Considerettes

Would you prefer a review of the miniseries “The Reagans” by someone who was there? How about Reagan daughter Patty Davis? With regards to the AIDS “They who live in sin…” line:

CBS execs say the line about AIDS victims has now been deleted. I asked Bert Fields, one of America’s best known entertainment attorneys, who is not my lawyer but is a friend, to call CBS head Les Moonves and point out how painful the line was. My mother, through her attorney Ira Revitch, also wrote to Mr. Moonves asking for its removal. Not only did my father never say such a thing, he never would have. If you have any doubts, read the recently published book of his letters. They reveal a man whose compassion for other people is deep and earnest, and whose spiritual life is based on faith in a loving God, not a vengeful one.

How about characterizations?

Reading the script actually made me feel better in some ways. It is, quite simply, idiotic. Everyone is a caricature, manufactured and inauthentic.

But what about all the steps that were taken to ensure that the major events were true?

You should know this story because it’s something the producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron won’t tell you. They have exhibited astounding carelessness and cruelty in their depiction of my father and my entire family. They never consulted any family member, nor did they speak to anyone who has known us throughout the years. In the New York Times on October 21st, one of the writers admitted that the line about AIDS victims was completely fabricated.

Read the whole thing for more events that were also made up out of whole cloth. This is a work of fiction and should be labeled as such.

“How can you think about building a better future, no matter what your political views, if you indoctrinate your children to a culture of death?”

The Palestinians have been teaching their children how to kill, and only now is Hillary Clinton realizing this. Hey, better late than never.

However, WorldNetDaily, the news site often derided by liberals a some sort of right-wing nutcase, has been all over the Palestinian indoctrination story on August 12, June 13, June 4, February 5, and November 5, 2002. In addition, David Kupelian has put together these three reports. This is not news to those who have been paying attention.

AP is now reporting that CBS is, in fact, pulling the miniseries:

CBS insisted it was not bowing to pressure about portions of the script, but that the decision was made after seeing the finished film.

“Although the miniseries features impressive production values and acting performances, and although the producers have sources to verify each scene in the script, we believe it does not present a balanced portrayal of the Reagans for CBS and its audience,” the network said in a statement.

Two words: Yeah. Right. Moonves himself was taking control of the project, and they still aren’t airing it on the broadcast network. Is he saying that even he couldn’t make it a fair portrayal? Apparently not, and yet…

The network said it was licensing the completed film to Showtime, a pay cable network that, like CBS, is owned by Viacom.

Why?

As a broadcast network, CBS has different standards than a pay cable network, CBS said.

Ah, so Showtime can show movies that are presented as “fair” while the network president won’t air it on broadcast television. If it’s unfair, why is it being made? Why is it not being sold as “loosely based on events that may or may not have happened”, which is apparently what it is?

Air it, but be honest about it, even if it is on cable.

Still no link to a news report or press release, but this morning Drudge is saying the CBS will air the miniseries “The Reagans” on Showtime rather on their network.

I’ve recently started listening to the nationally syndicated radio show “Good Day, with Doug Stefan” (there’s a show web site, but it’s apparently not working at this moment). They covered this topic yesterday, and his co-host Nancy (sorry, don’t recall her last name…I’ve only just started listening) insisted that if CBS didn’t air the miniseries, then that was censorship. However, Doug had a bit more sense about it, saying that CBS ought to pull it because the movie was in bad taste and attributed some serious lines to Reagan that he never said. Nancy was wrong; censorship is not the voluntary refraining from speech, it’s the legislated prohibition of it. So if CBS does move the movie to Showtime, that’s not censorship; it’s responding to pressure, which we, as free citizens, are all allowed to exert.

At the same time, I agree with Bill O’Reilly’s take on this. We haven’t seen the movie and so it’s hard to really judge it completely. CBS, if they really want to, ought to show it, and let the ratings speak for themselves. I suspect that if they did, they’d be in a world of hurt soon after, since advertising rates are set based on Sweeps Week ratings, when the miniseries would air, and their budget would be curtailed due to their own poor choices and their lack of understanding of the feeling much of this country has for Ronald Reagan. In the liberal bubble they live in, there was probably nary a hand raised when the AIDS line (“They that live in sin shall die in sin”) was put into the script or reviewed later on. No one wondered if he actually said this because they all figured he probably could have. It would be those kinds of decisions and that sort of lack of understanding that would hurt CBS’s advertising income. (Although I would wonder if they’d really understand why it happened had there not been this sort of uproar in the weeks leading up to its airing.)

So yeah, I think they should air it, if they have the guts to, but I wouldn’t watch it. Some might say, “Well how could you truly judge it if you haven’t watched it?” That’s a fair question. Let me answer it this way.

Person 1: “No, I don’t want to be hit in the head with that club.”
Person 2: “Why not? Have you ever been hit by one before?”
1: “No, not really.”
2: “Well then how can you really judge whether or not you’ll like it?”
1: “Well, because I’ve talked to people that you’ve hit with things before, and they didn’t like it.”
2: “But no one’s been hit by a club before. Are you going to judge this based on what others tell you about being hit by a metal pole? Or are you going to judge for yourself?”
1: “That’s easy for you to say. You get paid for every person whom you club!”
2: “That’s not the point. You’re judging something based on what others think instead of trying it out for yourself.”
1: “Hmmm, you do have a point. OK, let’s try it.”
>club<
1: “Ouch! I didn’t like that!”
Person 3 (in marketing exec outfit): “Well, they do like it, don’t they?”
2: “Yup. So that mean your brand name on this club is worth more.”
3: “OK, here’s my check.”
[Time passes]
2: “Excuse me.”
Person 4: “Yes?”
2: “Would you like to be hit with this club?”

Let CBS walk around with its club, but let me decide whether or not to be hit by it.

CNN is reporting that CBS may cancel the miniseries “The Reagans”, but Drudge says (at this hour) they’ve already made the decision to cancel it (but he has no link to a news story…might be a phone call or E-mail he got).

Stay tuned…

Linda Tripp got some justice. It was pretty obvious that the leak of her personal information, timed as it was, was orchestrated to (try to) discredit her. Well, the lawsuit, while it is an out-of-court settlement, does give Tripp some of her honor back and will hopefully discourage future leaks like this.

The “politics of personal destruction” was practiced over and over by the administration that preached against it over and over. The only downside is that the guys who ordered this information dump most likely will not be the one’s paying the fine.

Nat Hentoff is reporting on all the support Judge Charles Pickering has in the black communities where he has served (including a former NAACP local chapter president), and on the hypocrisy evident when Democrats filibuster his nomination. This isn’t so much an opinion piece as it is a collection of evidence, and the evidence is that Pickering would make an eminently fair judge.

John Hawkins has a fascinating interview with Bernard Goldberg. Bernard, complete with liberal and some libertarian credentials, wrote the hugely successful “Bias”, about the liberal slant in news coverage. His follow-up “Arrogance” hits the streets today, and he discusses some of the additional bias he’s seen since then.

Well, this has been a whale of a month for the ol’ blog. After a late September link by Instapundit, followed closely by a pointer from NRO’s The Corner, I’ve had a couple of serious spikes in traffic and double the average daily visits all this month. Not to mention actual regular readers! The kind that come back more than once! Woo hoo! 🙂

Anyway, if you’re one of those regulars, thanks so much for stopping by every so often. At least now I don’t feel like I’m just talking to myself anymore. 🙂 I appreciate your visits, even though I’m not nearly as prolific as other blogs you probably frequent. Hope you enjoy it, and, even more, hope the opinions expressed are worth mulling over in your head.

One last chance to ensure you have the correct page bookmarked. I think there’s still a couple of stragglers for whom this will appear to be the last enter ever (since they’ve bookmarked the October, 2003 archive page). Anyway, just one last FYI.

See you in November!

A senior member of Saddam Hussein’s ousted government is believed to be helping coordinate attacks on American forces with members of an Al Qaeda-linked terrorist group, a senior defense official said Wednesday.

What, another Saddam-al Qaeda connection? But I thought the liberals knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was absolutely no connection at all.

Imagine my surprise. Or not.