If the Reagan script were truer to life, Reagan would have looked WORSE!

[BurtWorm]

According to Sydney Blumenthal on salon.com:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2003/11/08/apologi...

...

Once a Republican mole filched a copy of the script, the Republican Party chairman, Ed Gillespie (former chief lobbyist for Enron), assumed the disinterested pose of historian. The owl of Minerva perched on his shoulder, he called on CBS to yank the series or put a warning on the screen that would flash every 10 minutes that it was make-believe. (The script put words into the mouth of Reagan/Brolin about AIDS sufferers: "They that live in sin shall die in sin." In fact, Reagan said, "Maybe the Lord brought down this plague," because "illicit sex is against the Ten Commandments.") CBS promptly crumpled before the pressure campaign, pulling the show from the network schedule and assigning it to Viacom's cable channel Showtime. Leslie Moonves, the CBS president, abased himself with ritual abject apologies. In the battle for control of imagery, CBS was no match for the RNC. The Republicans know far better than a network the ruthless business of going negative.

"The Reagans," from leaked excerpts of the script, features a distracted Ronnie and harridan Nancy, a melding of 1950s situation comedy, starring the hapless but lovable dad, and the campy 1970s Grand Guignol of "Mommy Dearest." Policy and politics are not its centerpieces.

Certain crucial events in the rise of Ronald Reagan are noticeably missing. His actual words on race and civil rights, essential to his political success, are absent, though the RNC chairman has not complained about that.

Consider just a few true-life scenes that never made "The Reagans": Reagan opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, opposed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (calling it "humiliating to the South"), and ran for governor of California in 1966 promising to wipe the Fair Housing Act off the books. "If an individual wants to discriminate against Negroes or others in selling or renting his house," Reagan said, "he has a right to do so."

...

[JackSwift]

1. Republicans have no problem receiving stolen property?

.

[izzie]

2. The Reagons were a really sad pair.

I think he was over the hill soon and most people I knew and many voted for him thought so also. Nancy took care this did not get out and it was sort of known.Bush was kept away and I think for that reason. At the end when you saw Bush in the pic. he frankly lied and said he was not there. I think people my age are still trying to get over Reagon. It was some what tacky to put this on before he died as the Bush one on 911 was tacky and some on Kennedy.

[rasputin1952]

3. While die hard GOPer's would prefer the image...

of a robust Methusula breaking down the Berlin Wall with a 10# sledgehammer singlehandedly, the real picture of the Reagans is a little bit more realistic.

He was, first and foremost, one of those despised "Hollywood elites", except for the fact that ALL of his films were 'B' films, closest he came to a Hit was "Bedtime for Bonzo". But it was his ability to read script that got him the role of a lifetime.

His administration had the most indictments and convictions for corruption than any other, (to be fair, his "royal court", was larger than any previously created, therefore more opportunities for corruption). His administration was rife with RW zealots that were rarely, if ever, overseen by superiors. He was either misinformed, or uninformed during the majority of his 2 terms. There is evidence that he suffered from Alzheimers long before the official declaration.

Nancy IS a controling individual, that does not seem to take to criticism well. She was a 'B' actress as well, and certainly enjoyed the role of First Lady. Her penchant for lavish sets probably came from Hollywood, but it was illusionary, just as everything in the Reagan's life has been.

Yes, the real story could have been worse...after all, the rest of us have to live with the legacy of the real story, especially that debt that keeps getting larger.

for CBS, the Reagans or the hammerheaded GOP

[ComerPerro]

4. No movie about a Rethug will EVER be true-to-life

If one was made that was accurate, Republicans would look like money-grubbing, murderous shitheads who care more about profits than American lives and interests.

Republicans make sure that facts never get into their movies.

For starters, consider that "DC911" piece of shit.

[pretzel4gore]

5. the 'Fairness Doctrine' was alive when reagan became...

it's still staggering (actually more so then swartzenegger!) that this peabrain bacame prez...and the media was what finessed it, long before reagan himself fixed up the media game forever by cancelling 'Fairness Doctrine)...
when KAL 007 happened, the 'Fairness Doctrine' was in effect: no one pointed out the KAL 007 shootdown was a buncha bushit! The 20th anniversay of the shootdown happened on Sept 1st....no one mentioned it (would highlight the blatant silliness of what the public is forcefed by their massa media)
i maybe only one alive who remembers or cares about KAL 007.....i knew immediately it was planned sabatoge (just like 911) and that happened 18 years before (the gop was able to use the shootdown to silence all opposition to huge military spending plans)

[jumptheshadow]

6. I am reading the script on Salon

And it is a hoot! I'm just 33 pages into it and already Nancy has fumed at her toddler daughter for "stepping on her lines" in a GE commercial; faked strangling her in front of an amused stage crew; fired a security guard who watched the Ollie North hearings on TV; made crucial decisions for her addled husband, and is pregnant with Reagan's child before the marriage proposal.

[Darth_Kitten]

7. Camp at it's best!!!!

Why should we, the populace, be DENIED such unbridled FUN!!!???

I fear for us. P.S. Nancy wasn't a V.I.R.G.I.N. at the altar? Is there anything in there about Sinatra calling her a fat ankled has-been? About how even Thatcher the Ice Queen considered Ronnie a flake?

Do dish.

[FlaGranny]

8. You know, it's really funny.

I haven't read the script or anything, but I saw part of an interview with Reagan last night on one of the Discovery channels. It struck me how much more articulate and intelligent he was than the current resident. Now, that's REALLY pathetic.

[LeahMira]

10. Why not?

Why should we, the populace, be DENIED such unbridled FUN!!!???

Indeed!

So the Republicans don't want it shown? Hey... I'm reading Howard Zinn's People's History of the Twentieth Century and here on page 429 it says: "In 1994, a television station in San Francisco initially refused to air Deadly Deception, an Academy Award-winning documentary that exposed the General Electric Corporation's involvement in the nuclear weapons industry. Activists projected the entire film on the side of the television station's building and invited the community to watch."

Hey, now. Isn't the Reagan film going to be on Showtime? Anyone know how to tape it on a VCR? We are a large network here on DU (how many people on? how many states represented?).

Now I have no idea how to tape and my husband... don't ask! But I do great lasagne!

Surely there are some creative ideas out there and people with the technical expertise to carry them off. So... anyone? Ideas? Volunteers? Can we get together some of that unbridled fun here?

[UTUSN]

9. Great BLU Piece - Thanks n/t

[kentuck]

11. How could anyone make a movie about the Reagans and it not be....

unflattering? If they are honest in their portrayal? If they wanted to be dishonest and promulgate the myth, then they must be dishonest by definition. Because Ronald and Nancy were not flattering people.

[BurtWorm]

12. kick