To the Editor:

In relating the story behind the removal of anti-Semitic posts from the MoveOn.org Web site, Eric Alterman confuses the chronology and the eventual reportage of our concerns in the tabloid press.  As is our common pratice, after learning of the anti-Semitic posts our first course of action was to attempt to notify MoveOn officials of their existencde and to request their removal.  We did just that in an electronic message sent August 31.  A copy of that message was later obtained by The New York Post -- not from us -- and was quoted in its story, which ran September 5.

We did not "run to the media," as Alterman suggests, nor was our letter motivated by a desire to "blame MoveOn" for the posts.  In fact, in our public statements we were the first to acknowledge that MoveOn officials were not responsible for the anti-Semitic posts.  And we commended them immediately after learning that the posts had been responsibly removed.