Editor- New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's pathetic pratfall well illuminates a persistent sexual double standard. While the media's predictable feeding frenzy all but ignored this angle, columnist Debra J. Saunders nailed it ("The emperor's wife", March 12). Kudos to her! About a dozen years ago I watched TV news covering the arraignment of a 30-ish female teacher charged with statutory rape of a male student. I thought it odd enough that male defendants so seldom suffered similar focus. Then the television crew exposed their "news" for what it was - sheer titillation - by slowly panning the camera downward from the defendant's face to her clingy black dress, to her exposed lower thigh, to her well-turned ankle and sandal-clad feet, and then slowly retracing this route to her face. As if they'd do the same with a similarly charged male defendant?

Ever since that tawdry episode I've shunned TV coverage of female sex scandals. Now, with the print media's universally prominent display of Silda Spitzer's anguished face alongside her husband, I've simply turned the page without reading. Thank you, Ms. Saunders, for repudiating the invidious sexual discrimination on which your profession too often feeds.

ED ALSTON

Santa Maria

An unsettling feeling

Editor - I'm sorry to learn of Eliot Spitzer's fall from grace and resignation. What saddens me most is how the evidence against him was collected without a warrant under the guise of searching for terrorists' banking transactions.

So, how many GOP clients of the Emperor's Club will be trembling over possible "leaks" from the White House? Zero. How may Democratic Pols who were clients are worried? All of them.

STEVE MUNZEL

Milpitas

Cure for scandals

Editor - Another powerful male leader caught with his zipper down? Another reason to vote for a woman president!

STACY TAYLOR

El Cerrito

Toll on marriage

Editor - What value do we place on having sex that so many believe having sex outside marriage not only justifies, but even demands that a 20-year, 30-year marriage has to end? Of course, it hurts to learn our spouse cheated on us. Of course, it is hard to forgive and we want retribution. But to walk away from a lifetime together?

We can have any number of other experiences with others outside the marriage, we can fritter away all our money or burn down the house, but having sex ends it. I don't get it.

DONALD F. SETH

Santa Rosa

Catch-all excuses

Editor - Columnist Robert Scheer writes, "Tell me again why we should get all worked up over the revelation the New York governor having paid for sex?" Will it bring back to life the eight soldiers killed in Iraq that same day ... will it save those millions of homes ... provide some insight into why oil has risen to $108 a barrel?

Kudos to that logic! I think the next time I'm pulled over for speeding I'll ask, "Officer, will giving me this ticket stop the killing in Dufar? Will it stop the escalation of health care costs? Will it stop columnists from making irrelevant and nonsensical arguments?"

DEAN A. ANDERSON

Healdsburg

Ferraro: Truth or blasphemy?

Editor - It is politically correct for Sen. Hillary Clinton to distance herself from Geraldine Ferraro's opinion that the excitement over Barack Obama's candidacy stems in part from his ethnicity. But Ms. Ferraro is fundamentally correct in defending her right to express a valid opinion when asked for it by a newspaper.

It would be naive to think that Obama's being the first serious biracial candidate for president is not a significant factor in the attention he is getting.

If we have to stifle free speech in order to have a biracial president, Mr. Obama becomes a divisive, not a unifying, force on the political stage.

LYNN SNYDER

Berkeley

Making of kings

Editor - Geraldine Ferraro's contention that Sen. Barack Obama wouldn't be leading the race for the Democratic presidential nomination if he weren't black reminds me of what Colonel Tom Parker said. Give me a white man who sings like a black man, the Elvis Presley impresario said, and I'll make a fortune.

If I may borrow from the colonel: Give us a white man - a young Irish Catholic, for example - with Obama's charisma, eloquence, ability to inspire and to assemble a superior campaign organization, and this race would have been over long ago.

JOHN HEAD

Berkeley

Makes us proud

Editor - I am a nice 64-year-old professional white lady, and I have this to say, as her peer, to Geraldine Ferraro: My dear, isn't it positively wonderful that after three centuries of only white men, women and children having access to the White House because they aren't "colored," we finally have the opportunity to move a very presidential black family into the White House?

Doesn't it make you so proud, at long last, to be in an America where white people aren't the only ones who get to vote for a member of their own race?

SUSIE SCHOLEFIELD

Santa Rosa

Stop the mud

Editor - As long as the mud throwing continues, how will it leave a candidate anyone wants for president? I don't want a milquetoast for my choice, but even less a viper. Until the Democratic National Convention, what will happen to the once great chances of the Dems winning the national election?

ANITA SALTANIS

San Francisco

If English were taught

Editor - I'm appalled by Geraldine Ferraro's statement, "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position." Ferraro's is perpetuating an American disgrace that few of us admit still bedevils our society. No, not racism - that societal cancer remains as American as apple pie. I'm referring instead to the death of the subjunctive mood. Clearly, Ms. Ferraro should have said "If Obama were a white man..." since her statement is a conditional one.

RIK MYSLEWSKI

San Francisco

Editor - Note to HRC: If you win the nomination, after everything you have done to hurt Barack Obama and the Democratic Party, you had better select a great vice presidental running mate because I will have absolutely no reason to vote for a candidate like you.

MICHAEL SCOTT

San Francisco