Harry Reid Threatens ABC License

Those great champions of free speech in the Democratic Party are not so willing to stand in the gap when they perceive their ox is going to be gored by such an expression that right. Senator Harry Reid has sent a letter to ABC protesting their airing of a docudrama centered around the events leading to 9/11. Most notable is his threat to have the .broadcast license canceled if they do not alter the contents of the program.

The Communications Act of 1934 provides your network with a free broadcast license predicated on the fundamental understanding of your principle obligation to act as a trustee of the public airwaves in serving the public interest. Nowhere is this public interest obligation more apparent than in the duty of broadcasters to serve the civic needs of a democracy by promoting an open and accurate discussion of political ideas and events...

...Should Disney allow this programming to proceed as planned, the factual record, millions of viewers, countless schoolchildren, and the reputation of Disney as a corporation worthy of the trust of the American people and the United States Congress will be deeply damaged. We urge you, after full consideration of the facts, to uphold your responsibilities as a respected member of American society and as a beneficiary of the free use of the public airwaves to cancel this factually inaccurate and deeply misguided program. We look forward to hearing back from you soon.

I don't for one minute believe that ABC's intent is to be critical of, or lay the blame on the Clinton administration, but since I have not seen the film I cannot comment on what their intent is. Sen. Reid on the other hand seems to know just what is going on and wants it to stop.

He continues in his letter to admonish ABC for airing right wing propaganda. His concern of course if for the school children of the nation who might not get the truth from a television program. Duh, since when did anyone but the most naive think anything on television was factual? Anyway, he then quotes none other than Jamie Gorelick. You remember her as the author of the wall that separated the intelligence services so that the government was unable to connect the dots leading to 9/11. Even when this was pointed out as a conflict of interest on her part she remained on the 9/11 commission looking into the reasons for our failure to connect the dots. Undeterred by such obvious hypocrisy she wades into the discussion as if she were in no way responsible for being part of the problem.

As 9/11 Commission member Jamie Gorelick said, "It is critically important to the safety of our nation that our citizens, and particularly our school children, understand what actually happened and why – so that we can proceed from a common understanding of what went wrong and act with unity to make our country safer."

Maybe she could start by admitting her involvement in making our nation less safe and endangering the school children she is so concerned about by her actions inhibiting our intelligence analyzing capabilities.

Woe to us if the Democrats ever regain power.
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War on Terror, politics, Media, Harry Ried