America Conor O'CleryTravelling around the battleground states and switching on the television in hotel rooms, it is not long before one sees an ad from Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attacking Senator John Kerry.
Their latest accuses the Democratic candidate of giving comfort to the enemy when he returned from Vietnam and testified to Congress about war crimes being committed by American soldiers "on a day-to-day basis".
The ads are powerful and emotional, featuring women whose husbands died in Vietnam saying they could not trust John Kerry then, and could not trust him now to be president. No matter how much Democrats dislike them, the ads are legal, and the viewer is told who paid for them.
Now a documentary on the same subject is being prepared for broadcast in the week before the election by Sinclair Broadcast group. It is causing an uproar among Democrats. It includes interviews with former American POWs who claim that the North Vietnamese used Kerry's testimony to increase their torture of prisoners, something that has never been proved. Broadcast companies are obliged as a matter of public trust not to air partisan communications during the 60 days before an election.
Maryland-based Sinclair, which owns, operates or provides services to 62 television stations, including affiliates of the big three networks, has a record of promoting the Bush administration. Its chairman David Smith and members of his family have donated nearly $100,000 to Republican causes in the last two elections. Earlier this year Sinclair ordered its ABC affiliates not to show an episode of ABC's regular Nightline, when presenter Ted Coppel announced he would read out the names of soldiers killed in Iraq. (All networks do this regularly now).
The Democratic National Committee claims that Sinclair has refused to run DNC-sponsored political ads. Sinclair has ordered its affiliates to run the controversial anti-Kerry programme, Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal, without ad breaks.
Eighteen Democratic senators called on the Federal Broadcasting Commission to stop Sinclair from forcing its affiliates to broadcast the film, produced by Carlton Sherwood, a former reporter with the conservative Washington Times and who now works in a security services company. Newspapers have also called on Sinclair to drop the planned programme.
The Boston Globe called it an anti-Kerry attack ad masquerading as a documentary. The New York Times compared Sinclair's behaviour to the control of election coverage in Russia and said it would be "just as appalled" if one of the networks forced its affiliates to run Fahrenheit 9/11 just before the election.
The programme echoes the Bush campaign theme that it is unpatriotic to criticise the war in Iraq as this gives comfort to the insurgents. Sinclair claims that the programme has news content and is not in breach of federal law. Its website says the programme has not yet been videotaped "nor has the exact format been finalised".
It also states that Kerry has been invited to participate in a debate after the showing. A Kerry spokesman said the senator would turn down the offer as Sinclair is "hellbent on doing anything to help elect President Bush even if that means violating basic journalism standards."
The FCC has declined to intervene, saying there is no rule of prior restraint of a programme being aired on television but one FCC member, Democrat Michael Copps, said it was an abuse of the public trust and "proof positive of media consolidation run amok when one owner can use the public airwaves to blanket the country with its political ideology - whether liberal or conservative".
Sinclair has a big stake in the outcome of the election, as a Republican administration is more likely to allow big broadcast companies to purchase more and more stations.
The FCC has also declined to investigate the explosive and detailed sexual harassment charges against right-wing media star Bill O'Reilly by a former producer for his top-rated Fox News talk show the O'Reilly Factor, saying it has no authority to do so. "We investigate a lot of things here," said chairman Michael Powell, "but Bill O'Reilly's sexual behaviour is not one of them."
Such considerations have not stopped rival cable channels from gloating at O'Reilly's expense and running hours of coverage, while Fox has been reticent about dwelling on the story.
Don Imus on MSNBC yesterday taunted the rival channel, whose motto is "We report, you decide", saying on his morning show, "We report, you decide - how about reporting that one, Fox?"
Bill O'Reilly, who sometimes berates his guests about morality and is promoting a children's book, has acknowledged that the scandal could end his career and has denied illegal conduct.
Fox producer Andrea Mackris accused O'Reilly of subjecting her to graphic telephone sex.
She also alleged that he told her if she went public she would wish she had never been born.
Mackris has been repeating the allegations on network news shows.
Her lawyer, Benedict Morelli, said: "Guys like O'Reilly who like to espouse what right-wing Republicans espouse about family values shouldn't be doing stuff like this."
Morelli is a contributor to the Kerry campaign and other Democrats. Liberal commentators, who have not forgotten how Clinton was pilloried over Monica Lewinsky, are gleefully lumping O'Reilly with other conservative moralists who have shown human weakness, including Rush Limbaugh who has an addiction to pain-killing drugs and William Bennett, who lost millions gambling in Las Vegas.
O'Reilly's lawyer has not denied that sexual conversations occurred but that lurid snippets could have been taken out of context. This has led to speculation that the plaintiff has tapes of the conversations. O'Reilly and Fox have counter-sued, claiming extortion.
The New York Daily News headlined the story: "O'REALLY!"
And while on the subject of alleged dirty tricks by the media: during the 2000 campaign, NBC accused the Bush camp of doctoring an anti-Gore television ad by highlighting the letters "RATS" from the word BUREAUCRATS against a background of comments made by the Democratic candidate.
Last week NBC Nightly News carried a story on a Bush speech with a video of the President and the letters "ILIE" (I lie) filling the rest of the screen behind him for 16 seconds. The letters came from the word FAMILIES in a sign saying TAX RELIEF FOR WORKING FAMILIES behind him.
The conservative media watchdog group Media Research Centre spotted this and accused NBC of liberal bias. NBC News responded: "To see a hidden message in this is just plain silly."