Posted on 11/04/2003 7:29:34 PM PST by wallcrawlr
Credibility is a precious commodity. You taint it at your peril.
CBS and its parent company, Viacom, gave their reputation for courage and independence a kind of toxic shower Tuesday. First, they nakedly caved in to pressure from groups outraged over the as-yet-unseen miniseries "The Reagans," about Ronald and Nancy Reagan. They pulled the two-night, four-hour movie out of the middle of November sweeps and dumped it off to Showtime cable. Then they released this statement: "This decision is based solely on our reaction to seeing the final film, not the controversy that erupted around a draft of the script."
A Showtime source says "The Reagans" is essentially going back into post-production (editing) with the idea of airing it sometime in the first half of 2004.
A lot of influential people are playing the American public for credulous chumps these days, but as examples of gross disingenuousness go, this one is a classic.
There is absolutely no doubt that CBS capitulated to a stunning outpouring of anger from the various kindred elements of what, collectively, can be called the conservative media attack engine.
Word leaked a week or so ago that the script portrayed the former president as a somewhat disengaged figure with early symptoms of Alzheimer's, little or no functional concern for the AIDS epidemic beginning to sweep the country and a lack of emotional interest in his own children. Almost worse was the apparent portrait of the former first lady as a shrill, controlling woman, directing administration policies from behind the curtains with the help of an astrologer.
Since then, the usual suspects have been in even higher dudgeon than normal. The Drudge Report ran days of outraged headlines. Bill O'Reilly railed. L. Brent Bozell organized a campaign threatening advertiser boycotts. The Republican National Committee fired off a read-between-the-lines letter to CBS president Les Moonves demanding Reagan-friendly "experts" review the film prior to air — or else. Viacom chief Sumner Redstone grumbled from on high. Web sites hammering CBS were launched. And, of course, every foghorn with a microphone on the 800-plus radio stations broadcasting conservative choir music 24/7 from sea to shining sea railed that the film was further proof of the ongoing Hollywood liberal smear campaign against everything to the right of Bill and Hillary.
This engine operates all the time. Normally, it succeeds by steering what passes for a national debate and cowing mainstream media out of challenging too aggressively its pet characters and policies.
But this time, it succeeded in getting one of the pillars of mainstream culture, CBS Entertainment, to shrink before its wrath and embarrass itself with a grand, public surrender.
The superficial charge that the (unseen) miniseries is chock full of inaccuracies and therefore should be censored, if not killed, is the stuff of black irony. I mean, schlocky TV biopics and historical accuracy? No dialogue permitted that can't be verified by official transcript? What planet did they just fly in from?
Have you ever watched a movie about Abe Lincoln and wondered, "Did Abe really say that?" Or how about any of the hundreds of crummy TV movies about the Kennedys? Every word God's gospel truth?
If historical accuracy is the guiding principle for TV melodrama, why didn't any of the aforementioned engine stokers complain a peep about Showtime's recent "DC 9/11: Time of Crisis," a lavishly inventive drama that portrayed George W. Bush as a leader so gifted he was practically clairvoyant.
While we're at it, never mind that the essence of the alleged portrait of the private Reagans has been reported (if not documented) by everyone from their own daughter, Patti, to their once trusted chief of staff, Don Regan. Never mind that Reagan's "official biographer," Edmund Morris, quotes the former president as saying of AIDS, "Maybe the Lord brought down this plague," because, "illicit sex is against the Ten Commandments." And as for the disengaged part, well, pick your insider tell-all. (David Stockman's is the best.)
Not since CBS caved in to political pressure and whacked the smirking anti-Vietnam War "Smothers Brothers" in 1969 has a major network wittingly appeared as craven as this.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brian Lambert can be reached at blambert@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5424.
It's almost as good as being a member of a HATE GROUP--FreeRepublic.
Now I don't just sit around and passively HATE; I also ATTACK!
Brian Lambert used to be one of these foghorns on his own morning program on AM1500 (KSTP - St Paul and Minneapolis). Of course Brian Labmert thinks Vladimir Lenin was too conservative, and people with the ability to add 2 and 2 avoided him like malaria.
Yep, they do, they're right, and your rant proves it! Only submissive fools would yearn to be spoonfed any trite melodrama made up by all knowing, self appointed Hollywood elites.
Ain't freedom of speech grand?
I would like to see this proved. Mr. Lambert.
...stop it, you sweet talkin thang!
Being hit very hard in their SeeBS "Gay Agenda" caused Moonves to scuttle the project.
CBS was caught with their pants around their ankles in bed with Clinton's "save-my-legacy" team. Serves them right.
I will never watch CBS again. Every sponsor buy time on CBS will never get a dime of my money.
Boycott all CBS sponsors forever!
No... to make it apt, it has to be someone they really liked and admired.
(Their defense of Hill and Bill is a tepid "they may be rascals, but they're our rascals)
I'm thinking more "The Paul Wellstone Story" starring Bruce Willis.
It's at the bottom of the article.
Which they'll watch with lights off, lotion and a box of Kleenex.
VRWC - Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
But now we are also the
CMAE - Conservative Media Attack Engine
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