Democrats Against Free Speech
That isn’t exactly true. They’re just opposed to speech that hurts them politically. Here’s an email that the DFL has distributed to its faithful:
Dear DFLer,
I’ve heard from many of you that you are disturbed by the misleading “Midwest Heroes†ads produced by Progress for America Voter Fund that are currently being run by KARE 11 and WCCO. The ads erroneously make a connection between Iraq and the 9/11 terrorists attacks and suggest that the war in Iraq will prevent an attack by Al Queda in America. The 9/11 Commission findings clearly state that there was no connection between Iraq and the the Al Queda terrorists attacks on 9/11. We must call for media responsibility regarding this issue. We have extraordinary sympathy for our troops and their families and believe that while our soldiers’ role is to protect the citizens of our country, it is our role as citizens to protect our soldiers and to make certain that they are not misused. It is a travesty that the tragedies of five countries and the deaths of our brave men and women are being used in this type of propaganda.
Right now, our state is a testing ground for these ads. If Minnesota speaks out and says no to this ad, the entire country can thank us. What we do here, now, will have an enormous impact on the success or failure of this kind of swiftboating in 06.
You can view the ads at:
http://www.midwestheroes.com/
Additionally, WCCO did a Reality Check stating that the ad is misleading and partly true, which in my mind means that it is partly false. See it at:http://www.wcco.com/video/?id=14609@wcco.dayport.com
If you feel that this ad is doing a disservice to our troops and is misleading at best, and pure propaganda at worst, please call:
KARE 11 at 763 546 1111
WCCO at 612 370 0611
to ask for the removal of the ads. Letters to the Editor in your local paper would be helpful to point out the untruths being communicated to citizens as fact. Thanks in advance for being a voice of truth, and for all that you do to improve the state of our nation and state.
DFL Chair Brian Melendez will be holding a press conference at the State Capitol today at 2:30 to ask that this ad be pulled from the air waves. He will be joined by congressional candidate and veteran Tim Walz. Please tune in to your evening news to see coverage of this important event.
Sincerely,
Donna
In addition to that, the Strib is reporting that KSTP-TV “refused to air a controversial ad defending U.S. policy in Iraq that the station says unfairly claimed the media is misleading people about the lack of progress in the war”, adding that “We know it’s not accurate about how we approach our news and we didn’t feel it was appropriate just to take someone’s money. We weren’t going to let them take a shot at us that wasn’t warranted.”
I’m skeptical that that isn’t the real reason why they’ve refused to run it. In watching the advertisement, it’s clear to me that they’re talking about the national media that isn’t telling the positives of what’s happening in Iraq.
It’s clear that the national media is giving John Murtha a pass on his outlandish statements, with Softball’s Chris Matthews asking one open-ended question after another, then taking ‘dictation’ from him. Matthews doesn’t even challenge him or ask follow-up questions. That isn’t reporting; that’s taking dictation.
It isn’t just Murtha that Matthews treats with kid gloves. He did the same thing tonight with Slow Joe Biden. Biden was utterly clueless about 75% of the time and Matthews didn’t question his information or his opinions.
Those are the types of things that this advertisement is addressing. Let’s not forget Michael Isikoff’s statement on Softball:
“But also, Senator Warner had a press conference about this today and wasn’t very conclusive. He said, look, he went to this briefing with other people at the pentagon who said we have to get the word out that schools are opening and hospitals are opening and nobody is covering that. Sounds like every politician is complaining about the press. Well, welcome to the news biz. We don’t cover hospital and school openings. We cover bombings.”
That’s what these veterans are talking about, although I can’t say that local papers and TV stations are doing that good of a job on highlighting the good with the bad, either.
The lesson to be learned from this email isn’t that the DFL is upset that these soldiers are telling lies. They’re upset that they’re hurting the dovish DFL candidates, especially the soldiers-turned-peacenik candidates.
They only have their Agenda Media allies to blame. These advertisements wouldn’t have gotten off the ground had the Agenda Media done enough accurate reporting.
Cross-post at LetFreedomRing