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April 30, 2004
McCAIN WIELDS A HEAVY HAMMER
Proving once again why he is not only the best Republican in the country, but frankly one of the gutsiest and most principled politicians of our era, Senator John McCain today blasted the pathetic and partisan decision by the Sinclair Broadcast Group not to air tonight's episode of Nightline, which will feature the names and faces of the fallen from the Iraq war. And he didn't mince words -- he called out these gutless bastards for exactly what they are.
"Your decision to deny your viewers an opportunity to be reminded of war's terrible costs, in all their heartbreaking detail, is a gross disservice to the public, and to the men and women of the United States Armed Forces," McCain, a Vietnam veteran, wrote in a letter to David Smith, president and CEO of Sinclair Broadcast Group. "It is, in short, sir, unpatriotic. I hope it meets with the public opprobrium it most certainly deserves."
Why would a company choose not to memorialize the dead soldiers and Marines who gave their lives for our country? What could drive them to refuse to acknowledge such sacrifice? The answer's easy to find.
According to campaign finance records, four of Sinclair's top executives each have given the maximum campaign contribution of $2,000 to the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign. The executives have not given any donations to the campaign of Sen. John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic nominee, the records showed.
There you have it. This is a clear and blatant politicization of what are supposed to be your airwaves, my friends. They're yours, but Sinclair and other conservatives don't want you to hear anything that might make you think that George W. Bush has done a bad job or question his judgement. They're protecting Bush, and refusing to air anything that might threaten your perception of him.
So let's look at it more closely. Back in the old Soviet Union, the state broadcasting agency -- nominally independent but in fact controlled by, in league with, and doing the bidding of the ruling party -- would refuse to air programs they considered to be anti-state or critical of the Communist Party, its leaders, or its agenda. In the United States of America in 2004, broadcasting companies like ClearChannel and the Sinclair Group -- nominally independent but in fact in league with the ruling party both financially and ideologically -- refuses to air programs they consider to be critical of the Republican Party, its leader, or its agenda.
Seems a perfectly apt comparison to me.
