Two Good Letters RE: The Not-So-Swift

href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/24/opinion/l24swift.html?

ex=1251086400&en=4c94acc5b848c744&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland”>The New York Times > Opinion > Kerry and the Swift

To the Editor:

John Kerry fought in the war and then returned to try to convince our government to stop

the endless and needless bloodshed.

That was an honorable thing to do. Those who criticize him for learning from his experience in the

field and then using that experience to help the antiwar effort do a great disservice to those patriots who forced our government to end

an unjust war.

Marc J. Osterweil
New Kingston, N.Y., Aug. 22, 2004
—
To the Editor:

An Aug. 21 news analysis suggests that

John Kerry made a strategic error by not promptly rebutting the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth’s attacks. But might not he have made a

principled decision to stick to the high road and to resist efforts to drag his campaign into the mud? More important is why many news

outlets reported the Swift boat veterans’ allegations as if they were true, or why tapes of veterans “speaking coolly and directly to

the camera” found their way into TV news reports.

The real problem is not with Mr. Kerry’s decision but with the fact that the press

effectively provided free campaign advertising for his attackers. Perhaps hoping to appear balanced, the press has once again failed to

investigate and report the facts.

Richard B. Miller
Bloomington, Ind., Aug. 21, 2004
The writer is the director of the Poynter

Center for the Study of Ethics and American Institutions, Indiana University.

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