To the editor:

The Nov. 14 letter written by Sue Hess and entitled “Presidential mess,” gives the readers of the Journal-World a near-perfect example of faulty logic and the assumptions that emanate therefrom.

She claims that President Clinton gave us a good economy and then attacks President Bush for failing our veterans. This is patently false: While it is true President Bush has not done enough for our active military and retired members, in this respect he is simply continuing the processes of his predecessor, the aforementioned Clinton.

Clinton’s first budget included a proposed 2 percent pay raise for the military; he was unaware that the law mandated a 2.4 percent pay raise. This, coupled with his gays in the military plan, created an animosity between the new president and his military. Clinton then devastated the military with a force reduction; this failed policy is the major reason why the Pentagon had to abandon its pledge to fight on two fronts.

Ms. Hess also clearly fails to see the mistake of assigning our problems to world organizations. The United Nations and the World Court are presided over by elitists who impose their self-proclaimed view of what is right from the top down. American democracy, in striking contrast, is ordered and structured by the average citizen, from the bottom up, if you will. World organizations by their nature reduce the authority of the American people.

In this last respect, it is not us, but the rest of the world, that resembles Germany circa 1940.

Matthew M. O’Connell,

Topeka