THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, January 30, 1996 TAG: 9601300006
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 47 lines
With a few strokes of the word processor, Tom Teepen, correspondent for Cox Newspapers, has ensured his shrine in the halls of the Clinton apologists. His ``Striking at Bill through Hillary,'' (Another View, Jan. 14) is an amazing apologia.
With a display of verbal gymnastics and somersaults, Mr. Teepen goes to great pains to attempt to disassociate the word ``gate'' from the on-going scandals of Whitewater, the travel office, etc. He makes great effort to minimize as mere ``cronyism,'' the valid comparisons to the abuse of power and office that were present in the Nixon-era Watergate scandal.
One wonders with slack-jawed amazement, just how many agencies of government power must be abused for Mr. Teepen to consider it might be wrong. One can only suspect that it is like the selective amnesia presently affecting the White House and its staff that ails Mr. Teepen.
Knowledgeable people, however, are aware that the FBI and the Justice Department were wrongfully involved in the Travelgate debacle, and even the IRS harassed a small airline involved on the periphery, according to some news accounts.
The world was told that Hillary Clinton had no involvement in ordering the firing of seven people in the travel office, yet documents written contemporaneously with the event prove otherwise.
Mr. Teepen and other apologists have also tried to minimize Mrs. Clinton's ``significant'' involvement by a weak ploy of trying to spread her documented billed hours over 15 months.
I have a question for Mr. Teepen and his like-minded colleagues: How many meetings and/or hours, billable or not, does it take to hatch what was termed ``a sham'' by government investigators and officials?
Obviously Mr. Teepen has that creeping feeling on the back of the neck that, as the rest of the world suspects, these present focal points are but the tip of the iceberg and would like to mitigate that perception. Alas, facts and truth are stubborn things. Let the chips fall where they may. The American public is entitled to the truth.
EDWARD SOLESKY
Chesapeake, Jan. 15, 1996 by CNB