Altered Sinclair. Eric Alterman comments on Sinclair Broadcasting's decision to not allow Nightline's reading of each dead soldier from Iraq.

Barry Faber, Sinclair vice president and general counsel, told the Washington Post that they had chosen to censor Nightline because they believed the program's "motivation is to focus attention solely on people who have died in the war in order to push public opinion toward the United States getting out of Iraq." Faber suggested that the reading of the names of the dead would "unduly influence people." Using the same bait-and-switch routine the Administration deployed to justify its unprovoked attack on Iraq, a Sinclair press release demanded to know why Koppel did not read "the names of the thousands of private citizens killed in terrorist attacks since and including the events of September 11, 2001. In his answer, we believe you will find the real motivation behind his action scheduled for this Friday." Well, the answer is, he did--on the first anniversary of 9/11--but don't bother Sinclair with facts. "The average viewer who watches the show is not going to remember that," Faber replied to Post reporter Lisa de Moraes, who pointed it out to him. To point out that no connection has been established between Iraq and 9/11 seems almost persnickety in this context, except that it was used to justify the war and is still trotted out by that unreconstructed fabulist, Vice President Cheney, among other war defenders.