February 2005 Issue


Letters to the Editor

   Letters

Readers respond.

To the Editor,

I find it interesting that a publication that claims "professionalism" as a guiding principle in its Mission Statement would print libel against John Kerry ("Why did President Bush win the election?") The author, John Williamson '08, suggests that Senator Kerry met with Viet Cong leaders overseas during the Vietnam War, a meeting which never happened. The story was never carried by the mainstream news media (searched John Kerry AND Viet Cong AND meeting in Lexis-Nexis from July 18, 2004 to Jan 18, 2005)…why? BECAUSE IT IS NOT TRUE. For your publication to print such shameful lies, with my tuition money, strikes me as bad for Dartmouth journalism and bad for political discourse. In the future, I would strongly suggest fact checking your publication before distributing it.

Democratically Yours,
Michael Sloan-Rossiter '08

[Eds. Note – After Mr. Williamson e-mailed a response, Mr. Sloan-Rossiter wrote the following as an addendum to his first letter.]

I'll concede that libel was not an accurate label. However, I do have a few points.

1. Newsmax.com and Freerepublic.com are not legitimate news sources. At best, they can be described as rabid editorialists.

2. The article in your publication strongly suggests that Kerry was [in Vietnam] aiding the Viet Cong. In fact, he was visiting peace talks as a private individual from the American peace movement, which is not the collaboration the article makes it out to be.
-MSR

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