Any suggestions for my LTTE?

[11 Bravo]

The Washington Times is running a series of excerpts from John O'Neill's slander of Senator Kerry. I had to respond.
Editor,
In journalism there exists a long and venerated tradition whereby newspapers offer up an endorsement of candidates seeking office. This centuries-old standard is appartently insufficient to satisfy the partisans at the Washington Times. You have opted instead to actually inject yourselves into the campaign proper. By publishing, under the guise of "news", a front page, above-the-fold series of unproven and oft-disputed allegations put forth by an individual who is nothing more than the front man for an organization bankrolled by one of George Bush's larger campaign donors; the Times has forfeited any claim to even a pretense of impartiality. And the same individual who stood mute as his minions savaged John McCain in South Carolina during the 2000 primary is willing to again remain silent while another warrior who served homorably and heroically is slandered. George W. Bush is demonstrably without shame, but I naively expected more from a publication which proclaims itself to be "America's Newspaper".
Sincerely,

Any comments or suggestions?

[The Straight Story]

1. Dear Editor

I expect bias from your paper, this is understandable, and regrettable. That you would devote such a large, front page section, to the unproven claims about Kerry stretches things beyond a tasteful limit. One would hope that you had enough journalistic integrity to show this story fully from all sides so as to inform the reader and not attempt to influence - i.e., provide the facts as a real reporter found them and present them to the people to fairly judge.

As this story is now in the public eye, hence 'newsworthy' by the standards of some publishers, I can understand your desire to cover the details - however I cannot understand the reasons behind the way in which such coverage was doled out. I expect one sided examination from a political party and it's followers, I do not expect (nor think of it as journalism) to see such tripe from such a well known 'news' organization so prominantly displayed anywhere but on the editorial page.

The whole story, the straight story, should be reported on by someone who is in search of the truth - not in search of ways to turn slanderous claims into libel. When truth takes a back seat to politics, we all lose. If you choose to cover the story it would benefit all to get back to the basics of real journalism and save the opinions for the opinion page.

Both sides claim things about the other on a regular basis, many rely on 'news'papers to help them out by handing them all the information in an unbiased manner so that they, like a jury, can consider the facts. Something which your artcle seems to be lacking.