Ok, I think that your take on what Bush should do is pretty cool but I'm not sure about this statement:

This is, though, a business acting on what it believes is best for their customers.

Maybe I'm just catching you playing Devil's advocate here but I'm not sure how that statement gets rationalized. Sinclair is not saying they are not showing it to better serve their customers they are saying they are not showing it due to the political message they believe it sends. So I just don't think that has anything to do with "better serving their customers."

They choose to pick up ABC and it's programming on those affiliates. Nightline is part of that programming. So, to better serve their customers they will choose which Nightline shows to air based on the political message they "feel" the shows might send? Any way you cut it that seems to be some heavy duty censorship. How is making some poor bastard drive to the next county or state to see Nightline if he wants to, better serving him?

It certainly doesn't appear to be a business decision. I think calling it a business decision opens the door to all sorts of manipulations of the news media that can then be written off as "business decisions."

 I know on the whole a lot of us have lost faith in the standards and practices of the news media. This maneuver is so blatant it's a real slap in the face though. This isn't a bunch of right wingers bitching about "liberal bias", this is just plain ol' censorship for political purposes.

The thing that I think has to be kept in mind at all times with this kinda stuff is...once they do it the first time and get away with it without a public outcry, it's like we've signed off on it so they can do it the next time...and the time after that.

So ABC becomes the A Bunch o' Crap network because companies like Sinclair are editing and cutting shows at the local level based on their political agenda. It seems to me you best serve the customer by allowing him access to the information so that he can form and make his own decisions. If he chooses not to watch Nightline because the idea of honoring our soldiers bothers him and he thinks it will hurt Bush then he's free to watch something else right?

Or maybe I'm way off base here and when you said customers you meant the folks that buy advertising on Sinclair's stations.

I know we're on the same page Dan, I just think this is one more giant step down the wrong path. I don't blame George Bush but his administration has given birth to an aweful funky atmosphere in this country and there are some right wingers that have picked up the ball and run with it.

These arguments from the right about what we can and can't say or see get more insane by the second. They are painting everyone and their grandmother a terrorist sympathizer if we knock the war, knock the president, or dare to talk about or show the face of a dead soldier.

The facts are the facts. There are dead soldiers coming home in flag draped coffins. Right wingers love to pretend that they stand behind our soldiers (I think hide behind better describes it) but they won't stand with them on the battlefield or honor them when they give the ultimate sacrifice because then they are a political quagmire.

It's getting too disgusting to bear.