Big Brother pre-empts Nightline

Sinclair Broadcast group has ordered its affiliates to pre-empt Friday's broadcast of Nightline, during which Ted Koppel was going to pay tribute to the soldiers killed in Iraq by airing their names and faces one at a time. Sinclair representatives claim that the show "appears to be motivated by a political agenda designed to undermine the efforts of the United States in Iraq." and "is not in the public's interest." Ted Koppel, an embedded reporter last year during the campaign, said he simply wanted to pay tribute to these soldiers, and was inspired for the idea for the show by a Time magazine issue in 1972 that used the entire magazine to profile each fallen soldier in Vietnam.

When honesty and facts become branded as "political", the US Democratic process gets eroded. How is this possibly a politically motivated issue? Oh, I see:

Sinclair Broadcast Group has contributed $160,000 to the Bush campaign.