Media critic, critique thyself.

• Position: Letters

I have to take issue with a minor element of Cathy Young's dissection ("Media Critic, Critique Thyself," July) of Eric Alterman's What Liberal Media? She quotes Alterman's prodding of Ann Coulter about footnotes, but anyone who even opened Slander, much less read it, would know that it is extensively footnoted. Each chapter has about two pages of footnotes, but Young doesn't mention this.

A minor point, perhaps, but it curdled the milk a bit more for me when she asserted that Ann Coulter is the right's Michael Moore. I don't think the knock on Moore is that he is a strident polemicist: It's that he is a liar. If Ann is guilty of objective mendacity in print, I should very much like to see it pointed out. I don't think you will have much luck.

On Bernard Goldberg's book she is on much firmer ground; it was personal to the point of puerility. But Young devotes most of her analysis to this weaker example. To me, this smacks of an overabundance of deference to the left. The reason this grates so is that reason seems to bend over backward to slap left and right with equal vigor, regardless of the merits. Moral equivalence has done much to sap the life from debates in all fields lately, but I wouldn't expect such an acceptance of conventional wisdom in reason.

Ken Watson Atlanta, GA

There has been along-running...