To the editor: Many thanks to the Los Angeles Times Editorial Board for reminding us to put the impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump in context with his presidency’s multiple other failures.

As for making historical comparisons, talking about Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton is really just a distraction. Those gifted politicians managed the ship of state in their own times and put forth policy initiatives that have endured. Each fell victim to a tragic flaw and paid the price of public humiliation.

That is far different from what we face today. Ukraine gets the spotlight simply because it provides the most actionable grounds for impeachment, yet it is inseparable from the larger pattern of this presidency. In the cases of Nixon and Clinton, their character flaws were totally separable from their larger records.

We now have an entire presidency that is impeachable. May the Democrats find a way to make that essential reality as clear as your editorial.


Glenn Pascall, Dana Point

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To the editor: To impeach or not? I couldn’t care less. It’s a non-issue.

President Trump is here now, but at some point he won’t be here. When he is replaced, will anything have changed? No.


There is and will always be only one issue: the stock market. If the market is doing well, anyone could be running the country, even Bugs Bunny, and I would be perfectly happy to reelect that president.

Jack Spiegelman, Los Angeles

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To the editor: The Republicans’ new strategy to defend Trump is to demonize House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) as someone who has been on a mission to impeach the president since he took office, conveniently sidestepping their own attempts to obstruct and block former President Obama the moment he was inaugurated.


Perhaps their most egregious act was failing even to consider Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court for almost an entire year.

Schiff is a man of great integrity who is eager to work across the aisle to get things done. These hearings are the result of real, not imagined, corrupt acts committed by Trump.

At every opportunity, the Republicans on the Intelligence Committee misrepresent the facts of the case, doing a terrible disservice to their constituents and all Americans in the process. Their giant visual aids in the hearing room and their belligerent grandstanding only emphasize their hypocrisy.

This has to stop before irreversible damage is done to our country and the world.


Eileen Mann, Newhall