The appointment of New Jersey’s former governor, Thomas Kean, to the commission on September 11 was made following a relentless series of personal attacks against Henry Kissinger. Specifically, Mr. Kissinger’s business clients were made into such an overblown issue that he was forced to resign from the commission lest he betray the confidentiality of his clients by making their names public.

So we looked at Mr. Kean and the institution he is president of, Drew University, and we wondered, is the same standard being applied here? Drew University publishes its list of donors, and interestingly enough the group contains a number of corporations. Suggestions by the New York Times that some of these corporations, such as BP and Exxon Mobil, were clients of Mr. Kissinger’s firm, were among the issues cited by the Times in its editorializing against Mr. Kissinger’s appointment. When The New York Sun inquired, it found that many of the companies named by the Times were not clients of Mr. Kissinger’s company at all.

Which raises the question: If an alleged but untrue relationship with certain international corporations was such a problem with Mr. Kissinger’s appointment, why is a factual, ongoing relationship with these same companies not an issue with Mr. Kean? After all, in remaining Drew’s president, Mr. Kean is, if anything, as dependent on his good standing among these companies as Mr. Kissinger would have been with his own clients. We do not want Mr. Kean to be hounded into stepping down because his university is dependent for its funding, in part, on corporate donors. It is not an issue. And it was not an issue with Mr. Kissinger, either.