Sinclair Broadcast Group, an owner of 62 television stations, (including Baltimore’s Fox 45), in 39 markets around the country, is sick and tired of all that supposedly “bad news” coming out of Iraq. It has decided to do something about it, too. Beginning this month, it plans to broadcast programs from that ill-fated Arab country that will emphasize “the positive” about Iraq, according to an article by David Folkenflik, “Baltimore Sun,” 02/18/04, entitled, “In Iraq, Going for the Upbeat.”

The two media geniuses who have taken on this fact-defying mission, are Sinclair’s Jon Leiberman, a reporter and its Washington, DC bureau chief, and Mark Hyman. Hyman is Sinclair’s vice-president for corporate relations and its chief propagandist. Most recently, he has been boring audiences to tears with his right wing commentaries. He’s big on ranting, a la Rush Limbaugh, about “government regulations.” Some of Hyman’s predictable spiels have come directly from U.S.-British Occupied Iraq. I’m sure the White House crowd just loves hearing them.

The dynamic duo contend that the liberal media outlets have failed “to balance the bad news with the good” with respect to the Neocon-inspired invasion and occupation of Iraq. Leiberman, however, did concede that it takes “a little bit of digging to find good news” about Iraq. Hyman insists the reporters for the major media stay almost exclusively in the “safe Baghdad zone behind U.S. tanks and Iraqi security posts.” He believes that the programs that he is preparing will show “more of a sense of what’s happening beyond, ‘There was a car-bombing today.’” Oh, really?

Question: Instead of trying to sell us the “good news” about Iraq, why doesn’t Sinclair just tell the American people the TRUTH? The notion of wanting to broadcast the so-called “good news,” sounds like it intends to shill for the Bush-Cheney Gang, a proposition, I’m sure it would deny.

“The Baltimore Sun’s” article on Sinclair’s intention to puff up the “good news” on Iraq couldn’t have come at a worse time. On page 1 of that same Baltimore newspaper, it was reported that a 19-year old paratrooper from Kent County, MD, Nicholas Spry, had been killed on Feb. 17th, outside Baghdad. He was assigned to the 82nd Airborne. Spry was only a few months past his high school graduation. He was the eighth Marylander to die in that bloody conflict. Five hundred and forty-four of America’s finest sons and daughters have also died in that war, and 3,087 have been wounded (lunaville.org). The cost of the Iraqi War, to date, is around $102 billion (costofwar.com), with billions more from our fading treasury slated to be wasted in the arrogant name of “exporting democracy” to a land that had fostered one of world’s most ancient civilizations.

I’m confident that Hyman and Leiberman won’t be mentioning Spry’s tragic death, the rising U.S. fatality figures, the climbing wounded numbers, or the increasing cost to the American taxpayers in any of their “good news” stories about the Iraqi War. Heck, that wouldn’t make any sense. And, it surely wouldn’t be “good news” if they did.

Now, I have a suggestion that might just take the Sinclair boy-ohs off the hook. Why don’t they invite, to Iraq, the people responsible for getting the U.S. into that unnecessary war to serve as “guest commentators” on their programs? The ones that I have in mind are masters at spinning little or no facts to suit their hawkish policy objectives. If anybody can find something “good” to say about the devastation created by the Iraq War, it will be these characters. They are the same guys that wrongly insisted Iraq’s Saddam Hussein had WMD, ties to the al-Qaeda terrorist network, and that Iraq posed an imminent threat to the security of the U.S.

On my “A” Team of “commentators” would be the ultra-hawk, V.P. Dick Cheney; followed closely by “Dr. Strangelove,” the deputy Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz’ and then, the Secretary of Defense, himself, Donald Rumsfeld; the finest lackey the Miltiary-Industrial Complex every had. On the “B” Team, there is that slippery “Mother of All Neocons,” Richard Perle; along with his fellow Chicken Hawks, and cronies; Douglas Feith and David Wurmser. They had all urged a pre-emptive U.S. strike against Iraq, just like the Zionist ranter, Israel’s Ariel “Bloody” Sharon had.

On the “C” Team of “good news” commentators about Iraq, I would recommend to Sinclair three of the biggest warmongering members of the U.S. Congress: Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-CT), Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA) and Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX). All of them pushed, like mad dogs, for a U.S. war with Iraq. You could also label the three as being typical of a revolting clique of political pygmies that have come to infest the Congress of our once-proud Republic. They are a sorry lot, indeed. The increase of that particular ilk in our public councils presages the continuing decline of our nation.

In any event, Sinclair’s one-two punch of Leiberman and Hyman do deserve credit for warning the American public in advance of their plan to stage “good news” programs about Iraq. If they decide, however, to take my gratuitous advice and bring onboard the pro-war “guest commentators,” it could make for some really provocative (not necessarily truthful or honest or accurate) TV programming.

Oh, just one more thing, the Sinclair telecasters might not want to let the Iraqi people know that their “guest commentators,” are the same disgusting bloodthirsty creeps who were responsible for advocating the destruction of their country. Things could get ugly if that got out! And, that, for sure, wouldn’t make for “good news.”

© William Hughes 2004

William Hughes is the author of “Saying ‘No’ to the War Party” (Iuniverse, Inc.), which is available online. He can be reached at: liamhughes-AT-mindspring.com.