Posted on 10/13/2004 5:26:49 AM PDT by OESY
...Terry McAuliffe called the program "an illegal in-kind contribution" to the Bush campaign and said the Democratic National Committee is filing a complaint with the Federal Election Commission. Over at the FCC, Democratic Commissioner Michael Copps interrupted his Columbus Day holiday to dub the broadcast "an abuse of the public trust." More ominously, Kerry adviser Chad Clanton told Fox News yesterday that "I think they (Sinclair) are going to regret doing this, and they better hope we don't win."
...It wasn't the intention of the Founders to give elected officials veto power over press reports....
The excuse for such broadcast regulation used to be that the public airwaves required "equal time." ...All those voters have to do is turn on CNN 24 hours a day, or the CBS Evening News whenever Dan Rather is letting anti-Bush Texas partisans leak him a story.
In any event, we fail to see a difference between Sinclair's anti-Kerry documentary and the cascade of newspaper editorials now endorsing the Senator....
Other big city papers -- New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Miami Herald -- haven't weighed in yet, but you can already guess where most will lean. (This newspaper has a long tradition of not endorsing candidates.)
...By contrast, Sinclair's 42-minute documentary is airing on the company's 62 stations, which reach 24% of U.S. households. The Kerry campaign declined Sinclair's invitation to the Senator to comment on the show.
...Whether or not one agrees with Sinclair vice president Mark Hyman's news judgment that this is an undercovered story, it is certainly the right of the news organization to broadcast it.
Meanwhile, Variety reports that Michael Moore is negotiating to air "Fahrenheit 9/11" on pay per view on Election Day eve....
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I sent my hubby to Blockbuster and he came back with MM's crappy movie. (I was very upset but he said, know thy enemy)
I actually was laughing though some of it. Moore stretches far.
The mother who was crying over her son being killed in the Blackhawk Helicopter, made me more uncomfortable than anything. God Bless that family and please someone get the mom some mental help. To put her grief on film for everyone to see is the ultimate cry for some medication.
I heard Doug Stephan (talk radio jerk) casually question this morning: Should Mark Hyman's arrest for soliciting a prostitute make any difference?
I don't know when (or even if) such actually happened and I didn't continue listening long enough to find out what Dougie thought. This is similar to the current slandering (IMO) of a Texas man running for congress (a republican...this would happen if he were a democrat). Apparently this candidate was arrested for streaking! THIRTY years ago, when he was 18! The Clinton/McAuliffe crowd never ceases to amaze me at how low they can and will stoop.
How about 18 additonal minutes of an open mike on a table before a blue screen - with a crawl saying something like, "Equal time for rebuttal has been offered, free, to any Kerry spokespeople. Here is their response."
Maybe set up the mike in Times Square or some other public place. Let anyone who wants have their say. Unedited!
If Kerry wins, this type of thing will become "hate speech", but not as "hatefull" as, say, the Bible.
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