Editor, the News-Herald:

The Michael Reagan Commentary (May 19) regarding the Newsweek incident seemed to be an appropriate response to the Evelyn Wall column of the day before in which she advocates &uot;passing gas at least 14 times a day.&uot;

I won’t try to comment on all of Mr. Reagan’s gaseous episodes, a few examples suffice: He criticizes &uot;big media&uot; for taking the side of fellow journalists rather than allowing &uot;them to be taken to task for a false story that killed people.&uot; I wonder if Mr. Reagan has ever criticized &uot;big media&uot; (which these days includes himself and his neo-con talk show buddies) for swallowing the current administration’s &uot;false story that killed people&uot;-including some 1600, and counting, young Americans.

Reagan pontificates that &uot;freedom of the press&uot; also demands &uot;responsibility,&uot; although he doesn’t specify what that responsibility is. One can only assume he means there is a responsibility for the media to report the &uot;truth.&uot; I submit that our government bears that same responsibility; as does Mr. Reagan and his neo-con cronies when it comes to their self-serving &uot;talk&uot; shows.

And finally, Mr. Reagan-just brimming with his own self-importance-&uot;can’t help imagine what the reaction would have been if&uot; he and his pseudo-conservative clones &uot;had reported a bogus story that caused the&uot; death of even &uot;one victim.&uot; Well look around, Mr. Reagan. You and your kind have been reporting, and supporting, a far more important &uot;bogus&uot; story for over two years now, one that has caused tens of thousands of deaths; and sadly, the reaction to your deceptions has been minimal. Sorry if that bruises your ego.

Let me say this in closing: Mr. Reagan’s column had all the earmarks of that &uot;plop&uot; sound that Ms. Wall referred to on the day before.

John M. Sharpe

Suffolk