"What the creators of 'Stolen Honor' are saying is that by reporting the truth about war, the anti-war movement made war even more atrocious. To me, that is like saying Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr was responsible for the beatings, rapes, and lynchings during the Civil Rights movement. Or, like publicizing truths and lies about nicotine causes lung cancer. Or, like saying by exposing corporate greed's lack of concern for customer safety, Ralph Nader caused the death and maiming of auto accident victims."

- from Thursday's ludicrosity.com

I'm not sure I agree, but I understand her point. I think a lot of it depends on how many of the allegations against Vietnam soldiers were true, and how many were fabricated, as a result of captors forcing POWs to confess untruths and/or the anti-war movement exaggerating accounts.

I wasn't going to go out of my way to see Stolen Honor myself, but then read this positive (!) review from the New York Times, so now I'll probably spend the $4.99 and watch it online after all. Has anyone here seen it yet?

Programming Note: I'll be out of town this weekend, so I'll see you all on Monday!

I had kind of already resigned myself to the idea that Michigan (my home state) would be Kerry country, but today's Detroit News poll shows Bush with a four-point lead, 47%-43%. Within the margin of error, yes -- but still interesting, especially to see the breakdown of why Michigan voters are going for a specific candidate. I wonder if Michigan's upcoming and wildly popular Proposal 2 (permanently banning gay marriage, which is polling 67% favor - 24% oppose) is helping draw some conservatives in. (Polls from last week had Kerry up between 3 and 5 points, so it's still very much a "battleground".)

Sinclair Broadcasting anounced today that they'll only show "a part" of a so-called anti-Kerry film this Friday. As you know, Sinclair made a lot of enemies in the past week by deciding to air the controversial documentary on its television stations. National and international media have been falling over themselves to condemn this right-wing "abuse of power". To hear some people speak of Sinclair, you'd think they were the country's preeminent media empire -- further evidence of a dominant conservative bias supplying the majority of American television. The Kerry campaign, DNC and others have threatened lawsuits, boycotts, even arrests, trying to keep this documentary off the air.

But how big is Sinclair, really? The press reports go on and on about the fact that they own 62 broadcast stations... which does indeed sound like a really big number, until you consider that there are presently 1,543 broadcast stations operating in this country today. That puts Sinclair's total percentage of ownership at less than 4%. (And that's just broadcast stations -- there are hundreds of national cable channels and thousands of local ones, adding up to more than 7,500 distinct stations nationwide, putting Sinclair's slice even lower, at 0.8%.)

Additionally, by Sinclair's own numbers (which, if anything, would be exaggerated upwards), less than a quarter of the country could tune in to any Sinclair-owned station, even if they wanted to. Yes, a lot has been made of the fact that some of their stations are in "swing states", but so what? Look at the map. I'm in Michigan's capital city, and I can't watch a Sinclair station -- chances are greater than 3 to 1 against that you can't, either. Michigan has one Sinclair station, a Fox affiliate in Flint. Pennsylvania has two, a Fox affiliate and a WB affiliate, in Pittsburgh. Other states have similar compositions, or no Sinclair stations at all. I've never seen people so terrified of a UPN in Tuscaloosa.

Which is the other big point no one's talking about -- over 75% of the stations Sinclair owns are the lower-rated Fox, UPN, and WB networks. Less than a quarter of Sinclair's stations are in the "big three" (CBS, ABC, and NBC). Yes, the Fox network occasionally ties ABC for third place, but UPN and WB each have less than 5% of the broadcast television audience, and, like Fox, are dominated by younger viewers who don't (or can't) vote, anyway.

I know it's a close election, and everyone's a little tense right now. But consider what's causing all the noise -- a relatively small collection of low-rated networks, only a dozen of which are in so-called "swing states", are going to run a Kerry-critical documentary likely watched by voters who hate him anyway. Sinclair simply doesn't own enough stations for this broadcast to even make a ratings blip (on a Friday night, no less), let alone the ridiculous, exaggerated claims of the media who are trying to shut them down. And so what if a couple hundred thousand conservatives see this Sinclair piece -- more than 15 million people saw Fahrenheit 9/11, and Bush is still up in the polls. Viewers can, in fact, occasionally make up their own minds.

Besides, if the Kerry campaign hadn't made such an ill-advised stink over this, creating a juicy overblown controversy, it probably wouldn't have had any viewers at all.

So apparently, the increasingly virulent British "news"paper The Guardian purchased the names and addresses of undecided registered voters in swing-state Ohio, and has launched a campaign giving out those names and addresses to their readers, urging them to write letters to these undecideds, begging them to vote against the President. I'm a little stunned... I mean, we would never ever allow an American left-wing newspaper to do a stunt like this, let alone a foreign newspaper trying to sway a national election this way. Can you imagine the uproar if Fox News organized a letter-writing campaign to British voters, urging them to re-elect Tony Blair in an ultra-close election? Grr.

I noticed the following advertisement in the middle of foxnews.com a bit ago (the "win a trip for 4" promotion):



For some reason, I thought "hey, that sounds like fun" and clicked on it.

Which led me here:



Ooooh that's why "BLOW" was capitalized. Very clever, "Gfizz" ad designers.

But just out of curiosity, if you're "North America's Hottest Gay Male Dating Site" looking to spend a significant amount of your advertising budget, isn't Fox News among the least likely sites to get the highest return on your investment? :)

I left my dome light on Sunday and am waiting for a jump start this morning, so I'm reading the Monday morning news sources, and stumbled upon an ABC News article entitled More Republicans Satisfied With Sex Lives Than Democrats.

Among the findings:

Of those involved in a committed relationship, who is very satisfied with their relationship?
Republicans - 87 percent; Democrats - 76 percent

Who is very satisfied with their sex life?
Republicans - 56 percent; Democrats - 47 percent

Who has worn something sexy to enhance their sex life?
Republicans - 72 percent; Democrats - 62 percent

He, he. :)

Speaking of interesting, I find it curious that CNN reports its own Gallup polling, which shows Bush with a new and significant 52%-44% lead among likely voters, with the cover story "Poll: Presidential Race Still Tight". Yes, among all registered voters Bush is only leading 49%-46%, but I still think if the numbers were reversed, the headline would be "Kerry surges over Bush in final weeks", don't you?

Sometimes another writer expresses the ideas in your own heart and mind better than you can, and you acknowledge it'd be self-indulgent arrogance to merely quote from an article (adding your own observation points) rather than simply linking to the full article itself. So, in all humility, I offer this:

http://www.belgraviadispatch.com/archives/001564.html

Thank you, Gregory Djerejian. As Andrew might say, this guy gets it.

Endorsements fail to carry much weight anymore, since newspapers tend to be rather obvious in their bias and act accordingly (The New York Times and Boston Globe just endorsed Kerry -- shocking.) But once in a while there's a surprise, such as the Chicago Tribune's endorsement of the President today. From the Trib:

Bush's sense of a president's duty to defend America is wider in scope than Kerry's, more ambitious in its tactics, more prone, frankly, to yield both casualties and lasting results. This is the stark difference on which American voters should choose a president.

There is much the current president could have done differently over the last four years. There are lessons he needs to have learned. And there are reasons -- apart from the global perils likely to dominate the next presidency -- to recommend either of these two good candidates.

But for his resoluteness on the defining challenge of our age -- a resoluteness John Kerry has not been able to demonstrate -- the Chicago Tribune urges the re-election of George W. Bush as president of the United States.

Pretty strong words for a paper which has leaned so far left in recent years that conservative writers call it the Libune. And I think it will come as a shock to Tribune readers, being in one of the most liberal cities in a solidly pro-Kerry state. When papers endorse the way they're expected to, no minds are changed. But something like this can actually affect people, just as if the right-leaning Wall Street Journal decided to endorse Kerry. It can cause a voter to think "well, wait... I usually agree with them... what do they know that I don't?"

Of course, in this case it's likely not to make much of a difference -- the chance of Illinois voting for Bush is almost non-existent. But combined with today's Gallup Poll showing Bush over Kerry 52%-44%, this can't be a happy day in John-John land.