Falwell’s Advice to Clinton

It was gracious of Jerry Falwell to write the resignation speech for President Clinton (Commentary, Dec. 24). However, he only did half a job. What he should have added was his gracious resignation from his ministry, for all of the garbage he spews out in the name of religion. True “Christian” teaching is “Love one another,” not the sin of people who do not believe what Falwell “preaches.” Love is not in any of his writings. Falwell could get a job as a humor writer. He really made me laugh.

HOWARD HACKETT

Culver City

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“From a Fundamentalist, the Speech That Could Save the President” should have read, “I lied, I lied under oath . . . I committed adultery, and even worse at the workplace with an employee. . . . Forgive me, now I am a real man, the man of the year. Bill Clinton.”

MADELAINE BEHR

Fontana

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Falwell (prime mover in forcing Rep. Bob Livingston’s resignation), offers the elected president of the U.S. a way to “save” himself: 1) Confess to everything (whether it’s true or not). 2) Praise the GOP, especially Kenneth Starr and Rep. Henry Hyde. 3) Offer no defense whatsoever against any of the charges. This is exactly what a witch hunt is designed to do: Produce false confessions by the accused and false praise for the inquisitors. The object is neither justice nor mercy, but the degradation of the victim.

God has blessed America, not by the talents of her elite, but with the wisdom of her common people.

MICHAEL H. MILLER

La Canada

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Forgive me if I seem a bit skeptical of Falwell’s intentions. Isn’t this the same man who has publicly accused Bill Clinton of being involved in drug smuggling and murder?

Let’s be honest. No matter how many times President Clinton asks for repentance and grovels before the American people, it will fall upon deaf ears within the ranks of the religious right. Falwell and his brethren haven’t forgiven Clinton for getting elected in ’92. What makes us think he would forgive him now?

ROBERT SCHULTZ

Glendora

Geronimo Pratt

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This letter is in response to that of Kenneth H. Bonnell (Dec. 24). Bonnell wonders about “the defense’s failure to provide a witness who was at the Black Panther Party meetings in Oakland at which [Geronimo] Pratt claims he was.”

At Pratt’s trial, three different witnesses, Kathleen Cleaver, Shirley Hewitt and Jacqueline Wilcots, testified that they were with Pratt for most of the two weeks that he spent in the Bay Area, including the evening of Dec. 18, 1968, the night of the murder of Caroline Olsen in Santa Monica. The defense asserted that many more witnesses could have confirmed Pratt’s presence in the Bay Area but refused to do so because of orders from Huey Newton not to assist Pratt (who was on the Eldridge Cleaver side of the Newton-Cleaver split in the party).

In the early 1990s, with the party split faded into history, a number of former Panthers, including Bobby Seale, his brother John Seale, David Hilliard and Landon Williams, all signed declarations under penalty of perjury that Pratt had been in the Bay Area continuously from Dec. 13, 1968, until his return to Los Angeles on Dec. 26, 1968.

DAVID BERNSTEIN

Studio City