Greg Ransom
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The news special will focus in part on the use of documentaries and other media to influence voting, which emerged during the 2004 political campaigns, as well as on the content of certain of these documentaries. The program will also examine the role of the media in filtering the information contained in these documentaries, allegations of media bias by media organizations that ignore or filter legitimate news and the attempts by candidates and other organizations to influence media coverage. Contrary to numerous inaccurate political and press accounts, the Sinclair stations will not be airing the documentary "Stolen Honor" in its entirety. At no time did Sinclair ever publicly announce that it intended to do so. In fact, since the controversy began, Sinclair's website has prominently displayed the following statement: "The program has not been videotaped and the exact format of this unscripted event has not been finalized. Characterizations regarding the content are premature and are based on ill-informed sources." While the news special will discuss the allegations surrounding Senator John Kerry's anti-Vietnam War activities in the early 1970s raised by a number of former POWs in "Stolen Honor," it will do so in the context of the broader discussion outlined above.(via PoliPundit).
The NY Times has a review of Stolen Honor here. As is typical, the NY Times misreports the Sinclair story -- even at this late date -- and no editor steps in to eliminate the falsehood. More on the review here.
And this is rich, the AP complains that Stolen Honor tells only one side of the story. As if the AP and most other news sources have made any effort to tell both sides of the Swift Vet / POW vs. John Kerry story. In any case, Stolen Honor is intended to have a point of view, and it doesn't pretend to be a balanced work of journalism (as if you can find such a thing on this from the AP, etc.) The AP backs up its review with two things -- (1) contentious matters of opinion concerning unknowable counter-factuals; and (2) outright errors / falsehoods. This claim by the AP, for example, is simply false:
Kerry never accused the POWs of committing war crimes and spoke only in general about the conduct of U.S. troops. The film also falsely implies that Kerry either committed atrocities himself or personally witnessed them.Kerry himself said he had committed war crimes / atrocities in the Dick Cavett interview, and he listed those. He also made a blanket statement about soldiers committing atrocities / war crimes across Southeast Asia "not [as] isolated incidents but .. committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command" in his 1971 Senate testimony. The implication was clear -- ALL American soldiers and officers were implicated in the conduct of the war -- i.e. in the ongoing atrocities and war crimes of U.S. operations. Many of the POW's in North Vietnam were pilots. Kerry spoke again and again of how Americans were ravaging Vietnam, both via on the ground atrocities / war crimes -- and via the air through "applied" bombing. The implication again was clear. American soldiers were committing atrocities / war crimes by land, sea and air. The POW's in North Vietman had it right the first time -- as they sat listened to John Kerry in their turture cells -- John Kerry was talking about them.
(via AP story via reader Kathleen at Just One Minute.)
UPDATE: More on the AP review from Powerline.
UPDATE II: Roger Simon:
Some reviewers [of Stolen Honor], like the NYT's Alessandra Stanley, made light of the testimony of John Kerry before those [1971 Senate] hearings as something we heave "heard before" and therefore of little importance, preferring to focus on the unresolved pain of the former prisoners. But the fact that we have heard at least some of Kerry's testimony before is beside the point. The testimony has never been explained. Kerry lied about his fellow soldiers in a serious and, it seems evident, conscious manner, going so far as to say they cut off peoples' ears, raped and pillaged like Genghis Khan. Even given the passions of the time, this defamation is hard to explain. No wonder the Democratic Party wants us to look away. I wanted to look away. It is hard to conceive someone of so little moral compass is going to lead us in a time of war. Still, I suppose I could forgive Kerry if he had apologized for this in full as the recklessness of youth. But until now he hasn't. The Democratic Party knows this too. That's why they also want us to look away.Posted by Greg Ransom
