You have to hand it to the Boston Globe or now more commonly known as the Massachusetts edition of the New York Times, at least they are consistent. They are intent upon the election of John Kerry as president and they have no intention of letting any facts get in their way. Much like the campaign spin-doctors, the Globe has been able to stay on message.
A perfect example was the editorial last week in which the Globe excoriates Sinclair Broadcasting for its decision to air the documentary film Stolen Honor-Wounds that Never Heal. The Globe describes the act as “Sinclair’s slander” and the documentary itself as a “Kerry attack masquerading as a documentary”.
According to the Globe “Stolen Honor indubitably qualifies as a slur against John Kerry”. “It makes use of the voices of former American prisoners of war to accuse him of treachery and lying when he went public with opposition to the conflict in the 1970’s.”
Certainly a documentary masquerading as an attack ad could be applied as a description of the Moore film. Yet we heard no protest from the Globe about any element of unfairness in that production or even inaccuracies in that film. Nor did we hear any concerns about the CBS airing of the completely discredited Bush Texas Air National Guard memos. Not only did they not utter a peep of protest but instead went to press spewing the lies knowing that there were already a growing chorus of journalistic concern over the CBS decision. The attempted exploitation of the guard story is made even more egregious when you consider the Globe has covered Kerry for 25 years without ever having gotten access to all his military records. How is it possible that military records of one candidate can be so important but not for the other?
If CBS did not slander President Bush with the airing of false information how is it that Sinclair can slander Kerry with information, which is true? Stolen Honor is the collective opinions of a group of former Viet Nam prisoners of war who are speaking out regarding the impact of John Kerry’s public comments and testimony after his return from the Viet Nam War. These comments contained primarily in his testimony before the Fulbright committee are not being misquoted or in anyway altered. He said them and it is a matter of historical record. The Globe has viewed those comments over the years as an example of Kerry at his courageous best. Unfortunately most if not all the testimony was untrue. In fact Senator Kerry has alluded to it as being “over the top”.
Now along comes a group of people who were significantly impacted during their incarceration by the comments that Senator Kerry made. In fact the fundamental complaint was that their captors were torturing them in order to get them to say the very same things that Senator Kerry was saying for political recognition back home. Whether or not those things should have been said is debatable. A junior grade officer saying them while he had comrades in arms and comrades in captivity is not.
These veterans should be heard and congratulations to Sinclair for having the guts to do it.
Just as the Globe has a right pursue its political agenda, so to do these Viet Nam veterans.
