Sinclair's slander

Boston.com / News / Boston Globe / Opinion / Editorials: "THE FILM "Stolen Honor -- Wounds that Never Heal" is an anti-Kerry attack ad masquerading as a documentary. If the Sinclair Broadcasting Group televises it as planned on its 62 stations next week, this will constitute an abuse of the public airwaves that should prompt an investigation by the Federal Communications Commission. Broadcasting "Stolen Honor" this close to the election would have violated the Fairness Doctrine, an FCC rule that mandated stations, as holders of scarce broadcasting licences, provide balanced coverage of political issues. The FCC abolished the rule in 1987 as the spread of cable television opened up broadcasting to a multitude of voices.

"Stolen Honor" indubitably qualifies as a slur against John Kerry. It makes use of the voices of former American prisoners of war in Vietnam to accuse him of treachery and lying when he went public with his opposition to the conflict in the 1970s. Mandating that it run next week would be comparable to running Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" without giving President Bush a fair chance to respond."