Gov. Pete Wilson

* Not before his Oct. 5 column would I ever have called George Skelton a shock scribe. As a 70-year-old small business owner, the very thought that Pete Wilson would consider wasting other people’s money on another losing run for president is truly frightening. Wilson is the dullest and most uninspiring politician I have been subjected to in my entire life. If he can raise $20 million to $30 million, I am surely in the wrong business.

KARL H. BREVIK

Indian Wells

* In your Oct. 2 editorial, you lambaste the governor for vetoing about 315 of 950 bills presented to him in the final days of the legislative session. You have the audacity to tug at our heartstrings by citing the veto of a law that purports to protect a convicted criminal’s religious rights, in a country where children can’t pray in school.

Don’t you think the intelligence of your readers could have handled other bits of information which you evidently did not consider relevant, such as how much money the governor saved taxpayers by, in your words, “sweeping away” thousands of hours of legislative work with his vetoes?

ANGELO D’ELIA

Burbank

* Wilson’s veto messages on gun control and HIV reporting (Oct. 1) devalue the efforts of professionals in both law enforcement and medicine who advocated with logic and passion for those pieces of legislation. It is apparent they were outbid and the currency was not mere intellect. Wilson would do us all a service were he now to fade away quietly. Doubtless he will do no such thing. He will now assume the place of the barnyard rooster and hope to crow his way into the presidency. Well, a lame duck is not a rooster, nor a swan. He is just a noisy, noisome duck. Let us turn our gaze to his successor and let Wilson be glad he is too old and tough to be considered as a candidate for dinner.

THOMAS M. NYLUND

Garden Grove

* Now we have a lame duck governor vetoing a bill that would have required insurers to cover biologically based mental illness on a par with coverage of other organic diseases (Sept. 30). Just whose interests is he looking after? Wilson, the wannabe president, can’t be serious about his career aspiration if he continues to act against the public’s interest. Building more prisons, many of which still house mentally ill prisoners, has been a high priority with our governor. Why not obviate the need for more prisons by encouraging the diagnosis and treatment of patients with pre-criminal dispositions?

CHARLES R. BARR

Upland

* The Times is way off the mark in its editorial, “Wilson’s Bad Aim on Guns” (Sept. 30). If we take your position to its logical conclusion we must rid our country of everything that when misused could kill someone. We need to start by ridding our nation’s highways of the automobile and go back to the horse. The misused automobile kills thousands more each year than does the gun. I could go on with dumb examples, but you get the point.

You really want to stop gun violence, make the use of a gun in a crime hurt big time.

ED LEE

Downey