Posted on 08/04/2006 12:59:47 PM PDT by churchillbuff
Variety reviewer Robert Koehler (formerly of the L.A. Times) recently reviewed a new documentary titled "Mr. Conservative: Goldwater on Goldwater." The main driver behind the project is his granddaughter, C.C. Goldwater, and it's scheduled to air on HBO on September 18. The list of interviewees underlines it's not a big right-wing project: it includes Walter Cronkite, Ted Kennedy, Al Franken, Helen Thomas, James Carville, Bob Schieffer, Andy Rooney, Julian Bond, Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn, John Dean, and erstwhile Goldwater Girl Hillary Rodham Clinton. A few righties appear (Richard Viguerie, George Will) and some more centrist GOP types do, too (John Warner, Sandra Day O'Connor).
Here's how Koehler sums the film up: "Pic reflects on a contempo religious GOP right wing that would have profoundly alienated Goldwater, who rarely brought God into his politics."
Koehler extolled the film for showing "some of the contradictions of Goldwater, who opposed expansion of civil rights for African-Americans in the '60s and -- as various family anecdotes illustrate -- was tolerant toward gays and lesbians as well as female reproductive rights. (Daughter Joanne tells of her abortion as a young woman, and gay grandson Ty speaks warmly of him.)"
At first, Koehler seems unhappy there's not enough angst toward the religious right: "Even with an impressive roster of journos and political sharpies (including Hillary Clinton, who was a Goldwater Girl in '64 and a devout conservative in her teens), little is made of libertarian Goldwater's differences with the right-wing Christian movement that swept into the GOP in the 1980s. John Dean, whose new book, 'Conservatives Without Conscience,' began as a collaboration with longtime friend Goldwater, articulates best how Goldwater's straight-talking politics was rejected by his Bush-era party."
But he later concludes: "Response to the pic from GOP pundits and opinionmakers will provide a telling indicator of the current political climate. Walter Cronkite overstates the case that the older Goldwater turned liberal, while George Will is more on point, noting that what changed wasn't Goldwater but the GOP's extreme shift toward moralistic conservatism."
It will be interesting to hear if that's exactly how it sounds out of the mouth of Will.
Did the aliens make her do it?
I could swear that, when running for president, Goldwater advocated an amendment to let prayer back into public schools. I remember seeing a Goldwater pamphlet that quoted the Bible, "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord."
Will the real Barry Goldwater please stand up?
Donald Goldwater, the AZ GOP Gov candidate is pro-life.
Looks like I'll be cancelling HBO. When will HBO run a documentary on the influence of the extreme left wing, the one out to bring down their 2000 VP nominee all because he disagreed with them once?
Good Grief. As much as I admired Goldwater in some respects, he is but a peon in the halls of conservatism.
Goldwater has been dead over eight years. Doubt he had much of an opinion on W's party. Dean is such a Moron.
Another spot linked the corruption of government officials to moral deterioration. Goldwater exclaims, "Americans everywhere are indignant about the moral decay in Washington," while the narrator calls on voters to "put conscience back in government." A third advertisement asked "What has happened to our America? We build libraries and galleries to hold the world's greatest treasury of art—and we permit the world's greatest collection of smut to be freely available anywhere." A fourth featured Goldwater speaking directly into the camera:
Is moral responsibility out of style? Our papers and our newsreels and yes, our own observations, tell us that immorality surrounds us as never before. We as a nation are not far from the kind of moral decay that has brought on the fall of other nations and people…. [The] philosophy of something for nothing, [the] cult of individual and governmental irresponsibility, is an insidious cancer that will destroy us unless we recognize it and root it out now. Goldwater made morality the centerpiece of a 30-minute televised address that aired on CBS on October 20, 1964. After citing George Washington's dictum, "'Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports,'" Goldwater said, "The moral fiber of the American people is beset by rot and decay," and pledged "every effort to a reconstruction of reverence and moral strength."
The campaign also produced, but did not air, a television program called "Choice." It focused on the "moral issue," and featured disturbing footage of topless bars, wild beatnik parties, drunken college students, and riots by both whites and blacks. Goldwater declined to use the film in the end, but only, it seems, because he feared that scenes of blacks rioting would introduce unseemly racial overtones into the campaign. But he had no inherent objection to addressing the other issues raised in the show.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.'s History of American Presidential Elections included a scathing contemporaneous account from John Bartlow Martin: "Goldwater's moral strictures soon began to sound preachy; he almost castigated Americans for their wickedness…. Goldwater looked not only like the mad bomber, but the half-crazed moral zealot." Sympathetic observers would characterize his message differently, but what is clear is that Goldwater hardly eschewed moral, social, and cultural themes.
The Goldwater Myth: Why Barry Goldwater was not a "Goldwater conservative."
It's a small hall.
Excellent point. And Democrats pre-Vietnam were pro-national security from FDR to Truman to JFK. They may have been wrong in so many other ways, and even implemented national security badly, but I have no question of their commitment to the defense of this country. Other than Joe Lieberman, I can't name a single national Democrat who I think has the protection of US national security as a priority. Not one.
But HBO won't make a documentary about that huge change in the Democratic party. No, instead we should fear that religious people exercise their free speech and voting rights by influencing the Republican party. HBO has made its intolerance, contempt and bigotry against religious people, whether Mormons or now conservative religious voters, all too clear. I'll be cancelling my subscription.
The left seems to have hit on a new idea. Conservatives and the Right are NOT people
I once typed up Goldwater's home insurance policy renewal at a major insurance company.
Guess I'm pretty convinced he was not lily white by any means.
Variety reviewer Robert Koehler (formerly of the L.A. Times) recently reviewed a new documentary titled "Mr. Conservative: Goldwater on Goldwater." The main driver behind the project is his granddaughter, C.C. Goldwater, and it's scheduled to air on HBO on September 18. The list of interviewees underlines it's not a big right-wing project: it includes Walter Cronkite, Ted Kennedy, Al Franken, Helen Thomas, James Carville, Bob Schieffer, Andy Rooney, Julian Bond, Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn, John Dean, and erstwhile Goldwater Girl Hillary Rodham Clinton. A few righties appear (Richard Viguerie, George Will) and some more centrist GOP types do, too (John Warner, Sandra Day O'Connor).Here's how Koehler sums the film up: "Pic reflects on a contempo religious GOP right wing that would have profoundly alienated Goldwater, who rarely brought God into his politics."
Harry and Bess would not be able to contain themselves in denouncing that filth, that is what would be happening.
Quix you have really piqued my curiousity. Can you expand on your earlier comment?
I'll start with my Hall of Fame:
St. Augustine
George Washington
James Madison
Ben Franklin
Edmund Burke
Adam Smith
Abraham Lincoln
Teddy Roosevelt
Calvin Coolidge
Winston Churchill
Maggie Thatcher
Milton Friedman
CS Lewis
Jesse Helms
Thomas Sowell
Ronald Reagan
How could you include little Jemmy and George Washington and omit Thomas J?
I don't really know, but my impression is that Goldwater was a "classical" liberal pretty much. Since modern liberals retain some of the classical ideals, I believe they tend to find some sympathy for the man. 'Course modern liberals are too dumb to realize (or in some cases too dishonest too admit) that the leftist ideals which they cherish are pure death to the ideals of classical liberalism.
Will send you FREEPMAIL.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.