LETTER- Yay Whitehead; boo Clintons

It's not just right-wing evangelical nuts who view cloning with a jaundiced eye. As a devout, liberal, non-believing Dem, I share some reservations about the process. That said, the thought of a multiplicity of John Whiteheads running about– defending the civil rights of those in need of same– is oddly comforting.

This musing is the result of reading Lindsay Barnes' January 24 cover story, "Suing the President," detailing the courage Whitehead displayed in taking on one of the most powerful– as well as one of the sleaziest– guys in the country: Bill Clinton, the man who dismissed the claim of sexual misconduct against Paula Jones by referring to her as "trailer trash."

What makes this article all the more newsworthy is that we're in danger of having a man– to whom the word "moral" is mythical– returning in a new role as co-prez. The two Clintons are inextricably linked in an ethos of compulsive lying, trashing, and blank spaces where their respective cores should be. That's bad enough; having to make a choice between Hillary and one of the cardboard cut-outs of the opposing party is devastating.

Thanks to Lindsay Barnes, to Whitehead, to the Hook. Fervent hopes for Obama.

More frightening than having Hillary deliver the 2009 State of the Union address is to have Mike the Huckabee meld the Constitution and the Bible into a cloned creation, thereby confirming our final transition to a theocracy.

Barbara Rich
Charlottesville

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