Did Jonathan Alter actually say that? Am I to understand that Jonathan Alter said that the SDI was brilliant? Of course it was brilliant. I just can't believe Jonathan Alter said it.
Posted on 11/07/2003 4:39:03 AM PST by Livy
Gutless at CBS The network’s decision to yank ‘The Reagans’ was just a craven—and short-sighted—bid to keep advertisers happy
NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE
Nov. 4 — Hallelujah! The Gipper is safe and the hated liberal media humbled. It’s a big victory for the “Elephant Echo Chamber,” the unholy trinity of conservative talk radio, conservative Internet sites and the Republican National Committee. The decision by CBS late yesterday not to air “The Reagans” meant, Matt Drudge exulted, “a tremendous night” for his team.
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Look, I’m not defending “The Reagans.” I have neither read the script nor seen it. (No one outside CBS has). It may well be the hit job described in leaked reports or, at a minimum, another stupid docu-drama that distorts the historical truth. It’s a little tacky to be taking a lot of pot shots when the former president is ailing. More important, it is not “censorship” when people organize boycotts or public campaigns trying to keep something off the air. (Censorship, remember, is when the government controls what is published or broadcast). This was plain old free speech.
My problem isn’t with the whining critics, it’s with the CBS executives. In its press release, the network said the decision to cancel the docudrama, scheduled for Nov. 16 and 18 (and sell it to Showtime instead), was based “solely on our reaction to seeing the final film, not the controversy that erupted over the draft of a script.” If you believe that, you think “Survivor” is a nature program. You think CBS is still the Tiffany of networks. Clearly what happened here is that CBS caved to its advertisers, who feared a boycott orchestrated not just by Matt Drudge and talk radio but by Ed Gillespie of the Republican National Committee, who got into the act last week. This was not only craven of CBS but short-sighted. Docudramas depend on jucy personal material. No one wants to watch one about the brilliant successes of the Strategic Defense Initiative.
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The other scenes that apparently stuck in the craw of the Reagan hero-worshippers and GOP political operatives who saw a way to rally their base were those that depicted tensions within the Reagan family and Nancy Reagan’s controlling personality. Imagine! A docu-drama that actually reflects the headlines from the era! Anyone who was alive in the 1980s knows that the Reagan First Family was close to dysfunctional (as in, not speaking to each other for long periods) and that the First Lady plotted her husband’s schedule with the help of an astrologer and fired his chief of staff. That’s not spin; it’s fact. As Casey Stengel said, you can look it up. So now we’re in a new media century. I shed no tears for “The Reagans,” which will not make me rush out and subscribe to Showtime. Unless you count “The Missiles of October,” there was no golden age of TV docu-dramas, which have always been the cheesiest meal on the media food chain. Primetime television is uncorruptible, because there has never been anything left to corrupt in the first place. But I’m glad for the artistic and historical advice now booming through the elephant echo chamber. It’s good to know that network docu-dramas are, forthwith, supposed to be “true,” unless, of course, the truth is somehow “offensive” to the myth, then we’ll take the myth, as long as the myth corresponds to the reigning politics of the moment. One thing’s for sure: When they make “The Bush Dynasty” docudrama, that “Mission Accomplished” banner won’t be visible in the scene on the aircraft carrier.
look at how this is worded- the mythmaking, hero-worship, and his tactics.
he uses hyperbole to illustrate non-sensical points.
he concedes several important points in the beginning so that he won't be dismissed as a hack
he brings up the Clintons, but is comparing apples and oranges. conservatives were upset that the Reagans was a fabrication, not that it covered controversial material. If someone made a documentary with Clinton where he fought in Vietnam and raped a bunch of children, and got the clap and spread it to his wife which then made Chelsea so ugly- yea, I bet Alter would be upset. I bet he'd even ask CBS not to produce it. It was the historical fabrication that got people upset, not the touching of controversial material.
No conservative would expect a Reagan documentary NOT to mention Iran-Contra. We understand it's going to come up, we just expect fair treatment. We're not afraid of the record, just that things are rarely in black or white. This documentary was a hit job, it was completely black, there was no empathy to be had. That was our beef with the documentary. Not even as Republicans, Democrats or what have you, but as Americans who want to have their President go into the sunset before we start having to fight pitched partisan battles over his record. Granted, it's tough to expect political activists to wait so long, almost ten years now, for that to happen. But, sadly, Reagan will pass from this world someday, and that's the appropriate time to begin this crazy political and historical process. To do it now is, as Alter notes, tactless and especially spineless.
But even though Alter says it's tactless, even though he says he won't watch it, that's just liberal code for "I agree with this but it's too controversial for me to explicitly admit at this point."
his only real beef is that CBS shouldn't be so cowardly? then, by default, doesn't he feel that the Reagans documentary was 'courageous' without actually having to say it? Read closer, and you'll see that later, even after saying that he won't miss or watch the documentary, he says some of their claims are accurate- such as the context of the anti-Christ quote, the 'dysfunction' of the Reagans, etc. So he proves some of the claims of the documentary, thereby giving it an implied 'historical basis' - making it, again by default, 'courageous' in that it depicts a real Reagan administration rather than the 'myth' perpetuated by 'conservatives' and 'hero-worshippers'
he expands the conflict in the last paragraph to something totally unrelated, Bush and the war on terror. One assumes that he means the war on terror is going badly, and that a documentary, such as the Reagans, will reflect that truth even though people don't want to believe the 'myth'- it's a real quick sleight of hand. Almost too quick to notice. In one line he brings a perceived failure on the war on terror to bolster this argument as well as solidify the other argument about the documentary. If the Reagans is a lie, then will the Bush documentary be a lie as well? One isn't even asking whether Bush is actually winning, it's been framed in such a way that the only 'truthful' way to answer is that Bush's documentary must be just as damning in order to be legitimate.
this guy's a snake, and he wrote this well. His clear rage toward Drudge should show us he realizes he's on the losing end of popular support, history and technology.
I usually really dislike Alter, enough that I don't bother reading his columns, but this one needed some examination.
Wonder if the Alter boy wants some cheese with his whine.
Points:
1) They don't want us to judge whether we should watch it until we see it.
2) Moonves said it was too inaccurate to broadcast. But not too inaccurate for someone else to broadcast. If I were Showtime, I'd be insulted. (Here, have some of this day-old pizza that I left out overnight).
3) It's for the children. (Gag.) Our kids didn't know Reagan as we did, they wouldn't know what's untrue. And if it's on TV, it must be true...
According to Drudge's analysis, this marks the first time that the alternative media spread the truth rapidly enough, so as to proactively destroy a classic Old Media Elite deception.
The extremely dishonest Alter is on the losing side of history.
Cute phrase. He was able to infer something akin to "mind numbed robots." Which means anyone not thinking like him is just plain stupid. Too bad for this fellow and others there are places like FreeRepublic where people can get information and then express their views. And like so many other things that's what this was. Just people expressing their views.
The bottom line is that the movie was garbage. And people like Drudge were right. If they weren't, the movie would be on the network instead of being shown in a dark little peep show so liberal whack jobs could fondle themselves over it.
What Alter fails to recognize (surprise surprise!) is that the conservatives (I guess it is the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy although it was interesting to see all those elements kick into action so quickly and with absolutely no coordination) did CBS and all the stupid liberals a BIG FAVOR by telegraphing what otherwise would have been the biggest catastrophe in CBS's fabled 75 year history. This kind of revisionist cr*p would have resulted in sponsor boycotts, castigation by even the most "sympathetic" TV critics, and a mass audience walk-away from CBS programming.
But one thing you have to grant to Alter: he knows all about being "Gutless".
Did Jonathan Alter actually say that? Am I to understand that Jonathan Alter said that the SDI was brilliant? Of course it was brilliant. I just can't believe Jonathan Alter said it.
I've got some bad news from the Big Bad Real World for them: Television networks are not about entertainment, and they certainly are not about art. (Just take a spin around the dial to see that for yourself) Like any other business, it's all about the AD MONEY. If the bigwig TV executives think that airing a vicious smear-piece will adversely affect the bottom line, OF COURSE they're going to dump it.
Just another case of liberals crying like babies when they don't get their way.
They'll show her talking with the 'shadowy' leader of the VRWC.
This cunning propagandist cannot be considered part of the "elite" media any more than the rest of the low-class, ugly-minded hyenas and jackals who infest the media today. In their psuedo-"elitism", they have nothing but sneering contempt for the voice and the will of those they consider the unwashed masses.
Alter is a pustulating zit in the cancer that infects todays mass media. May he rot in liberal hell.
Leni
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