Month: <span>October 2004</span>

An article posted to the Media Matters for America site on Wednesday, reviews the anti-Kerry ad-disguised-as-news “documentary” to be shown on 62 Sinclair stations, shortly before election day, pre-empting normal programming. Here are some bits:

“Having reviewed the film, MMFA can confirm that at least two of the POWs featured in the film, Paul Galanti … and Ken Cordier … also appeared in Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads attacking Kerry. …

“The anti-Kerry POWs for Truth, who released Stolen Honor, merged with the discredited Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, as a September 29 press release announced. According to that release, ‘The merger coincide[d] with a new $1.4 million television ad campaign released by the new group Swift Vets and POWs For Truth.’ Swift Boat Vets also has significant connections to the Bush-Cheney ’04 campaign, as MMFA has noted. …

“Stolen Honor falsely claims Kerry labeled all veterans war criminals … Stolen Honor falsely claims Kerry had secret meeting with North Vietnamese in Paris … Stolen Honor seeks to discredit the Winter Soldier Investigation without evidence … Stolen Honor attempts to link Kerry to actress and prominent anti-war activist Jane Fonda …

“As MMFA has documented, the frequently used right-wing tactic of seeking to link Kerry to Fonda has even involved the doctoring of a photograph to make it appear that Kerry stood alongside Fonda while speaking at an antiwar protest.”

Note that Sinclair Broadcast Group is the same company which forced its stations to not show an episode of Nightline, which was wholly dedicated to reading the names, and displaying pictures of our soldiers who have died in Iraq. On that note, here’s a picture you might find interesting.

I urge you to contact companies who advertise on Sinclair Broadcast Group stations, explain the situation, and urge them to pull their ads because of this scandal. You’ll probably have the best luck with smaller advertisers, in your local broadcast area.

There are only days left before the election, and it’s doubtful that either the FCC or FEC will do anything about this before then.

NewDonkey.com: “Today’s NYT tells you most of what you need to know about the President’s re-election strategy going into the home stretch. Elisabeth Bumiller reports on Bush’s savage new stump speech, first unveiled in PA last week. As I noted when the speech first went up on the BC04 web page, the speech is almost entirely a negative attack on Kerry, and almost entirely based on distortions of the challenger’s record and unsupported name-calling. Bumiller notes that all the positive stuff about the administration’s record has been dumped out of the speech, apparently at the insistence of Karl Rove. (A separate AP story observes that neither Karl Rove nor Karen Hughes can take a breath without calling Kerry a “liberal”).”

Kevin Drum did an analysis for the Washington Monthly, of the deceptions and misstatements by Bush and Kerry. His conclusion: The degree of deception employed by Bush exceeds that of Kerry.

He also reports that an internal ABC News memo by Political Director Mark Halpern was intended to encourage reporting of deceptions, rather than creating balance where none actually exists.

(Note that the above-linked page has gotten really big because of all the comments by readers. Dial-up readers beware — download could take a while.)