"Stolen Honor" Gets Stolen
The Kerry campaign's pinstriped storm troopers didn't manage to shut the Swiftboat Vets down, but they have succeeded in preventing the showing of Stolen Honor from at least one Pennsylvania theater, and on the big cahuna, Sinclair Broadcasting.
Sinclair says it's going to broadcast a one-hour "news special" entitled "A POW Story: Politics, Pressure and the Media," and that, "contrary to numerous inaccurate political and press accounts," it never intended to show Stolen Honor in its entirety.
Uh-huh.
Sinclair caved, boys and girls. Looks like they're hedging their bets against a Kerry victory (by hook and by crook), and the not-so-veiled threat of what the Boston Balker will do to them in that event.
Looks like "fear and smear" will be an oft-used tool to crush dissent under a Kerry Tyranny.
Makes me wonder how many Americans truly realize the horror they may be about to get this country into.
UPDATE: Somebody had the mother of all brain farts at the New York Times to have allowed this to make it into print:
"The first sentence of the New York Times' review today of Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal was what we expected: It said Sinclair Broadcast Group should not show the documentary. Then the pro-Kerry daily explained why in a stunning recommendation: 'It should be shown in its entirety on all the networks, cable stations and on public television.'
"TV reviewer Alessandra Stanley indicates she doesn't like the fact that Stolen Honor will hinder Senator John Kerry's candidacy, but she nonetheless advises that 'it does help viewers better understand the rage fueling the unhappy band of brothers who oppose Mr. Kerry's candidacy and his claim to heroism.'
"Stanley writes:
This film is payback time, a chance to punish one of the most famous antiwar activists, Mr. Kerry, the one who got credit for serving with distinction in combat, then, through the eyes of the veterans in this film, went home to discredit the men left behind. The film begins with dirgelike music and a scary black-and-white montage of stark images of soldiers and prisoners as a deep voice sorrowfully intones, "In other wars, when captured soldiers were subjected to the hell of enemy prisons, they were considered heroes." The narrator adds, "In Vietnam they were betrayed."
The imagery is crude, but powerful: each mention of Mr. Kerry's early 1970's meeting with North Vietnamese government officials in Paris is illustrated with an old black-and-white still shot of the Arc de Triomphe, an image that to many viewers evokes the Nazi occupation of Paris....
The film's producer, Carlton Sherwood, a former investigative reporter and a Vietnam veteran, gives his own testimony, explaining that even though he has uncovered all kinds of misdeeds in his career, the history of Mr. Kerry's antiwar activism is "a lot more personal." He recalls listening to Mr. Kerry's testimony in 1971, saying, "I felt an inner hurt no surgeon's scalpel could remove."
That pain is the main theme of the documentary, which can be seen in its entirety on the Internet for $4.99. One former P.O.W., John Warner, lashes out at Mr. Kerry for having coaxed Mr. Warner's mother to testify at the Winter Soldier Investigation, where disgruntled veterans testified to war crimes they committed. Calling it a "contemptible act," Mr. Warner, who spent more than five years as a prisoner, tells the camera that Mr. Kerry was the kind of man who preyed on a mother's grief "purely for the promotion of your own political agenda."
I don't know what to make of this, except that (1) maybe they think that these POWs come across as bitter old cranks or "right-wing extremists" who will make Kerry look sympathetic by contrast (like the Swiftboat Vets? Heh...); and (2) since Sinclair has already pulled the plug on Stolen Honor, and Ms. Stanley knows that Dan Rather will begin the CBS Evening News by tearfully begging to have George W. Bush's love child before the networks will ever show Stolen Honor, it's safe for her to throw this out in order to polish her and her publication's faux halos of "objectivity."
Meanwhile, Fahrenheit 911 is even squeezing garage rock bands and pirated porno flicks off of public access TV.
Michael Moore naked; there might be the one sight that could possibly be more hideous than his piece of fascist propaganda.
Sinclair says it's going to broadcast a one-hour "news special" entitled "A POW Story: Politics, Pressure and the Media," and that, "contrary to numerous inaccurate political and press accounts," it never intended to show Stolen Honor in its entirety.
Uh-huh.
Sinclair caved, boys and girls. Looks like they're hedging their bets against a Kerry victory (by hook and by crook), and the not-so-veiled threat of what the Boston Balker will do to them in that event.
Looks like "fear and smear" will be an oft-used tool to crush dissent under a Kerry Tyranny.
Makes me wonder how many Americans truly realize the horror they may be about to get this country into.
UPDATE: Somebody had the mother of all brain farts at the New York Times to have allowed this to make it into print:
"The first sentence of the New York Times' review today of Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal was what we expected: It said Sinclair Broadcast Group should not show the documentary. Then the pro-Kerry daily explained why in a stunning recommendation: 'It should be shown in its entirety on all the networks, cable stations and on public television.'
"TV reviewer Alessandra Stanley indicates she doesn't like the fact that Stolen Honor will hinder Senator John Kerry's candidacy, but she nonetheless advises that 'it does help viewers better understand the rage fueling the unhappy band of brothers who oppose Mr. Kerry's candidacy and his claim to heroism.'
"Stanley writes:
This film is payback time, a chance to punish one of the most famous antiwar activists, Mr. Kerry, the one who got credit for serving with distinction in combat, then, through the eyes of the veterans in this film, went home to discredit the men left behind. The film begins with dirgelike music and a scary black-and-white montage of stark images of soldiers and prisoners as a deep voice sorrowfully intones, "In other wars, when captured soldiers were subjected to the hell of enemy prisons, they were considered heroes." The narrator adds, "In Vietnam they were betrayed."
The imagery is crude, but powerful: each mention of Mr. Kerry's early 1970's meeting with North Vietnamese government officials in Paris is illustrated with an old black-and-white still shot of the Arc de Triomphe, an image that to many viewers evokes the Nazi occupation of Paris....
The film's producer, Carlton Sherwood, a former investigative reporter and a Vietnam veteran, gives his own testimony, explaining that even though he has uncovered all kinds of misdeeds in his career, the history of Mr. Kerry's antiwar activism is "a lot more personal." He recalls listening to Mr. Kerry's testimony in 1971, saying, "I felt an inner hurt no surgeon's scalpel could remove."
That pain is the main theme of the documentary, which can be seen in its entirety on the Internet for $4.99. One former P.O.W., John Warner, lashes out at Mr. Kerry for having coaxed Mr. Warner's mother to testify at the Winter Soldier Investigation, where disgruntled veterans testified to war crimes they committed. Calling it a "contemptible act," Mr. Warner, who spent more than five years as a prisoner, tells the camera that Mr. Kerry was the kind of man who preyed on a mother's grief "purely for the promotion of your own political agenda."
I don't know what to make of this, except that (1) maybe they think that these POWs come across as bitter old cranks or "right-wing extremists" who will make Kerry look sympathetic by contrast (like the Swiftboat Vets? Heh...); and (2) since Sinclair has already pulled the plug on Stolen Honor, and Ms. Stanley knows that Dan Rather will begin the CBS Evening News by tearfully begging to have George W. Bush's love child before the networks will ever show Stolen Honor, it's safe for her to throw this out in order to polish her and her publication's faux halos of "objectivity."
Meanwhile, Fahrenheit 911 is even squeezing garage rock bands and pirated porno flicks off of public access TV.
Michael Moore naked; there might be the one sight that could possibly be more hideous than his piece of fascist propaganda.
posted by JASmius at 6:27 PM
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