ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, October 21, 1996 TAG: 9610220001
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: LETTERS
PLACE YOURSELF in the following situation: Your work team is evaluating Bill Clinton, an employee. He has worked as a company manager for the past four years and wants you to promote him to another four years as team manager. Among many other facts, your decision-making team reviews the following:
Bill will face a sexual-harassment lawsuit in coming months. You are also aware that he has had relations with other women at your plant based on close friends' testifying to such.
Bill has been a team manager, and is responsible for his staff's actions. You know that his staff recently obtained files of 900 of your fellow employees' confidential records, which weren't to be accessed without the individual's permission and which were only to be viewed in the presence of your supervisor. Billy and his staff didn't get permission. He swears the files were accidentally taken to his staff offices, but were never reviewed or opened.
Bill is telling your team that he has excellent skills in selecting ethical personnel and he feels they have represented your company with pride. However, your team knows of criminal charges that were leveled against several of those he selected. Some charges resulted in job loss or resignations.
Clinton is undeniably a good ``people person.'' But, seriously, folks, does your company hire and promote people because they ``care'' or because they are qualified, honest and possess at least a desire to exhibit decent behavior at work? If you wouldn't hire this man to manage at your company, why would you have him represent your country?
DAN SHAVER
ROANOKE
He should reject Bono's comment
REP. BOB Goodlatte should apologize to the people of the 6th District for the unfortunate remarks made about President Clinton by Rep. Sonny Bono of California (Oct. 1 news article, ``Rep. Bono: Clinton's a crook'') at a fund-raiser hosted by Goodlatte.
By referring to the president as a ``criminal,'' Bono and, by association, Goodlatte have placed themselves on the same low level as David Letterman and Jay Leno, who often open their nightly show with disrespectful references to Clinton, the first lady or both.
``Goodlatte distances himself,'' says a news article by Mike Hudson. Instead, he should come forward and reject Bono's characterization of Clinton, and reaffirm his respect and reverence for the office of the president of the United States.
Goodlatte is seeking the support of voters in the 6th District for a third term in Congress. This a great opportunity for him to show that he deserves that support.
THOMAS C. FISHER JR.
ROANOKE
Kemp and Gore teamed for tedium
NO ONE should be subjected to the kind of ``debate'' we witnessed recently between Jack Kemp and Al Gore. Between Kemp's long and sometimes incoherent babblings concerning ``entrepreneurship'' and Gore's boring and repetitive pap about Bob Dole's tax ``scheme,'' I actually looked back at the Clinton-Dole debate with some degree of nostalgia.
Kemp can't stop talking about what he likes to talk about. And the problem with that is I'm not sure, at times, what he's talking about. Something about job creations, inner cities, entrepreneurship and Dole's war record - I think.
Gore obviously views his audience as a bunch of slow-witted oafs who can only understand him if he talks in a very slow and deliberate way. One sort of expected him to whip out a book about Jane, Dick and Spot and read to us.
Maybe the president, with Dole's approval, should consider sending both of them to Bosnia and the Middle East to settle the disputes there. One hour in a closed room with Gore and Kemp would result in the disputing parties agreeing to anything just to get out.
ROBERT H. PHILLIPS SR.
MONETA
Cut the waste to pay for tax cuts
ELLEN GOODMAN (Oct. 8 column, ``The debate: Will it be Bob or Bill?'') stated that she'd like Sen. Bob Dole's 15 percent tax cut if she knew where the money was coming from.
I suggest she read the book ``The Government Racket - Washington Waste From A to Z'' by Martin Gross. She will find in the book references to enough government waste that can easily be cut to more than cover the 15 percent tax cut.
If she wants more taxes and a bigger, more intrusive government, then Bill Clinton is her man. If she wants lower taxes and smaller government, she had best consider Dole or Ross Perot.
ERNEST FITZGERALD
COVINGTON
Doctored pictures are malicious
THE TELEVISION ads of Gov. George Allen and Sen. John Warner look perjurious to me. The one by Allen transplanting country music star Jimmy Dean from one position in a white-river raft to another isn't so damaging as is Warner's ad. Repositioning Mark Warner closer to ex-Gov. Doug Wilder and President Bill Clinton than Mark Warner actually was is brash, criminally false and malicious. Such moves are easily done via computer, and no one but the falsifiers know the truth.
If Allen and John Warner knowingly did this, can their Republican Party be called "the bridge to truth" as Sen. Bob Dole and Jack Kemp claimed during recent debates?
ROBERT H. LADD
VINTON
LENGTH: Long : 108 linesby CNB