Well now, isn't the shoe on the other foot. Filmmaker Carlton Sherwood has released a documentary, "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal," and Democrats are up in arms. In the film former Vietnam POWs describe the impact of Kerry's anti-war activities on them while they were prisoners.In Sherwood's film, released in early September on the Internet, former Vietnam War prisoners of war allege that Kerry's antiwar activities after he returned home as a decorated Navy veteran prolonged their own ordeal for two years by boosting the morale of their captors.
The film will be shown during the closing days of the Presidential campaign by Sinclair Broadcasting Group, Inc, owner of 62 TV stations, many in the battlegrond states of Florida and Ohio.
As one would expect, Democrats are in full attack mode. Those paragons of integrity, Diane Feinstein, Patrick Leahey, and Edward Kennedy were among 18 Senators who signed a letter requesting an investigation by the FCC. But Andrew Schwartzman, a public interest lawyer who runs the Media Access Project, said the Sinclair broadcast was unlikely to violate major tenets of communications law.
"It never runs afoul of communications law to carry a program," he said. "What's wrong is if they run a program determinedly one-sided and they don't give the other guy a fair shake." Schwartzman said the FCC's equal time provisions wouldn't apply, because they are meant to give each candidate equal appearances on a station, not allow a rebuttal to a negative appearance (although Sinclair has offered Kerry a chance to appear).
Meanwhile the Democratic National Committee said it would file a complaint Tuesday with the Federal Election Commission, charging Sinclair with making an illegal in-kind campaign contribution by running the film. Oddly enough, the article written by Los Angeles Times reporter Elizabeth Jensen makes no mention of Michael Moore and "Fahrenheit 9/11", about which reviewer Jonathan Rosenbaum had this to say: But whether or not Fahrenheit 9/11 might qualify as a masterpiece matters less now than whether it can help remove Bush from office...
No doubt, the airing of Stolen Honor will be taken as justification by the likes of Dan Rather and Mark Halperin to come up with something to counter. Perhaps 60 Minutes will pick up its dropped item.
Update 10/14: In an curious turn I discovered that the Manchester Union Leader, where I found this story, has dropped it - nowhere to be found. I've updated my link to point to the LA Times where the story apparently originated. Also a correction: In this post I originally had Elizabeth Jensen as a New York Times reporter, but I discovered as I searched elsewhere for the story, that she's with the LA Times. I think the Union Leader had her as NYT, which may have something to do with why the story is not online with the Leader any more.
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