I have a feeling that if a former governor and longtime celebrity claimed that MSNBC cancelled his television show because he opposed Barack Obama, we'd never hear the end of it from the likes of Howard Kurtz.

Yet former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura recently said his 2003 MSNBC show, “Jesse Ventura's America,” was cancelled because he opposed the Iraq war -- and Kurtz couldn't care less.

Here's Ventura, in an interview with the LA Times a week ago:

This is not your first venture into TV hosting since leaving the governorship. What happened to “Jesse Ventura's America,” which ran briefly on MSNBC in 2003?

It was awful. I was basically silenced. When I came out of office, I was the hottest commodity out there. There was a bidding war between CNN, Fox and MSNBC to get my services. MSNBC ultimately won. I was being groomed for a five day-a-week TV show by them. Then, all of a sudden, weird phone calls started happening: “Is it true Jesse doesn't support the war in Iraq?”

My contract said I couldn't do any other cable TV or any news shows, and they honored and paid it for the duration of it. So in essence I had my silence purchased. Why do you think you didn't hear from me for three years? I was under contract. They wouldn't even use me as a consultant!

And here's what Howard Kurtz, who regularly insists that MSNBC is a liberal cable channel, had to say about that: Nothing. Not a word. He has, however, found time to devote several sections of his daily “Media Notes” column -- totaling more than 3,200 words -- to Tiger Woods.

This is not, by the way, the first time there has been a suggestion that MSNBC cancelled a show because its host opposed the Iraq war. Phil Donahue's show, among the most highly-rated on MSNBC at the time, is widely believed to have been cancelled because of his criticism of the war.