Dear George,

Unfortunately, in our society, politicians and their families are open game. While I would normally say that a family's private life is no one's business, in this case their father made a very public point of saying that he kept his own drinking problems confidential in order to "protect" his daughters. Perhaps if he had been more forthcoming with them about the impact of his own excesses, they would be less inclined to break the law in this area now. In my opinion, our society is entirely too accepting of America's "legal" recreational drug - alcohol.

Linda Martin (electronic mail, May 31, 2001)