thedrifter
10-07-05, 09:09 AM
Vietnam Vets Versus Kerry
http://p089.ezboard.com/fthefontmanscommunityfrm29.showMessage?topicID=672 3.topic
Ellie and Mark
Joseph P Carey
10-07-05, 10:31 AM
...The Vietnam Veterans Legacy Foundation is a plaintiff along with Red, White, and Blue Productions, and Vietnam veteran turned journalist Carlton Sherwood, in a defamation action against current Massachusetts Senator John Kerry and Tony Podesta, who was Kerry’s Pennsylvania campaign manager... The lawsuit, filed in Philadelphia, claims that Kerry and Podesta libeled, slandered, and caused financial harm to the plaintiffs as they sought to prevent the presentation of Sherwood’s documentary movie "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal ” before the 2004 presidential election... Although the Kerry campaign denied any involvement with these efforts, an October 15, 2004 email from Podesta to Kerry activists called Carlton Sherwood a, "disgraced former journalist, right-wing propagandist and apologist for cult-leader Sun Myung Moon." Podesta urged Kerry workers to "…. take action …against this garbage…. let the theater know that, as a member of the community, you object to …this film …they should not allow “Stolen Honor” to be shown on their screen." ... If this lawsuit accomplishes nothing else, it will be that the heroes of Vietnam are finally responding to what was said about them during the war. If nothing else results from this, it will be that those who served their country meritoriously, despite great controversy, despite the adversity, those who truly deserve to be called the Greatest Generation, are once again serving their country by telling the truth about Vietnam.
With Kerry backing the Mickey Moore Film throughout the election as an expression of free speech, why did he work so hard to stop this film from being shown? It has nothing to do with what Kerry did in Vietnam, only the years after his very short Vietnam experience, and Mr "Reporting for Duty" Kerry's career as a North Vietnamese Communist Agent in the USA.
Red, White and Blue Productions, 123 State St., Harrisburg, PA 17104, Phone: 717-213-4955
In early October 2004, the Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc., which owns television stations in nearly one-quarter of the United States, ordered all of its stations to preempt their regular programming and air Stolen Honor in the days leading up to the November 2 presidential election.[1] (http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20041009-060025-2603r.htm) This has raised concerns that such a direct criticism of Kerry would violate the "equal time" provision of the Communications Act that governs airtime for political candidates. FCC chairman Michael Powell has declared that such an action would not be a violation of the provision. A former FCC chairman, Reed Hundt, responded that Powell was offering "tacit and plain encouragement of the use of the Sinclair airwaves to pursue a smear campaign." A spokesperson for the company said that the airing would be followed by a panel discussion, which Senator Kerry would be asked to join, possibly as an effort to satisfy the equal time clause. The Kerry campaign declined the invitation. Sinclair did not accept Michael Moore's offer for free broadcast of his documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 to satisy the equal time clause.
More than 100 Democratic members of the United States Congress asked the FCC to consider the propriety of the broadcast, and Ted Kennedy, Kerry's Senate colleague from Massachusetts, asked the Justice Department to investigate. The Democratic National Committee filed a formal complaint with the Federal Election Commission.