PUBLIC FORUM : CLINTON FOES TURN TO EXTRANEOUS DIATRIBES.

Enough, already. Like most Americans, I'm sure, I have all but given up hope of ever seeing an end to this vicious castigation leveled at our nation's president. I am now convinced that the tirade is not so much for the purpose of destroying our president's reputation as it is to keep the nation's attention away from the things that mean most.

The opposition is now resorting to such extraneous diatribes as erroneous comparisons with George Washington and Adolf Hitler (Public Forum, Aug. 30) because of Hitler's lack of honesty and morality, not mentioning Hitler's insane quest to annihilate the Jews and bring the world under Nazi control.

The basic difference between President Clinton and our previous presidents, who have committed numerous acts of adultery, is that opposing political parties had more substantive arguments for degrading past presidents' accomplishments. Sexual innuendoes are always a last resort when all else fails.

As many writers have repeatedly observed, apparently to deaf ears, we didn't elect a minister to lead us in our daily worship or to establish new moral codes to supplant failing religious leaderships. Our president, as presidents always have been, is a politician elected to provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, etc.

- Fred W. Coble 

North Hills

In reply to Barbara Howar's well-written but misguided article (``Lewinsky deserves some sympathy,'' Opinions, Aug. 26): If Monica Lewinsky had kept her mouth shut, as Howar stated, there would be no scandal.

Lewinsky was using her best asset to try to take a shortcut to success and she got caught, thereby disgracing herself, her president and her country. She then bragged about it to a friend just like two young men would do in a locker room.

- Jerry Hays

Studio City

Rebuttal on Russia

Your editorials, letters and opinions pages have amused me for many years going back to the late 1950s. The latest laughter was your Aug. 28 editorial, ``How Clinton can help; Russia needs a pep talk on the value of a free economy.''

You just do not have a clue about Russia's troubles. The problem is what, for want of a better phrase, can be called rampant Rush Limbaughisms. Few pay taxes. Unbridled capitalism runs amok. The country's resources have been handed over to oligarchs, and entrepreneurs' profits leave the country.

Precisely what is needed to make democracy and capitalism work in Russia is more government control of the business and financial communities, not less.

Perhaps Karl Marx understood capitalism and Russia better than most in the West, now and then.

- Al Hromjak

Simi Valley 

Fare strike unlawful

The position taken by members of the Bus Riders' Union, as espoused by their spokesperson Rita Burgos, is so riddled with inaccuracies and wishful thinking as to make one wonder how they maintain any kind of credibility in the ongoing discussions about our county's transit needs (``Group to intensify protests against MTA,'' Daily News, Aug. 27).

The union constantly refers to the consent decree between itself and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority as the basis for its various demands. Having read the text of the decree, which is readily available at the NAACP's Web site, I would like to address the issues raised by Burgos in your article.

The 1,600 buses that the union demands the MTA purchase are mentioned nowhere in the consent decree. This is, in fact, a new demand made of the agency based upon the union's perception of how many buses it believes are necessary to lower the number of standees to the decree's mandates.

The decree specifically calls for an increase of 102 buses in the agency's total fleet.

Further, the decree does not give the union - or any passenger, for that matter - the right to refuse to pay fare if seats are not available. Payment of fare is widely recognized within the public transit industry as being for transport only. It does not guarantee seating - not even on Metrolink, which the union uses as the focus of its frequent attacks on rail transit.

While we are on the subject of load factors - the ratio of seating to the number of standees - the consent decree-defined rush-hour load factor of 1.2, expected to be achieved by June 30, 2002, is so out of line I am amazed the MTA agreed to it.

No metropolitan public transit system has that kind of ratio, and the amount of money that would need to be spent to achieve that goal would put the MTA into bankruptcy faster than any rail project.

Finally, there is no way for the MTA or any transit agency, including the much-touted transit zone, to acquire 1,600 new buses in two years. There are fewer than half a dozen manufacturers of transit coaches in the United States, and all of them have a delay of 12 to 24 months from the time an order is placed until the bus arrives, ready to be painted, outfitted with a fare box, etc. The union makes its most unreasonable demand when it insists that the MTA acquire that much new equipment almost immediately.

The Bus Riders Union has forced some improvements for the benefit of MTA passengers. The rollback and the freezing of fares and passes at 1993 levels are laudable. But the union is not sufficiently knowledgeable about transit operations to set MTA policy, and the ``fare strike'' is evidence of that lack of knowledge.

- Kymberleigh Richards

Van Nuys

Zacarias' `victory'

Superintendent Ruben Zacarias has declared victory in achieving the goals he set for the Los Angeles Unified School District. As a result, he will be rewarded with a 6 percent pay raise - more than $10,000 - by the school board.

I wonder if he could find it in his heart to reimburse my wife and me for the money we spent to purchase materials for a small group of challenged students who were dumped in a classroom this summer, without so much as a pencil, and forgotten by the system.

- David A. Izzard 

North Hills

Police corruption 

Re ``Officer jailed in drug theft,'' Daily News, Aug. 26:

There is nothing new today in the field of police corruption. Just wind the clock back 75 years to the height of Prohibition, and you have seen it all before. When enough people want something that others have declared they should not have, there will be plenty of money. When enough money is involved, you can count on corruption. An FBI spokesman says, ``It's all about the Benjamins ($100 bills). Money is the ultimate motivator.''

Every year, around 4,000 people die from illegal drugs. Every year, 10 times that many die and 100 times that many have their lives horribly changed because drugs are illegal.

From toxic waste sites and house fires in clandestine drug labs to the degrading practice of searching the cars of African-Americans and Hispanics on East Coast interstates because they fit some drug-courier profile, from corrupt cops to dead inner-city kids, from billions of dollars wasted to thousands of lives destroyed, the war on drugs keeps racking up victims.

- Woodrow J. Hughes

Northridge

Social Security problems

Todd Flora's article, ``Social Security trouble real, despite assets,'' Opinions, Aug. 25, paints a good portrait of the problem, but overlooks one important problem that is unfair to many seniors.

Many seniors are having their Social Security checks reduced simply because they dutifully held a government job for many years.

In a fumbled effort to fix Social Security, Congress now penalizes deserving and sometimes needy seniors who committed part of their lives to government jobs. At the same time, Congress continues to allow full benefits to those who never contributed to, or possibly do not need, Social Security.

Rescuing Social Security is one thing, but to deprive millions of former government employees is thoroughly unfair.

- Millie Rose

West Hills