Linkmeister

Hubris (or is it hypocrisy?)

I have to thank Frank Rich for pointing this out. He was on Fresh Air this afternoon and mentioned that Armstrong Williams (yes, the guy who took $240K from the Bush Administration to flack for No Child Left Behind) went off on Ted Koppel and Nightline when the show announced last year that it intended to broadcast the names and faces of all the fallen soldiers up till that point in the Iraq war. Given what we know now about Williams, I find this particularly amusing:

Pitched as a tribute, the episode is little more than a crass attempt to cash in during May sweeps, while stoking anti-war sentiment. "Sweeps week" is the period during which networks set their advertising rates for the year based on viewership shares. By coming up big during "sweeps," "Nightline" figured to honor hundreds of fallen soldiers and make lots of money.

Happily, at least one major broadcaster has refused to air the show. Sinclair Broadcasting, which owns 62 TV stations, has ordered its eight ABC affiliates to drop the episode. In a released statement, Sinclair denounced the Nightline episode as part of a "political agenda designed to undermine the efforts of the United States in Iraq."

A crass attempt to cash in? From a guy on the DOE's payroll, taking checks to push one of its policies?

That's just too rich (pun intended).

Posted by Linkmeister at June 1, 2005 05:11 PM