Bill’s legacy
From John O’Byrne
Sir: Toby Harnden (‘Clinton: Tony and Gordon just have to work this out’, 16 September) states that the former president ‘feels he was cheated of the chance to prove himself while president; so he is anxious to cement his legacy’. What legacy? Bill Clinton is among the most overrated presidents ever. In his eight years in the White House he had plenty of time to ‘prove himself’ but achieved nothing spectacular. For example, his policy of cutting defence-spending left America exposed to terrorist attack (the bill was left to his successor). He had a chance to catch Osama bin Laden after the World Trade Center bombing in 1993; instead he preferred to use the Justice Department to, for example, kidnap a six-year-old boy and deport him to Cuba. His second term was spent fending off impeachment, the underlying problem being an unwillingness to accept responsibility for his bad behaviour, with lots of denials and dissembling (‘It depends what the meaning of “is” is’).
John O’Byrne
Durban, South Africa
Offended? Call the police
From John Duffield
Sir: Rod Liddle’s account (‘Arrested for quoting from the Bible’, 16 September) of the prosecution of Stephen Green illustrates a major change in national mores. The country used to work on the basis of trying not to take offence at anything said, but the current rules work on the idea of not giving offence. This works to the detriment of me (certainly), Stephen Green (probably) and also, I suspect, Rod Liddle. When we hear something offensive, we shrug our shoulders and quote Voltaire, but when the situation is reversed, we are liable to end up in court. Our opponents, on the other hand, are in the happy position of being able to give offence as much as they like but to run to the police when they are upset.
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