The dustup over Stars and Stripes' efforts to cover servicemembers' reactions on election night, and the Pentagon's efforts to prevent that, is not over yet. Stripes on Friday published four letters-to-the editor on the subject. They reacted to a news story that Stripes ran on Thursday, and a column I wrote as ombudsman that ran the same day. (See it below.)

Only one letter came from a person in uniform, Staff Sgt. Mitch Reynolds from Forward Operating Base  Prosperity in Iraq. "It's a shame," he wrote, "those involved in denying access to the reporters were going against everything our great country stands for on such an historic day." The sergeant said he and others did talk with reporters on election night; in truth, the Pentagon's attempted ban on servicemember-press chatting apparently held only at a few Pacific bases. Reynolds' sentiments were mine as well.

The other letters took Stripes to task. Ron Buss from Yongsan Garrison, South Korea, derided what he called Stripes' "very one-sided and clearly biased " article on the disagreement. He had no problem with the column because it was on the op-ed page. The news article to me looked pretty  balanced. It had considerably more comment defending the Pentagon's ban, than it had comment defending the newspaper. The headline did have a one-sided ring, unfortunately: "DOD policy kept troops' voices mum on election results." That wasn't true for the great majority of troops.

What to me was the more troubling letter came from Principal Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Michael Dominguez. He argued that no newsperson had a right to "unfettered access" to bases to interview servicemembers. Stripes never claimed to have unfettered access. It recognizes there are locations on any base that are clearly off-limits.

Finally, Dominguez wrote that there was "no compelling reason...to grant Stripes any special treatment or any special exception to the general and long-standing policy against random interviews by the media -- on any subject -- on military installations."

Again there is a disinclination to recognize Stripes' unique and officially sanctioned role as an independent publication within the DOD. No question, it's a hard concept to swallow. Here's another look at a long-ago column in which I addressed that issue.

Also, I was puzzled by the letter's reference to "long-standing policy" governing interviews by the media. I had never seen such a policy. Lt. Col. Les Melnyk of Pentagon Public Affairs enlightened me:

"Not all policies are written down, and indeed, the policy Mr. Dominquez referred to...reflects long-standing practice that media are not given the freedom of a post to conduct man-on-the-street type interviews, regardless of the topic. We generally instruct media seeking this type of commentary to conduct their interviews off-base, and for servicemembers exercising their 1st Amendment rights to do so out of uniform. We also encourage them to remind the media that the opinions expressed do not represent the official opinion or policy of the DoD or their military service."

That just doesn't square with other policies -- including written ones, as my column pointed out -- or with practice. Interviews with servicemembers take place all the time on base, while the interviewees are in uniform. Unless clearly identified as such, the comments are not seen as representing higher authority.

The dispute persists. If the Pentagon fails to deal with the reality, not to say the ideals -- of  these free speech issues, it probably will continue to get hammered in the media.