Nov. 4, 2003 -- CBS announced today that it will not broadcast a four-hour mini-series, "The Reagans," the unflattering portrayal of the former president and his wife that had been the subject of intense criticism by conservatives who launched a full-scale lobbying effort to get the network to kill the series.
Instead, CBS said the series will be shown on Showtime, the subscriber cable network...
Much of the furor was unleashed after The New York Times, which obtained a final copy of the script, said the show depicted Mr. Reagan as a skilled politician and cheerful, but distant and a bit out of touch, and his wife as controlling and fiercely determined, with poor relations with her children.
Of particular concern to conservative critics was a scene in which Mr. Reagan says of gays who have AIDS: "They that live in sin shall die in sin."
Mr. Reagan made no such public remark, and opponents of the mini-series say the line was an indication of liberal bias against the two-term president.
CBS Kills Nixon Bio
Excerpt...
June 12, 2004 -- CBS said today that it will not air the five-part biography "Nixon," after Republicans said the show unfairly portrays the late president as being responsible for one of the worst political scandals in American history.
CBS Kills McCarthy Drama
Excerpt...
Aug. 30, 2005 -- CBS has refused to broadcast the six-part miniseries "Commie Hunter," after conservative author Ann Coulter reportedly told a friend the show doesn't adequately depict the courage and dedication that made the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy a hero to millions of patriotic Americans.
CBS Nixes Hoover Show
Excerpt...
Dec. 14, 2006 -- CBS says it will try to kill a proposed 12-part docudrama about the life and times of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. Network executives say conservative talk show host G. Gordon Liddy has convinced them the show will unfairly slander the great American law-and-order chief -- even though the script has not yet been written.
And finally,
CBS Vows to Block Bush Expose
Apr 1, 2010 -- CBS says it agrees with Department of Homeland Security censors that a purported video about the seven-year-long conflict in Iraq should be banned from the U.S. airwaves.
Conservatives say the show -- allegedly being produced by underground subversives -- unfairly blames former President George W. Bush for pushing America into an unwinnable war in a deeply fragmented Third World country.
Government informants have told the DHS (which in turn has told the New York Times) that the film will portray Bush as an ignorant but arrogant man convinced the Lord God chose him to bring peace to the Middle East.
Supposedly, the documentary also alleges that Saddam Hussein's regime did not possess weapons of mass destruction before the U.S. invasion.
Conservative critics say the search for WMD in Iraq continues to make good progress. Suggesting otherwise, they note, is strictly prohibited by the VICTORY III Act, the Official Secrets Act of 2005, and the Sedition Act of 2007.
CBS says that if copies of the alleged video surface, they will be aired at a public show trial, and then immediately burnt.
posted on November 5, 2003 09:48:23 AM new
The left-wing hacks that write these things defend them as "docudramas", etc. I have a real problem when people like to invent conversations and put them in the mouths of people who cannot defend themselves. It wouldn't be so bad except that an idiot fringe watches this stuff and thinks it really happened. The scene where a tearful Nancy tries to get Ronnie to take back the "shall die in sin." Just precious.
There is no reason why a person, by mere fact of being a celebrity, should legally be allowed to be slandered.
posted on November 5, 2003 11:27:33 AM new
When we heard about this mini series about Reagan, I thought it was wrong.
The guy has alzheimers, and can't defend himself for one.
Another is the AIDS comment. Now is this true? Is there any documented proof he said this. Was it in a speech???? (if that is the case, then yeah, it should be told) but if its 'the intern/maid/aid/janitor heard it through the door thing, forget it.
Is there a way to find out if he really had said this?
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posted on November 5, 2003 11:55:09 AM new
As usual the lying left, tell only what they want you to know. It doesn't matter that the writters of the mini series get the facts wrong, they embellish & use their "Creative Skills" to add their leftist views.
Helen, you are stinking to a new low, with your BS anti consertative allegations of a conspiracy to cancel the airing of this totally fabricated waste of TV time.
The assassination of Ronald Reagan
Pat Buchanan
Does Ronald Reagan deserve this? Does Nancy, who has nursed her dying husband through a horribly difficult decade as he struggles in the final hours of his life, deserve what is being done to her?
On Nov. 16 and 18, CBS plans to air a four-hour miniseries, "The Reagans." It purports to be the drama of Reagan's rise to power and presidential years.
It is naked brutal hatched work, a smear of a good man by haters who fabricate and lie to paint Reagan as a religious bigot who thinks those dying of AIDS are getting what God intends for them, and says, numb and crumbling after the Marine barracks massacre in Beirut, "I am the Antichrist."
James Rutenberg of The New York Times describes the script as a "deconstruction" of the Reagan presidency "through a liberal lens."
Reagan's restoration of America's spirit and morale after the malaise of the Carter era goes unmentioned. The astonishing Reagan Recovery, seven straight years of economic growth that created 20 million new jobs, goes unmentioned.
CBS implies Reagan ratted out actors to the Hollywood blacklist. The script has him telling agent Lew Wasserman, "I never called anybody a Commie who wasn't a Commie." Pressed by Nancy to take greater interest in the AIDS crisis, the Reagan actor says, "They that live in sin shall die in sin," and cuts off the conversation. The script implies Reagan got the idea for a U.S. missile defense system from a 1940 movie.
There is no substantiation for any of this.
CBS Chairman Leslie Moonves says it was "very important for me to document everything and give a very fair point of view."
Yet when Rutenberg noted that Nancy did not, as the script said, write Al Haig's resignation letter, CBS cut the scene. Now under fire, Moonves says, "there are things (in the script) we don't like. ... There are things we think go too far. ... So there are some edits being made trying to present a more fair picture of the Reagans."
Moonves is admitting his writers fabricated like Jayson Blair. But when you catch Jayson Blair lying, you do not send him to rewrite. You fire him. What is the matter with Moonves?
What is the matter with Dan Rather and other correspondents whose names America associates with CBS? They did not approve this script, but the company for which they work, CBS, allowed these Hollywood haters to make up quotes to tarnish the legacy and destroy the name of this president in the minds of the young, for whom such docudramas are the only history they will ever know.
Do they approve of this? If not, why have they not said that any CBS show that purports to be history should be rooted in reality and truth, not fabrications and falsehoods?
What CBS is doing is truly Orwellian, exactly what the Ministry of Truth was designed to do in Orwell's "1984" -- rewrite history to deceive and propagandize those who had no other source of truth.
One of the differences between Americans and our communist and Nazis enemies was said to be that we stood for truth, and that they denied and twisted truth, and lied deliberately, for their own ideological ends. Is this not exactly what Hollywood and CBS are doing with "The Reagans"?
"It's horrendous, it's absolutely horrendous," says Michael Reagan. The president's son saw eight minutes of excerpts. "They paint my father as a buffoon." They imply that President Reagan had Alzheimer's in the White House. They have him using God's name in vain. They portray Nancy as an abuser of pills who, in disciplining her 5-year-old daughter, calls to mind Joan Crawford in "Mommie Dearest."
Who did the hatchet job? Its producers, Neil Meron and Craig Zadan, are leftists. Judy Davis, who plays Nancy, sees this show as an antidote to "the ugly specter of patriotism" that swept America after 9-11. James Brolin, who plays Reagan, is the husband of Barbra Streisand, who was seen hanging around the set for weeks.
What Hollywood is about in "The Reagan's" is the trashing of his legacy, the demonizing of the man, and the destruction of his good name and image in the minds of the young, by using lies.
For they could not do it with the truth. If this is not the politics of hate and the politics of personal destruction, what is?
For its role in this cruel attack on a man they could not defeat, but who cannot now fight back, CBS is guilty of the premeditated assassination of the character of Ronald Reagan. A thoroughly rotten piece of business.
CBS should be ashamed of itself. Its highly touted miniseries ‘The Reagans’ is nothing more than a pathetic attempt to defame one of the most popular American Presidents of all time. Airing November 16th and 18th, this miniseries reportedly alludes to Nancy as a pill popper and Ronald as a homophobic, heartless human being. The sad thing is, we should have all known this was going to be the case.
A few months ago, when it was announced James Brolin, husband of Ultra-Leftist Barbra Streisand, would be playing Ronald Regan, Streisand was asked while appearing on ‘Oprah’ what she thought of her husband playing someone she has so vocally despised over the years. Her response was simply, “I don’t mind as long as they tell the truth. Now coming from her that should have sent up hundreds of red-flags all over the country. Streisand’s truth has tended to be about as reliable as the Soviet Union’s. Judy Davis, portraying Nancy, has stated, "If this film can help create a bit more questioning in the public about the direction America has been going in since the 1970s, I guess then I think it will be doing a service." Hmm I wonder what direction she leans politically.
n one scene in the miniseries, when discussing the AIDS crisis in America, President Regan is quoted as saying, Those that live in sin, will die in sin. Those are pretty strong words and clearly portray him as unsympathetic to those stricken with this horrible affliction. The problem is he never said that. The screenwriter, Elizabeth Egloff, has even acknowledged that many of the statements made in the movie were dramatized” and when asked about that scene specifically, it was admitted that the remark was made up.
posted on November 5, 2003 12:05:54 PM new
This one must have been particularly bad. CBS execs took a look at the finished product and dumped it to Showtime almost immediately saying it was a little biased for a mainstream TV audience but ok for cable.
In the past they put stuff like this on after making a few cuts. They ordered cuts in the Hitler miniseries because the producers had put in quaint little allegories to the Bush administration.
Besides the tearful Nancy/Ron scene about aids, they also (allegedley) portrayed Reagan as a semi-literate moron in contrast to the release of his personal letteers during his presidency.
My local paper's tv reviewer is an ultra-liberal and even he was aghast at this thing. Who puts the money up for this stuff???
posted on November 5, 2003 12:31:26 PM new
Leave it to a left wing democrat freak to make nasty comments and insult a person who has alzheimers. Left wingers cannot stand up to anyone in an argument unless they are dead or dying.
Ronald regan was simply the best president in my lifetime and you democrates that think different, you have to right to your opinion, but you are foolish empty headed morons.
posted on November 5, 2003 12:47:31 PM new
quatermass, being bias in a movie is one thing, but thinking Reagan was a good President is questionable at best.
"From my Cold, Dead Hands" - NRA Chairman, Played Moses, Alzheimers Victim - Charlton Heston.
posted on November 5, 2003 01:04:38 PM new
" quatermass, being bias in a movie is one thing, but thinking Reagan was a good President is questionable at best."
A consistent problem with the left is the inability to accept a fact because it is contrary to their particular belief. Now, in posing the question of how people "rate" a given president, one only has to look at the polls taken.
posted on November 5, 2003 01:26:10 PM new
CBS Blocks **Bush** Expose????? lol
CBS lost a ton of money doing this project, I believe I read around $70M [but couldn't find the article to confirm that]. And dear Ms. Streisand is having a fit about those who were speaking negatively about all the lies told in this story threatening to boycott CBS.
As the WSJ pointed out today:
Five years ago, opponents of 'The Reagans' would have failed to sway CBS because of their inability to make enough noise. The network would have taken the "high road" and stared them down, and been praised for its courage by other Big Media outlets. And if it were only a matter of noise, CBS would have done the same thing today . . . but it isn't.
[paraphasing here]
By selling rights to Showtime, it points the growing weakness of BIG MEDIA...and the fact that the 'New Media' is gaining ground
Today, CBS is fighting for its corporate life. So are NBC, ABC, Time, TV Guide, the Reader's Digest, and all the film studios and record labels. They can't afford to ignore the noise anymore, no matter which side of the political fence it comes from. And they won't.
And as they also pointed out if this had been a 'hit' piece on MLK the NAACP would have called for, and would have gotten a boycott. And been cheered as heros by the same people today that are crying censorship.
posted on November 6, 2003 07:15:07 AM new
TwelvePole i have to agree with you. Reagan was better than Carter. But Does that mean it is better to be bitten by a Rattle Snake then A Copper Head?? I Vote for the Man Not the Party.
posted on November 6, 2003 06:52:03 PM new
You all have such strong opinions, you must have already seen this show. Did I miss it?
___________________________________
In this world of sin and sorrow, there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican. -- H.L. Mencken
posted on November 6, 2003 09:48:23 PM new
The radio talk shows have been harping on it a lot the past week or so. Strangely enough, the things they are upset about are the true things.
Bill O'Reilly was upset the other day because the script he'd gotten hold of had Reagan calling Nancy "Mommy"--which he did.
He was upset because the script talked about Reagan's involvement with the Iran-Contra affair--why, I don't know, as it was a fact.
He didn't like the fact that the script showed Nancy Reagan "managing" her husband & getting people fired that she didn't like--both of which she did.
He was really fired up because the script intimates that Reagan may have developed Alzheimers earlier than has been supposed--a reasonable assumption given the fact that way before it was announced that he had the disease, Reagan was notorious for falling asleep during important meetings and not being able to remember things.
All that being true, it still doesn't make Reagan a "bad" president. He did a lot of good things. Being human, though, he did some pretty stupid things--Iran-Contra being one. Almost starting a war with Russia with a careless statement being another. Helping along the closing of most state mental institutions & leaving mentally ill people to roam about being another. And then there's the ever-popular "trickle-down" theory of economics he dazzled us with.
I don't care one way or another about the bio-pic. Bio-pics in general always take a bit of artistic license. But I do feel that by creating so much fuss about it, that the right has actually created more of an audience for it than would otherwise have been the case. Now people are curious about it & will probably flock to Showtime to see it. If the the right had said nothing, the mini-series would probably have flopped: James Brolin just isn't that good an actor, and people feel sorry for Reagan because of his Alzheimers. Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but unlike charity, it should end there --Clare Booth Luce
posted on November 7, 2003 06:50:14 AM new
"the things they are upset about are the true things."
True according to whom? The 3 people in the room?
"Bill O'Reilly was upset the other day because the script he'd gotten hold of had Reagan calling Nancy "Mommy"--which he did."
He did use the term, but not in the moronic fashion portrayed in the particular scene, which the screenwriter admits was a total fabrication.
"He didn't like the fact that the script showed Nancy Reagan "managing" her husband & getting people fired that she didn't like--both of which she did."
Again, according to whom?
"Almost starting a war with Russia with a careless statement being another."
Absolutely hilarious.
"Bio-pics in general always take a bit of artistic license."
"Poetic license" is having him drive away in a Lincoln rather than a Cadillac limo. This, like "Bowling for Columbines" editing of years of speeches by Charlton Heston and then inserting other footage to make it appear said speech occurred at "inappropriate" points in time, is more correctly termed slander.
[ edited by desquirrel on Nov 7, 2003 06:59 AM ]
posted on November 7, 2003 07:53:44 AM newaccording to whom
a) the newspapers, radio, & tv of the day
b) those of us who lived through his presidency.
for those too young to remember, it's easy enough to read about, either on the Net or at your local library. Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but unlike charity, it should end there --Clare Booth Luce
