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New York Times: Every Network Should Show 'Stolen Honor'

The first sentence of the New York Times' review today of "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal" was what we expected: It said Sinclair Broadcast Group should not show the documentary. Then the pro-Kerry daily explained why in a stunning recommendation:
"It should be shown in its entirety on all the networks, cable stations and on public television."

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This is the same paper that ran such a bizarre, hateful campaign against Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" and trashed "Unfit for Command" while touting Kitty Kelley's anti-Bush gossip?

TV reviewer Alessandra Stanley indicates she doesn't like the fact that "Stolen Honor" will hinder Sen. John Kerry's candidacy, but she nonetheless advises that "it does help viewers better understand the rage fueling the unhappy band of brothers who oppose Mr. Kerry's candidacy and his claim to heroism."

Stanley writes:

This film is payback time, a chance to punish one of the most famous antiwar activists, Mr. Kerry, the one who got credit for serving with distinction in combat, then, through the eyes of the veterans in this film, went home to discredit the men left behind. The film begins with dirgelike music and a scary black-and-white montage of stark images of soldiers and prisoners as a deep voice sorrowfully intones, "In other wars, when captured soldiers were subjected to the hell of enemy prisons, they were considered heroes." The narrator adds, "In Vietnam they were betrayed."

The imagery is crude, but powerful: each mention of Mr. Kerry's early 1970's meeting with North Vietnamese government officials in Paris is illustrated with an old black-and-white still shot of the Arc de Triomphe, an image that to many viewers evokes the Nazi occupation of Paris. ...

The film's producer, Carlton Sherwood, a former investigative reporter and a Vietnam veteran, gives his own testimony, explaining that even though he has uncovered all kinds of misdeeds in his career, the history of Mr. Kerry's antiwar activism is "a lot more personal." He recalls listening to Mr. Kerry's testimony in 1971, saying, "I felt an inner hurt no surgeon's scalpel could remove."

That pain is the main theme of the documentary, which can be seen in its entirety on the Internet for $4.99. One former P.O.W., John Warner, lashes out at Mr. Kerry for having coaxed Mr. Warner's mother to testify at the Winter Soldier Investigation, where disgruntled veterans testified to war crimes they committed. Calling it a "contemptible act," Mr. Warner, who spent more than five years as a prisoner, tells the camera that Mr. Kerry was the kind of man who preyed on a mother's grief "purely for the promotion of your own political agenda."