Soapbox

David D. Smith
Frederick G. Smith
Julian Duncan Smith
Sinclair Broadcast Group

Dear Sirs,

Today I learned of a special edition of “Nightline” scheduled for tomorrow night. (3/30) I learned that the show will feature simply a reading of the names of the US servicemen and women fallen in Iraq, along with their photographs.

As someone with family members who have served and been wounded in the armed forces, I was touched by this idea. It is high time someone put a human face and a name to these brave souls who, up until now, have merely been numbers reported on the evening news. Although I normally do not watch “Nightline”, I planned to stay up to see this special broadcast. I feel I owe that much to the armed forces.

Imagine my surprise when I called my local ABC affiliate (WSYX) and was told that they will not be airing this edition. When I asked why in the world not, I was told that they had a corporate edict forbidding it.

I find this very disturbing. My understanding of the format is that it will not feature any commentary for or against the war, no flag-draped coffins; it will not be about the war at all, but merely a salute to those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for you and me. Now your company has taken what should be a soldiers memorial and turned it into an opportunity to advance a political agenda.

Shame on you! How will the soldiers in Iraq feel when they hear that, if they die, you won’t even allow their names to be read?

I don’t know what political statement you think you are making with this position, but you are showing yourself to be extremely unpatriotic.

When I tried to contact Sinclair Broadcast group, I was quite disturbed to find that my call was not accepted, and I was quickly disconnected. So you not only don’t care about the troops but you also don’t care about the opinion of the viewing public. When there is a program on television that some find offensive, stupid or simply boring, we are told that there are different shows for different people and if we don’t like it, we should simply turn the channel. Tomorrow night that choice will be taken away from us.

This is not a liberal or conservative issue. This is not about being for or against the war in Iraq. You have turned this into an issue of censorship, and that is doubly offensive to me. Be assured that I have contacted everyone I know and made them aware of your unpatriotic decision in this matter. You may not care to hear my opinion, but others will listen.

I lot of lip service is given these days to supporting the troops. People put stickers about it on their cars and signs in their lawns, and when I see them I wonder what “support” means to them. Apparently to Sinclair Broadcasting, it means nothing. You can wrap yourself in the American flag all you like; it won’t disguise your true lack of patriotism.

    In today’s paper there was a column by  Joe Blundo. He lamented the publics lack of interest in really preserving the wild nature of the Big Darby Creek and the creeping development that threatens its future. It made me terribly sad to read this.

    When I was a child my grandparents had a summer cabin on the big Darby Creek not too far off Route 104. The best times of my life were spent there with my siblings and my cousins, forging a family bond that time and our political and philosophical differences cannot ever completely erase.

    It was no resort home, but a simple cabin with a tin roof, a concrete floor that could be hosed down after the inevitable spring floods and an outhouse in back. Water came from a pump into the kitchen sink and heat came from a wood-burning stove in the main room. Kids slept in a loft room whose floor was covered with old mattresses, accessible only by a ladder with the bottom rungs removed, to insure that the littlest ones could not climb up and, perhaps, fall down. And when the full panoply of family was in attendance, our tents and camping trailers were set up out front to accomodate us all.

    There were electric lights, but no TV, and the only thing we ever heard on the radio were the baseball games my Grandfather listened to. Can you imagine kids today condemned to this nintendo-less existence? But for us, there was enough to do there to use up an entire summer. There was a wonderful swing hung from a high branch of a towering walnut tree, a shuffleboard court, sandbox and a huge front yard, suitable for croquet, badminton, touch football and endless hours of just running around making noise because you were a kid and it was summertime at the cabin. What else did we need?
     We had rainy-day games of cards up in the loft and quiet places to read in the bole of a sycamore, and usually an uncle around willing to help with wild gymnastic flips out in the yard. My grandparents would throw a big picnic every year and invite all their friends from the McDowell Senior Center and the old time band Grandmother played with. We feasted on sweet corn that had been in the field just that morning, ate hand-cranked ice cream and sang along with the band.
       Will the circle be unbroken?
       By and by, Lord, by and by.

     But despite all these other forms of recreation available, the cabin was really all about the Big Darby. From the smell of the sun on the muddy rocks in the morning to its quiet susurrations that could lull a mosquito-bitten child to sleep at night, the Darby was what made the cabin such a magical place. It was the source of all things. We swam in it, fished in it, ate dinner from its bounty, canoed up and down its length, and spent endless hours playing "U.S. Army Corps of Engineers", our name for re-arranging the rocks. We came to know the birds and flowers that inhabited its banks and got angry when we found trash trapped in a back-eddy. None of us knew or cared how many unique varieties of minnows, mussels or hellgrammites lived there, but seining the creek for them on a hot afternoon was better than any "Reality" TV show.

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Today’s Columbus Dispatch reports that the Republicans in the Senate, in their never-ending effort to grapple with the critical issues that face America, plan to spend a week holding hearings on the importance of marriage. Wow, don’t you feel better, knowing that the GOP has your back in these difficult times? Isn’t it great to know that our senators are earning their salary doing such important work?

Whose idea was this waste of time, and how much will it cost us? Today’s front page featured a story about senior citizens showing up at food banks in increasing numbers at the same time that the USDA’s food program for the hungry is being cut. If Congress is wants to look important by having a hearing on something, why don’t they look into old people being forced to eat cat food? How about investigating the contractors in Iraq who are cheating the US taxpayers out of millions of dollars with un-bid, un-audited contracts? Or they could spend time looking into why so many children are being left behind by the president’s “No Child Left Behind” act.

But no, they’re spending our money to define the significance of marriage. I can save everyone time and money and tell you right now that they’ll find marriage is indeed significant and should be protected. This will pave the way for them to defend us all from the scurrilous threat of gay marriage by amending the Constitution.

This is election-year crapola at its finest. Call me crazy, but the significance of marriage seems a subject more fit for sociologists to debate than politicians. We should remind our Republican senators that there are a few teensy-weensy crises facing the country right now, and they should stop wasting time pandering for votes and try to do something that will actually help people!

The evil liberal media is up in arms today about the revelations of Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward last night on 60 Minutes. Woodward, who has been a Bush supporter in the past (but apparently no longer) says that the Bush administration took $700 million that congress appropriated for Afghanistan and diverted it for Iraq war preparations. This was back in November of 2002 I believe, before we were at war in Iraq and before Bush was even considering attacking Iraq, according to him.

Condoleesa Rice actually tried to say that the money was appropriated to General Tommy Franks as the leader of the US forces in Afghanistan, so it’s not misappropriation if HE uses it for something else in that same general area of the world. Like the check was made out to him!! Puh-leese! The congressional authorization was a little clearer than that about what the money was for.

First of all, and this is kind of important, this is a violation of Article 1 Section 9 of the constitution: misappropraition of funds. Now, granted, it’s not the kind of serious crime John Ashcroft would care about: certainly it doesn’t rise to the level of, say, a doctor in California who prescribes medical marijuana to a dieing man. (people should only be allowed to get addicted to good drugs like oxycontin, not nasty stuff like weed) or a college student going to an anti-war demonstration, or anything serious like that, thank goodness. But it is a crime.

Second of all, don’t you think they could have used that money in Afghanistan, considering what a crap-hole the country is, partly thanks to us? I mean, George Bush promised that he would take care of the people of Afghanistan! He promised that he would help create a new future and truly liberate the people, and instead he pulled a bait and switch and diverted the money to his pet war in Iraq (which he supposedly wasn’t even planning yet) so that he can use it to blow up yet another country and then be too cheap to put it back together again too!

The point is that this is a demonstrable, actual, genuine crime and surely is as impeachable as lying about a little under-the-desk nookie. I’ve never been big on impeachment at all (I mostly think that’s what re-election time is for), but I find this very troubling. I reserved Woodward’s book so I can read more about this for myself.

And now I?m going to predict the future?.yes, it?s all becoming clear now? I see the attack dogs coming out, panting for Woodward?s blood, starting today. They’ll accuse him of everything from treason to halitosis and kicking puppies. I predict Condie will once again do the show-pony circuit of “Meet the Press” and “Face the Nation (2 things the president is afraid to do, by the way) and all the other shows. Her parents must be so proud that she got all that education in order to work as a glorified janitor, mopping up George Bush’s little poo-poo messes week after week.

George Bush last night held only the 3rd prime-time press conference of his presidency. One might wonder why a man who can speak at 52 fund-raisers in 9 months has time for so few press conferences, but after a few minutes of viewing it soon became clear why.

If you missed the event, just picture a deer in the headlights.

Politicians always have so-called “talking points” that they try to stress in any question and answer period. I remember being annoyed in the 2000 campaing that Al Gore could find a way to fit the phrase “social security in a lock-box” into the answer to a question about education, for crying out loud. So the fact that the President had certain stock phrases he kept going back to was in itself, no indictment of the man.

But last night, Bush was just amazing. Watching him was like looking at a car wreck: it was terrible, yet you couldn’t look away. He hemmed and hawed, pursed his lips and tried to look thoughtful. He ducked, dodged, shifted the blame, condemned terroristm, praised the troops and did everything but point up into the sky and shout “Look! A flying monkey!” to get out of answering questions. No matter what the question, the answer went something like this:

“Well…umm…let me tell you…blah blah war on terrorism…stay the course…blah blah standing firm…liberate the people of Iraq…next question.”

The press gave him a few tough questions but didn’t hold his feet to the fire when he failed to answer any of them. Bush was repeatedly given the opportunity to make a statement accepting responsibility, personally or generally as commander-in-chief, for any short-comings of the government prosecution of the war in Iraq or the intelligence failures before 9/11. He never did. After a 5 minute, rambling statement that had nothing to do with the actual question “Do you feel your administration bears any responsibility…?” I wanted one of the reporters to just say “So… that’s a “no” then, is it?”

The most amazing moment of the night was when he was reminded that in his first campaign, when asked what he considered his biggest mistake, he said “trading Sammy Sosa” After 3 years in office, what would he now say was his biggest mistake or regret?

Bush gave a weak laugh and made a quip about wishing the question was submitted in advance so he could prepare. And then there was silence.

And more silence…crickets singing…people yawning…paint drying.

“I’m sure something will pop into my head eventually” he said after an embarassingly long pause, but nothing ever did. Nothing.

Nobody was asking the man to fall on his sword, just to put aside his incredible moral certitude for one second and say, “Yeah, if I had this to do over again, I would have~ insert item here.” One thing that he would do differently, and he drew a complete blank.

Such incredible hubris is a scary thing.

Just off the top of my head, and ignoring the obvious answer (which was ‘running for president’), I could come up with a dozen little mistakes he could own up to without admitting to being a total screw-up. How about ‘I regret relying too heavily on un-confirmed intelligence about weapons of mass destruction’? Or maybe it was not sending in the troops initially at the strength that the military themselves recommended, or failing to prevent wide-spread looting in Iraq? Maybe he could have said that he wished he had been more forceful in insisting that the FBI investigate rumors of al Qaida activity in the US? How about regretting alienating the United Nations so much that now we couldn’t pay them to come in and clean up our mess in Iraq?

I can only guess what the citizens of our allied nations (what few we have left) must have thought when they saw the press conference. It was, frankly, an international embarassment. Our president couldn’t pull 3 coherant thoughts together in a row, but he has the nuclear launch codes. If that doesn’t cause terror, you aren’t thinking straight. And this man claims to be the leader of the free world and wants Americans to re-elect him in order to keep the world safe from terrorism. If he is re-elected, I think the U.N. should declare him a weapon of mass destruction and demand that America disarm.