XPost: alt.fan.air-america, alt.fan.barbra.streisand, alt.fan.j-garofalo   
   XPost: alt.fan.julia-roberts, alt.politics.democrats   
   From: Dr.Goldblatt@G00GLE.0RG   
      
   Why Liberal Hollywood  Poisoned 'The Reagans'   
      
      
   Amid all the hullabaloo about CBS's decision to demote "The Reagans"   
   to the cable channel Showtime, a lot of people didn't notice the   
   fascinating reason the miniseries evolved into such a venomous hatchet   
   job: Tinseltown's abhorrence of the decent and the normal.   
      
   Producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron initially brought the project to   
   ABC, which enjoyed hits with their musical version of "Cinderella" and   
   their movie about Judy Garland.   
      
   But ABC rejected "The Reagans" because an early version "was very   
   soft; it was not controversial in the least," one network executive   
   was quoted as saying.   
      
   Yes, the media bigwigs couldn't stand to run anything positive or even   
   neutral about the Republican icon. Time to bring out the arsenic.   
      
   CBS bought the $16 million production only after the filmmakers made   
   it NASTY enough.   
      
   When the network announced it would air "The Reagans," it deliberately   
   lied in describing the program as a love story between Ronald and   
   Nancy.   
      
   NewsMax was the first to point out, many months ago, that the film was   
   set to be a hatchet job on Reagan. We knew that when the producers   
   openly talked that the movie would delve into the Reagans' "troubled"   
   relations with their children.   
      
   Those of us who eventually saw the promotional video and read the   
   leaked excerpts of the script know that the schlockumentary is the   
   opposite of a love story. It's all about La-La Land's hatred of anyone   
   with a differing viewpoint.   
      
   According to the New York Times, "one executive involved in the   
   production said the producers had made it clear in several meetings   
   they were aiming to produce a highly controversial film. That was also   
   the message they conveyed in an article in The New York Times on Oct.   
   21, that for the first time   
   provided details about the portrayal of the Reagans, and that alerted   
   conservative backers of the former president that the film was not   
   going to be entirely sympathetic."   
      
   Note to the Times: If you want to be accurate, try changing "entirely   
   sympathetic" to "at all sympathetic."   
      
   We have to give the Times' critic Alessandra Stanley credit, though,   
   for noting that the "producers appear to have sacrificed showmanship   
   to self-righteousness, adopting a preachy, liberal agenda.... Rather   
   than   
   treading lightly, the stars gloated about how controversial their film   
   would be. James Brolin said his portrayal of Mr. Reagan was partly   
   inspired by the Reagan puppet on the British satirical show 'Spitting   
   Image.' Judy Davis, who plays Nancy Reagan, pompously said she hoped   
   the film would teach Americans to scrutinize their elected leaders   
   more carefully."   
      
   "Handled more delicately, the series could have been shown on CBS,"   
   Stanley wrote. "The eight-minute trailer that CBS sent out ...   
   suggests that the movie is bad history and good television."   
      
   In particular she faulted the partisan but usually talented Davis for   
   abandoning all nuance and portraying Mrs. Reagan as a monster.   
      
   As for Malibu Barbi Streisand, Little Tommy Daschle and the other   
   Democrats crying foul about CBS's decision, let's see if they would   
   object to a pseudo-biopic in which Bill Clinton is falsely quoted as   
   calling himself "the Antichrist" and saying that AIDS patients deserve   
   to "die in sin."   
      
   That we'll never know, because Democrat-run Hollywood, of course,   
   would never invent such lies about its fallen idol.   
      
   Plenty of NewsMax readers wrote in to put the issue in perspective.   
   Rich Engle of Elk Grove, California put it best: "The liberals who are   
   crying foul on cancellation of CBS's hack job of President Ronald   
   Reagan are truly out in left field. The U.S. Constitution's First   
   Amendment right of free speech has no bearing on this case. No   
   government agency demanded the cancellation of the program, popular   
   opinion did. The fact is that the producers made a poor quality   
   product, and consumers rejected it. Citizens of the United States of   
   America have conducted business in this manner for well over two   
   hundred years with unequaled success."   
      
   Newsmax: Sticking it to the left.   
      
   --   
   Left-wing liberals are EVERYTHING they accuse the right of being. They   
   are mean, vicious, hateful, greedy, cold-hearted, selfish, intolerant,   
   bigoted and racist.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)