Andrew misses the point completely regarding the Sinclair Groups decision to show the Kerry documentary:
As I’ve said, it’s a free country, and my instincts are against any attempt to regulate this kind of thing. But the blatantly partisan nature of this move – and its dissemination of rank smears into millions of homes – is still troubling. If CBS announced they were pulling regular programming to air “Fahrenheit 9/11” a week before the election, do you think no conservatives would protest?
Of course they would, but they wouldn’t attempt to get the government shut it down. Well- maybe a few statist wingnuts on the far right might, but the rest of us would do precisely what some on the left are now doing- pressuring advertisers.
Free market, baby. I chided Kevin Drum earlier about his whining over this, but his new approach I am completely in favor of and support.
Another thing that is being missed is that for people on the right, we already feel like there has been a jihad ongoing against our candidate since, well, forever. That is why we are laughing at the lefty outrage over this Sinclair documentary. Had they been as outraged when CBS tried their Reagan hitpiece, rather than denouncing conservative attempts to use the market and boycott CBS to influence change as ‘fascistic,’ we might be a touch more supportive. Had the left and lefty bloggers not spent two weeks futilely attempting to debunk the fraudulent CBS memos, stopping their attempts only when Dan Rather and Co. admitted they too believed the documents were false, we might be more sympathetic.
Had the left and lefty bloggers denounced all the documented deceits in Michael Moore’s F 9/11, we might be more supportive. Had they mentioned that all the free rock concerts for Kerry should be called ‘in kind’ donations, we might be more supportive.
Instead, the attitude was:
To win the war of public opinion takes all kinds, and that includes people like me, people like Moore, and people like John Kerry. We all have our place in the ecosystem, and I certainly have no interest in disowning a guy who’s obviously doing pretty good work for our side even if I don’t agree with him on every issue.
Which is why my attitude is that the Sinclair group can show whatever they want, and should Democrats manage to exert enough market pressure on them to force them to retract the documentary, I am fine with that too. I just will be sitting on the sidelines on this one, watching the ‘ecosystem.’ I will continue to note the attempts of Democrat thuggery through government to shut down the film, though.