PUBLIC FORUM : CLINTON'S DEFENDERS MISREPRESENT THE ISSUE.

For several weeks I've watched the battle between critics and defenders of President Clinton in L'Affaire Lewinsky and other alleged scandals. The president's defenders' position is that accusations against him are partisan in nature.

The issue before us is morality, not politics.

The political left, with its reliance on the flexible standards of moral relativism, is inclined to excuse aberrant behavior. In this ``anything goes'' view, there is no right or wrong, just individual choices. All we need to do is keep standards and expectations low.

On the political right, there is a strong belief in moral absolutes. Here people, usually Republicans, hold the philosophical view that high standards of behavior, especially in our leadership, are not only beneficial but necessary for the health of our culture.

When a president's behavior shows a fundamental lack of morals, ethics and judgment, as well as a lack of respect for the office, it should not be a surprise that most of the outrage is coming from the right. That answer, however, is rooted in morality, not partisan politics.

It comes down to this: It's behavior, stupid.

- Alex Landi

North Hills

I would like to present my opinion pertaining to your Feb. 23 editorial, ``Shades of Nixon; there are no grounds for executive privilege in the Lewinsky affair.''

The president's sex life is a personal matter and none of (Independent Counsel Kenneth) Starr's business. Therefore it could be argued that, in the absence of a complaint filed either by the president's wife or Monica Lewinsky, if Starr had not pried into the relationship between the president and Monica Lewinsky, the matter of possible perjury, suborning perjury and obstruction of justice would not have become a subject for a new investigation.

- Jeff Tabrizi

Encino

Starr is looking into the possibility of criminal liability by the president and feels that a suborning perjury charge might bring him down. But the charge over a consensual sexual indiscretion, with no criminality involved, ought to be impermissible and off-limits to public inquiry.

Where is the precedent, the legal decision that would justify the special prosecutor's inquisition in this matter?

The obvious reluctance of President Clinton to discuss, and even deny, sexual indiscretion is understandable because it is a constitutional invasion of privacy.

The general public instinctively avoids divulging personal sexual matters that are consensual. Why shouldn't the president be allowed to do the same, though from a moral standpoint, his behavior is sometimes regrettable.

- Bert Winthrop

Los Angeles

The many letters stating, in effect, ``We don't care what the president does in his private life'' makes it clear that the writers believe Clinton is guilty of the alleged sexual offenses and is a liar in denying them.

That says much about America's current moral values. Even more dismaying is the extension of the ``we don't care'' attitude to other charges against Clinton.

- Bill Starr

Burbank

Editorial rebuttal

I'm responding to your editorial piece (``A real eye-opener; Valley and council got a close-up view of each other,'' Feb. 20) on the Los Angeles City Council meeting held at the Encino Community Center two days prior.

I have a very different view of the meeting and how it was received.

First, I recognized that the meeting had started later than planned, and remarked on the tardiness of some of the council members and the value of their experiencing firsthand the interminable delay at the 101-405 freeway interchange. As you know, the council has a motion in place to address the problem and we are meeting with state representatives and Caltrans to put solutions forward.

But surely anyone there would have noticed that the public and the council were very much engaged in a dialogue on issues that mattered to the citizens present and throughout the city. A majority of the 200 attendees also happened to stay until the end of the meeting.

Some issues the public paid close attention to: Noisy helicopters at the Van Nuys airport, reform of the sewer billing system, revitalization of the Van Nuys Civic Center, regulating adult entertainment business and the Encino-Balboa Golf Course concession.

Surely the residents who spoke on these issues hardly thought they were dealing with, as you termed it, ``minor business.''

My reading is that they cared enough to come out that night, and cared enough to provide input to the council on these issues. That strikes me as the essence of what participatory democracy is all about.

- Cindy Miscikowski

Councilwoman, 11th District

Los Angeles

The U.S. and Iraq

The hecklers in Ohio and elsewhere were right. All Americans are not for bombing Iraq - not because of any love for Saddam Hussein, but for the love of our American men and boys.

We shouldn't send troops to fight and die to play this game they are never allowed to play out. The game is always called in the middle, so the problem comes back at a later date, and the game is played over again.

The Iraqis and neighboring countries don't seem to have a problem with the way things are. If they do, then let them get together and change things their own way. It might mean more to them if they work for change and not have America forcing it on them.

- Dana Dreyfuss

West Hills

It is time to stay out of world politics. This country has a hard time dealing with its own problems. A great deal of time is spent manipulating the world's problems. The United States shouldn't be in the business of policing the world.

The problem with this country is that people of today, like the J.P. Morgans and John D. Rockefellers of the past, the financiers and manipulators of the banking system, politicians and governments, foreign and domestic, have ruined this country for the common people.

Big business is alive and well because of U.S. government-backed loans to foreign governments and foreign aid packages, with the citizens of this country left to pay the bill through taxes and inflation.

- Peter A. Sciallo

Northridge

The rest of the world doesn't want the United States to help put an end to this mad dog terrorist. So leave Iraq alone.

Give the European countries their way. Give Asia what it wants. Put the security here, in this country.

If those pacifist other countries get upset when they are hit, so what?

If the Iraqi people do start something with us, then we can, in good faith and clear conscience, bomb them back into the Stone Age.

- Greg Beckman

North Hollywood

After reading through the letters in the Public Forum of Feb. 20 under the headline ``Bomb palaces and watch Saddam blink,'' I was struck by one letter in particular, that of Robert Sennett.

He accused the United States of ``becoming the world's bully.'' Sennett stated, ``Whether it be Haiti, Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia or other countries, the United States forces its will on other nations,'' and ``these nations are offended by U.S. interventions into their affairs and prefer instead that the `Yankees go home.' ''

I, like most Americans, was offended by the nightly coverage of carnage coming over our TV sets while no one was doing anything to stop it. But thank God the United States finally did intervene in these places.

As an American who is very proud of that fact, I am offended that Sennett would try to characterize these actions as ``bullying'' when it's Saddam Hussein's forces that were beating up on neighbors, looting and raping and committing genocide against another people. If allowed to have acquired the wealth of conquered territory without contest, Saddam would have become very threatening to the entire world.

- Leonard C. Snebold

Simi Valley

Debate over warming heats up

In his Public Forum letter Feb. 22, William E. Ross tells us that overpopulation in the United States due to illegal immigration is causing some global warming. This is nonsense. There is no scientific evidence to support it and much evidence to refute it.

First, illegal immigration certainly is a problem but it has no measurable effect on the Earth's temperature. Nor do the people - legal or illegal - of any nation, whether sparsely or densely populated.

According to Dr. Robert Balling, director of the Office of Climatology at Arizona State University, the amount of warming from 1881 to 1993 is 0.54 degrees centigrade. Nearly 70 percent of that warming occurred in the first half of that period when the world's population was much smaller than it was in the second half.

Second, there is no such thing as overpopulation. It is an undefined term and a myth being used to get us to submit to more government control over us.

Let's stop paying attention to the prophets of doom who want to give us even more government to solve a myth.

- Dominick Odorizzi

- Northridge

Global warming is a problem.

The greenhouse effect is caused by the burning of fossil fuels - coal, oil and gas. Developed countries account for 70 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions and the United States is responsible for a majority of that.

While the world needs to stabilize population growth to avoid resource exhaustion, both developed and developing nations must start using sustainable, renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and water power or globally future generations will all be choking on the same polluted air.

- Gail Porter

Van Nuys