Sinclair Broadcast Group should change its name to GOP TV (or did Fox News already take that one?)

Just when you thought the Vietnam War was over......

Sinclair Broadcasting Group, Inc. has decided to preempt its regularly scheduled programs to bring you an attack movie (oops, I mean "documentary") called "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal."

This "documentary" is nothing more than an attack movie created to belittle Democratic Presidential Candidate John Kerry.

Now, I really can't say that I'm surprised that Sinclair is airing this. If you'll remember back to April of this year, the name Sinclair was in the news. They ordered all of their ABC affiliate stations not to air a special edition of "Nightline", the news show hosted by Ted Koppel.

The special edition of "Nightline" that Sinclair refused to show was an episode in tribute to our soldiers who were killed in the Iraq War. (At that point, the death toll was over 500.) In the show, Ted Koppel would read the name of the soldier while a picture of the soldier would be on the screen.

Sinclair's General Council, Barry Faber, said of the episode, "We find it contrary to public interest," and Sinclair issued a statement saying that the program "appears to be motivated by a political agenda designed to undermine the efforts of the United States in Iraq."

Arizona Senator John McCain called Sinclair's decision "in short,...unpatriotic."

The "Nightline" episode never took a position on the war - it only read out names and showed pictures in tribute to fallen soldiers.

Now, a company that won't allow its stations to pay tribute to our soldiers is preempting programming to attack someone who was a soldier. Take a moment to let that sink it.

The "Stolen Honor" web site calls the movie "A documentary exposing John Kerry's record of betrayal."

Now what was Sinclair bitching about there being a "political agenda"???

From CNN: "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."

And according to OpenSecrets.org, Sinclair has donated $67,784 in political contributions. 97% of that money went to Republicans. 3% to Democrats. Imagine that.

Some people have said that "Stolen Honor" should be played because "Fahrenheit 9/11" is on TV, but these people tend to be morons who don't understand that there is a difference between network television and pay-per-view. Don't be a moron. Know the difference. If "Stolen Honor" was airing on pay-per-view right beside "Fahrenheit 9/11", there would be no problem.

Over 60,000 people have signed an online petition to stop Sinclair Broadcasting from playing partisan politics with the airwaves. Sign up at www.stopsinclair.org

more info:
Stop Sinclair
CNN article about Sinclair and "Nightline"
Sinclair (GOP TV) home page
"Stolen Honor" attack-umentary
Open Secrets tracks campaign contributions
Boycott Sinclair Advertisers: the blog