Sunday, February 22, 2004
For the past few weeks I've been contacting the Democratic presidential campaign offices (except John Kerry’s) in an effort to raise awareness to Kerry's mishandling of the 1992 Senate Select Committee Hearings on POW/MIAs that he chaired.
THE EAGLE CRIED deals extensively with these hearings and Kerry's actions to gloss over the POW/MIA issue. In fact, DIA analyst, John McCreary sent a memorandum to the Committee's Vice Chairman that charges Kerry with "legal misconduct and possible malpractice." Charges included the destruction of classified documents and leaking information to the Defense Department.
POW/MIA advocates are in general agreement that Kerry's primary concern at the time of the hearings was the normalization of relations between the U.S. and Vietnam. One of the main obstacles to that end was the continuing allegations of live American POWs still being held in Vietnam. With the Select Committee hearings, Kerry had the choice to either finally resolve these allegations through an exhaustive investigation or conduct a perfunctory exploration and dismiss the reports of live American POWs in Vietnam (and in N. Korea.) He chose the latter.
I spoke with the press offices of Howard Dean, John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich and Wesley Clark. All except Clark requested copies of the documentary. Dennis Kucinich watched the film last week and responded that these charges against Kerry are common knowledge. He is correct that they are "common knowledge" but by my estimation it is common knowledge to about one percent of the population, which is about the same percentage of votes Kucinich is receiving in the primary. Its unfortunate the Congressman is that out of touch with the American public on this issue.
Before Dean left the race, his research department was reviewing the documentary. I've yet to hear from the Edwards camp. I did fax Edwards' campaign manager, Lilah Pomerance, last week telling her that there was a consensus among an audience that viewed a work-in-progress of THE EAGLE CRIED that they would not vote for Kerry in the primary after viewing the film.
My goal with this effort was to promote the documentary and give the other candidates a strong argument against Kerry with one of his strongest selling points - his military experience and support of veterans. What he did in the 1992 POW/MIA Senate hearings was stab all the POW/MIAs, their families and veterans in the back. I believe that's something the public should be aware of and they should decide for themselves if this is a valid criticism and an important factor in their voting decision.
Also last week, NBC News producer, Chris Scholl, screened the film and sent a thoughtful email message. He said THE EAGLE CRIED was "such a sad story" and that while he was at DATELINE he tried on three occasions to get a POW story on air but was unable to. He said now that he's with NBC News he's confined to a max story time of two-minutes and this POW story really requires the in depth treatment a newsmagazine program can give it. He said he would continue to try to expose the POW/MIA issue.
THE EAGLE CRIED deals extensively with these hearings and Kerry's actions to gloss over the POW/MIA issue. In fact, DIA analyst, John McCreary sent a memorandum to the Committee's Vice Chairman that charges Kerry with "legal misconduct and possible malpractice." Charges included the destruction of classified documents and leaking information to the Defense Department.
POW/MIA advocates are in general agreement that Kerry's primary concern at the time of the hearings was the normalization of relations between the U.S. and Vietnam. One of the main obstacles to that end was the continuing allegations of live American POWs still being held in Vietnam. With the Select Committee hearings, Kerry had the choice to either finally resolve these allegations through an exhaustive investigation or conduct a perfunctory exploration and dismiss the reports of live American POWs in Vietnam (and in N. Korea.) He chose the latter.
I spoke with the press offices of Howard Dean, John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich and Wesley Clark. All except Clark requested copies of the documentary. Dennis Kucinich watched the film last week and responded that these charges against Kerry are common knowledge. He is correct that they are "common knowledge" but by my estimation it is common knowledge to about one percent of the population, which is about the same percentage of votes Kucinich is receiving in the primary. Its unfortunate the Congressman is that out of touch with the American public on this issue.
Before Dean left the race, his research department was reviewing the documentary. I've yet to hear from the Edwards camp. I did fax Edwards' campaign manager, Lilah Pomerance, last week telling her that there was a consensus among an audience that viewed a work-in-progress of THE EAGLE CRIED that they would not vote for Kerry in the primary after viewing the film.
My goal with this effort was to promote the documentary and give the other candidates a strong argument against Kerry with one of his strongest selling points - his military experience and support of veterans. What he did in the 1992 POW/MIA Senate hearings was stab all the POW/MIAs, their families and veterans in the back. I believe that's something the public should be aware of and they should decide for themselves if this is a valid criticism and an important factor in their voting decision.
Also last week, NBC News producer, Chris Scholl, screened the film and sent a thoughtful email message. He said THE EAGLE CRIED was "such a sad story" and that while he was at DATELINE he tried on three occasions to get a POW story on air but was unable to. He said now that he's with NBC News he's confined to a max story time of two-minutes and this POW story really requires the in depth treatment a newsmagazine program can give it. He said he would continue to try to expose the POW/MIA issue.
Wednesday, February 04, 2004
I’m on the plane back to LA returning from the Hygienic Art Show screening of The Eagle Cried. The weekend festival was wild as usual. The screening kicked off the weekend on Friday night.
Although the promotion for the screening was abysmal due in part by Hygienic Art, Inc. accidentally deleting it from some of their schedule listings and the press not doing covering the screening (except for the Westerly Sun which printed a large photo of Roger and my press release almost verbatim – which my mother read unknowingly and responded, “Wow, what a nice article.”
My hats off to The Sun and as for The Day in New London and The Norwich Bulletin….Well, nevermind.
The local entertainment magazine, SCOPE, listed the screening as being on Sunday during Hygienic Filmwerks’ annual Screening Room series. Warren Avery, who runs Screening Room told me that a disgruntled viewer stood up part way through the first movie of the series and yelled, “What does that have to do with the 38th Parallel?!” and then walked out. It took Warren a few moments to realize he was expecting to see THE EAGLE CRIED.
The documentary screening was attended by approximately 50 people, a smaller crowd than I was expecting. Yet, I was surprised that nearly the entire audience stayed until the last frame of the two-hour cut. The following Q&A was very helpful for me and Tim Stawarz videotaped this for future reference. My uncle Bob joined me for the 2nd half of the Q&A until he lost his voice.
Over the course of the weekend the film created a buzz and many people were stopping me to talk about the film. Many regretted not being at the screening after they had heard about it. Others who were there had more comments to make about the documentary.
I now have a good idea of what needs to be done for the final edit.
I was mostly happy that everyone seemed to agree it was a moving story and one that needs to be seen by as wide an audience as possible.
The potential impact this film could have on the Democratic Presidential primary also became evident as the film is very critical of Sen. John Kerry’s handling of the POW/MIA issue while he was chairman of the 1992 Senate Select Committee on POW/MIAs.
More on that in the next blog entry.
Although the promotion for the screening was abysmal due in part by Hygienic Art, Inc. accidentally deleting it from some of their schedule listings and the press not doing covering the screening (except for the Westerly Sun which printed a large photo of Roger and my press release almost verbatim – which my mother read unknowingly and responded, “Wow, what a nice article.”
My hats off to The Sun and as for The Day in New London and The Norwich Bulletin….Well, nevermind.
The local entertainment magazine, SCOPE, listed the screening as being on Sunday during Hygienic Filmwerks’ annual Screening Room series. Warren Avery, who runs Screening Room told me that a disgruntled viewer stood up part way through the first movie of the series and yelled, “What does that have to do with the 38th Parallel?!” and then walked out. It took Warren a few moments to realize he was expecting to see THE EAGLE CRIED.
The documentary screening was attended by approximately 50 people, a smaller crowd than I was expecting. Yet, I was surprised that nearly the entire audience stayed until the last frame of the two-hour cut. The following Q&A was very helpful for me and Tim Stawarz videotaped this for future reference. My uncle Bob joined me for the 2nd half of the Q&A until he lost his voice.
Over the course of the weekend the film created a buzz and many people were stopping me to talk about the film. Many regretted not being at the screening after they had heard about it. Others who were there had more comments to make about the documentary.
I now have a good idea of what needs to be done for the final edit.
I was mostly happy that everyone seemed to agree it was a moving story and one that needs to be seen by as wide an audience as possible.
The potential impact this film could have on the Democratic Presidential primary also became evident as the film is very critical of Sen. John Kerry’s handling of the POW/MIA issue while he was chairman of the 1992 Senate Select Committee on POW/MIAs.
More on that in the next blog entry.