Is this the same man who sued a prominent porn magazine for portraying some garbage about his mother and himself?
HELEN MARTIN STANLEY BEDFORD
Jefferson's spirit thrives in Bedford
THE JUNE 23 editorial headline read, ``Ox-goring time in Bedford.'' Not hardly. Regardless of whether city-county consolidation is accepted or rejected, it's obvious that Thomas Jefferson's spirit is alive and well in Bedford County.
Having lived in Bedford County for the past 19 years, I think it's good ordinary people are getting involved in their community in an attempt to make a positive difference.
All too often, self-serving politicians and bureaucrats intervene to stifle citizen participation and initiative. It's been said there's a widespread national condition of apathy. In reality, there's widespread hopelessness, in large part due to local, state and national governments that are unresponsive to the will of the people.
Should consolidation not be approved, the county shall survive. One would hope at that point that Bedford County would seek to become an independent city unto itself, though the creation of new cities is part of the present state-mandated moratorium.
Such county-into-city action permanently would keep the current Bedford city from ever expanding from its current boundaries, and would give the new city a fixed tax base.
Virginia is obviously 200 years behind the times with its current outdated system of independent cities and counties. Jefferson, where are you - outside of Bedford County?
PHIL THEISEN LYNCHBURG
by CNB