Although I have grown accustomed to Nick Swan's incoherency aswell as his lack of objectivity, his editorial on Sen. EdwardKennedy's April 5, 2004, speech to the Brookings Institution was soflagrantly wrong on so many levels, I felt compelled torespond.
I did not listen to Kennedy's speech as it was delivered, nordid I listen to out-of-context sound bytes via mainstream media.Instead, I downloaded a transcript of the speech, which enabled meto determine, independent of outside influence and bias, whatKennedy actually said. Apparently, Swan did not do the same. If hehad, he would have discovered that the speech he characterizes as"a rambling, anti-Bush rant" was in fact a coherent,well-researched and articulate dissection of the failures of Bush'sdomestic policy.
Moreover, the single out-of-context quote, inflated well beyondits relevance to the overall topic of the speech, which Swanberates as "an absurd overstatement" is in actuality a reference tothe escalation of the Vietnam War and its political ramificationsfor Johnson vis-a-vis Bush. Apparently it is not only nuances thatescape Swan -- blatancy does as well.
I could continue and eviscerate Swan's wanton attacks onKennedy's character, his gross misreading of the ultimate causes ofthe defeat in Vietnam and his poor writing style, but there isneither time nor space to accommodate such a formidable task.
Ann Mulhearn
TA/Ph.D. student
Department of History
