Dear Guys:
As a God-fearing American patriot, I absolutely insist that ABC refuse to air “The Jessica Lynch Story” as it currently plans to do on November 11. Although I haven’t seen it and don’t know what I’m talking about, I can say with confidence that it is wildly inaccurate, insulting, and upsetting to families who have lost loved ones in Iraq, and have loved ones over there continuing to fight the war that ended last May.
The recent interviews with Jessica Lynch have underscored the fact that the US Government cynically and ruthlessly manipulated the facts of both her capture and subsequent rescue. She was built up to be a Rambo-esque hero when others actually did the fighting and dying. And the details of her “rescue” are similarly overblown. To single her out purely to give Americans a heroine in order to bolster support for Iraq is a travesty, and ABC is aiding and abetting in this government-based fraud…a fraud seized upon and perpetuated by the noted conservative media that has fallen in line behind the White House since the war began.
I do not believe for one moment–and I know my conservative friends, if I had any, would back me up on this–that the viewing public should be able to make up their own minds on this topic. I know what’s best. They don’t. And what’s best is that this PR scandal be terminated before it is allowed to air.
Instead, I recommend that ABC air a repeat of “Almost Golden: The Jessica Savitch Story,” the docudrama in which America’s first anchorwoman is portrayed as an alcoholic cokehead, which was no doubt most upsetting to her family, but they were probably liberals, so who gives a dámņ? The important thing is, it’s a biopic about a woman named Jessica, so it’s close enough. Failing that, you could run “Up Close and Personal,” which also tells the story of Jessica Savitch, but is a romantic comedy and nicely whitewashes all tragedy from her life.
Either way, I insist that you pull the Jessica Lynch biopic immediately. Until you do, I shall boycott the letters A, B and C, starting right now.
Sinerely,
Peter Dvid
• 
During the football game I was watching on CBS, I heard countless promos for 60 Minutes (immediately after the game except on the West Coast, I believe they mentioned once or twice) as follows: “Maybe Jessica Lynch wasn’t really a hero, but the soldiers who rescued her sure are.” Oh and by the way, watch our Elizabeth Smart movie. There’s nothing else on about vicitmized blond women at that time, so just keep it turned here to CBS! — anyway, 3rd and 6 at the Dallas 35…
Bill M. says:
But PAD said that liberals would never do the sort of censoring that conservatives do…are you saying he’s wrong?
Where’d he say that? Because at the bottom of the other Reagans thread (around post 112), Peter says that liberals are just (and possibly more) prone to censorship as conservatives. I don’t know where you’re getting your information from, but you’re completely mistaken or deliberatley lying. Peter’s stance on censorship — liberal or conservative — has been pretty consistent for as long as I’ve been reading his columns and whatnot.
As for the rest.. wtf? Give the voices in your head the night off — they’ve been working overtime today.
I think Bill M. was echoing Groucho Marx’s rationale for going to war in DUCK SOUP.
eddie
But you don’t. Because other people don’t trust you to, so they decided for you.
The network decided to put it on SHOWTIME, not to burn the prints and execute the filmmakers, for God’s sake. That’s not censorship, it’s editorial judgment.
Some of the soldiers that rescued Jessica have died.
Josh Speer
http://charleston.net/stories/070803/sta_08marine.shtml
David M. Tapper
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/front/6599715.htm
Kyle Williams
http://www.fox11az.com/news/local/stories/KMSB_local_vehicle_100303.2401f6a.html
Sok Khak Ung
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/US/West/10/22/iraq.marine.ap
And interesting enough Jessica’s brother is getting sent to Iraq.
http://www.newsandsentinel.com/news/story/117202003_new02_Greg.asp
Life sure is stranger than fiction.
Now my question is, did anyone reading this thread watch the Jessica Lynch movie? I was at work and made darn sure my work was done in time to spend an hour watching Alias.
Where did Jennifer Garner learn to use those sais? : )
PAD Wrote:
Yeah, I knew NBC was airing the movie while ABC was airing the interview. But there’s no NB or C in my name and I wanted the signature gag. That’s why I wrote “I don’t know what I’m talking about.” Maybe irony really is dead.’
Maybe you’re way too clever for your own good?
PAD wrote:
Why you–why ANYONE–would be cool with that is a mystery.
The mystery seems to be why you’re so willing to defend this TV movie’s content as if it were all true and that it matters little if it’s packed with numerous falsehoods. I guess it’s a-okay to spread misleading/false information, especially against the GOP.
No one’s defending the content. It may be true, it may not be — the same as any other crappy made-for-TV-movie (particularly the President Flightsuit telemovie that aired a few months ago…)
The point is, it got squelched becuase the GOP had the network running scared. And that’s not a good precdent to set in a society that values freedom of speech.
Rob
Re: Regans
Folks, it’s a crap mini series. Really, you can argue censorship (which, it isn’t),inaccuracies, or left wing/right wing propeganda- but it you come right down to it, it’s three- four nights of incredibly bad overacting that I don’t have to be subjected to.
That’s not censorship, that’s a mercy killing.
The revelation about the truth behind Jessica Lynch caused quite a stir here in Britain. Just to be clear, nobody blamed the poor woman. But it fueled the discussion about the “war on terror” and added to the very bad impression the USA already left with many people in Europe. Reports about Guananamo Bay are shown here quite regularly and many said, now this was revealed, what will be next? My husband said, if they find something now in Iraq many people will wonder if the USA hasn`t simply planted it there. I agree.
I don`t know if it would be a good idea to show this report. If it is just the propaganda story with no clarification and no accompanying discussion, I agree that this is definitely not a good idea to show it, especially if the truth is not widely known in the USA.
On the other hand, showing this report might finally get people to look more critically at what the US government is telling people about the “war against terror”. But that is only possible if US citizens in general know the full story, meaning that the news, papers etc. are honest and that the highly valued “freedom of speech” also applies to what is going on in Iraq in the USA. Unfortunately, when I learned that native reporters in Iraq were arrested when they printed critical articles about the US soldiers in their country, I have serious doubts that this is the case.
I doubt it that this channel will stop broadcasting this report. What I am hoping for is that this broadcast will cause the outrage it should and that people finally wake up to what is going on. I am sure, it would have that effect here in Britain. I can only hope that US citizens in general are critical and informed enough to do so as well. Although if most of them think like one of my US friends does, who still passionately defends the war in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, there is not much hope I can have.
Until you do, I shall boycott the letters A, B and C, starting right now.
Well, there goes the Alias reviews…How can you boycott after what happened to Sid last night??
“y’know, who in their right mind would want to *give up* rights?” PAD
Funny thats the reason I DON”T vote for Democrats. I like my right to bare arms
“But I also agree that she did put her life on the line in Iraq, and nearly paid the price.”
At the risk of sounding unduly callous, soldiers do that. If it’s a problem, then maybe she shouldn’t have signed up. Good grief, firemen who die on duty get less press time than she did.
“But most of the news stories I’ve read about the protests include what they claim are direct quotes from the movie and scene descriptions. These people certainly do know what they’re talking about, unless …”
Early in the production of the X-MEN movie, it was reported that the director had decided to give the characters sidearms and chop their powers back because as written in the comics, they were too powerful for any film to hold interest. So, did they see a different script or did the director decide he was wrong and changed things in mid stream? In other words, just because someome claims to know what’s in a film doesn’t necessarily make it so.
“Since I never sign my name “Peter Allen David,” writing “Peter Alle David” would’ve just looked strange rather than funny.”
Quite so.
“The answer to speech you don’t like is always more free speech, and the legal remedies available when that speech is abused.”
Agree wholeheartedly … in principle. The trouble is, when one side (the movie makers/media) have a nuclear-powered megaphone (and rafts of high-price lawyers to back it up) and you’re limited to a hoarse whisper, guess whose ‘truth’ most people will remember?
“From everything she’s saying, the writers did not research anything and just basically threw a movie together about the Reagens(sic).”
I think I’ll skip the whole mess and go back and re-watch the fall-down funny SPITTING IMAGE satire episode “THE RONNIE AND NANCY SHOW”.
“Ideally, you should get to decide for yourself.
But you don’t. Because other people don’t trust you to, so they decided for you.
Why you–why ANYONE–would be cool with that is a mystery.”
No it isn’t. G.B. Shaw said it best literally a century ago. “Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.” So they’d rather let someone else do their thinking for them.
Funny thats the reason I DON”T vote for Democrats. I like my right to bare arms
They can take our lives, but they’ll never take away our right to short-sleeves!
This movie is a product. Just like if McDonalds said they were going to make all their McNuggets out of cats starting in January people would protest their product. Without having even tasted the McNugget people would boycott, write letters, and threaten to no longer do business with McDonalds or any company they are associated with. McDonald’s, if they were smart, would bow to the pressure and reconsider.
I’m sorry, but there is a huge difference between freedom of expression and the right to eat processed meatlike substances. (Cat at least being step up from whatever is currently in McNuggets).
I’ll say it again: The GOP decided that I was too stupid to decide for myself whether the movie was accurate. And, yes, they are still trying to block Showtime from airing it. http://www.boycottcbs.com/news.html
I’m not going to defend the content of the movie. I can’t. I haven’t seen it. Funny how Bill O’Reilly has spent months urging people not to judge Mel Gibson’s Passion until they saw it, yet intimated that CBS would have to pay a “high price” if it aired the Reagan movie.
So next is the drive to force Showtime to drop it, too. Well, if the RNC doesn’t think I’m intelligent enough to separate fact from fiction without their protection, all I have to say is “F–k the RNC!!”
Where’d he say that? Because at the bottom of the other Reagans thread (around post 112), Peter says that liberals are just (and possibly more) prone to censorship as conservatives. I don’t know where you’re getting your information from, but you’re completely mistaken or deliberatley lying.
Well, old spot, there’s the alternate explanation of my having read the following line from PAD, available to anyone who knows how to hit the down arow key:
“It’s not just that it’s about Reagan. I’d have just as much contempt for them if they bagged a Clinton/Lewinsky biopic because liberals squawked (which, by the way, we all know they wouldn’t.)”
Do you actually READ this blog? You really should, because PAD is a great writer and very thought provoking, even if one doesn’t always agree with the thoughts thus provoked.
As for the rest of the post…sorry if you didn’t find it amusing. Can’t win ’em all. I was trying to imitate the kind of zany thinking that takes basic facts (the Patriot Act now allows the government to tap your phone with somewhat greater ease than they could have done a few years earlier, though by no means was it difficult to do then) and extrapolate this to mean that Bush=Hitler, AmeriKKKa wants to blow up the world, Jews control AmeriKKKA and the world, (but why do they then want to blow up the world they control? one might think but that’s just the sort of midwest consumer culture slave to industry confederate flag decal wearing attitude one might expect from a people weaned on conservative radio hate spewing Faux News channel hate all people of color Big Media.
Also, rent DUCK SOUP. No really. Probably the best work the Marx Bros ever did (predictably, it bombed).
You know, I don’t much like the Dems or the GOP. I think both of them have any good points far outweighed by the bad ones. However, I would have to agree that, while the Dems want to take away the second amendment and parts of the first (oh god, don’t say handicapped, say ‘differently abled’ you sick jerk!), the GOP wants to get rid of a lot more (i.e. everything in the Constitution except the second amendment).
This is incredibly stupid, because the conservatives are supposed to be all about individual rights, and the liberals are supposed to be all about equality, which you can’t really have without certain rights.
Go politics!
As Ms B. Haedrill (sp?) said, this doesnt do much for the impression of the USA that other countries of the world get, but just a mention of an experience I had when i returned to the US after a year’s absence in summer 2002.
i got off the plane at Miami airport, we had to walk through a foot-and-mouth-disease sponge, then we got to customs and security was tight (as always) and aside from the fact that all the staff were wearing little american flag badges nothing seemed all that different until I got into the flamingo car park and did not see a car in sight without an american flag sticker on it. ‘okay’ thought I, ‘this is just a solidarity thing, fair enough things arent that different’ i get in the car, head north for 2 hours on I-95 and on the way count no less than 273 (I kept a tally) bumper/window stickers depicting calvin (of calvin & hobbes fame) peeing on the words ‘Bin Laden’, ‘al -Quaeda’ (or variations of that spelling) or something like that. This time i go, ‘Okay, uhm, well people are pìššëd – they will be after everything’ then i get into my home neighbouhood and see flags over door, on mailboxes, in the street, hanging from roofs, in windows, everywhere basically. i didnt know what to think about that, then i go into the house, sleep for a bit then turn on the tv. it was then that i realized that the country i’d come home to wasnt the one i’d left 11 months previously. the whole pulse of the nation had gone from a steady, intuitive beat that made room for more diversity and political freedom that i’d ever known to a heavy, determined throb that was bent on beating down any opposition, be it at the cost of lives, relations and freedoms, even of its own people. I went out to publix and saw that people watched each other more, smiled less and moved faster than they had before. and in thousands of little and large ways i realized that if the war on terror is the right way to go or not, the happy-go-lucky nature of the people that i used to see isnt there anymore. the whole of america changed and i wasnt there to see it. now i realize that if i had been, i likely would behave the same way, and have that same change in me. but i dont. it sounds like total hyperbole and complete over kill but standing in my local grocery i felt like someone who’s woken up from a cryogenic chamber and come home to find that everything’s the same, but so different they can’t understand how it got that way.
its strange is all, this j lynch thing is an extension of this new attitude to living life that i saw that summer. i wonder if things will ever go back to the way they were?
sna (scotland)
\\The GOP decided that I was too stupid to decide for myself whether the movie was accurate. And, yes, they are still trying to block Showtime from airing it. http://www.boycottcbs.com/news.html
\\
The GOP decided nothing; it was CBS/Viacom that made the decision to air or not to air or, as they did decide, to air on SHOWTIME. Lies make baby Jesus cry, so stop lying, you lying liar who lies.
As for efforts to convince SHOWTIME not to air THE REAGANS, so what? Are you saying that individuals’ rights to freedom of expression do not include the right to ask a broadcaster not to air something?
You know what would really be impressive (as opposed to all of this impotent howling and fist-shaking)? If all you people who are so gød-dámņëd pìššëd øff about this subscribed to SHOWTIME just before the movie aired and cancelled your subscriptions right after. At least you’d be doing something other than slapping each other on the back about how very very brave you are for daring to speak out on a little-known weblog about the airing of a mediocre TV movie, for God’s sake.
The GOP decided nothing; it was CBS/Viacom that made the decision to air or not to air or, as they did decide, to air on SHOWTIME. Lies make baby Jesus cry, so stop lying, you lying liar who lies.
CBS/Viacom knuckled under to pressure exerted by a campaign organized and financed by the RNC, “Anonymous.” Try having the stones to back your name calling with your real name and email address. I’d be upset at being called a liar, but your lie was so transparent, it’s laughable.
Minds which think alike and all that. Here.
CBS/Viacom knuckled under to pressure exerted by a campaign organized and financed by the RNC,”
The revisionism continues as know one wants to mentione the grass roots movement of the People getting involved.
If anyone else was involved this was would have been a great victory for the people against BIG CORPORATE MEDIA!!!!!!!
But not this case because the people do not matter.
This is how they told me to spin this at the right-wing conspiracy meeting anyway.
Apologies. The long link I posted appears to have rather messed things up. Unfortunately, there is no “undo” or “delete” function I can use to correct it.
My main problem with The Reagans miniseries was that it offended me — not as a liberal or a conservative — but as a journalist. It just seems rather libelous. I certainly couldn’t make a Peter David miniseries in which I had David saying things I think he might say but in fact are horribly offensive and would defame him. The first amendment does not protect outright falsehoods.
(You could have a miniseries in which LBJ refers to blacks as “ņìggërš” because there’s no denying that he did that — it’s a fact. You couldn’t have a miniseries with Clinton referring to blacks as “ņìggërš” because there’s no evidence of it and such an implication would blacken — no pun intended — his name.)
That’s probably why CBS caved. It feared legal action (money is the root cause of everything). I recall when Harlan Ellison almost bolted from the Sci-Fi channel (he was doing commentaries for them) because USA (which owned Sci-Fi) had some goofy ášš movie in which Robert Kennedy was present at Marilyn Monroe’s deathbed — essentially implying he had something to do with her death.
This is nothing like making a movie about the Clinton/Lewinksy relationship or even the Allen/Soon-Yi thing because neither parties *deny* what happened. You can fictionalize what was said but the general facts are undeniable by both parties.
And I’m sorry to see so many people involved in a Shirts vs. Skins approach to politics. It’s a little more complex than that. I mean, I assume Mr. David says that “why would anyone want to give up rights” with a straight face when he compares liberals to conservatives (he himself supports limiting the second amendment, which might be a very good thing but it *is* a limiting of a Constitutional right — you can’t deny that; hate crime legislation — essentially a thought crime — also emanates from the left).
The problem with the shirts and skins approach is that it keeps the politicians in business, pitting “us” against “them” while your rights are merrily stripped away — usually by the people you support, be you conservative or liberal.
Just stop and think for a moment — again, be you conservative or liberal — if your worldview is just *too* simple, if you view your political party as the Justice League and the other guys as the Legion of Doom, maybe there’s a problem. And these guys — who despite the rhetoric are often pretty friendly toward each other in closed doors, in fact more so than people on this board from opposite political backgrounds — are laughing at you.
Isn’t it interesting that in all the coverage of the cancelling of the Reagan biopic no one has asked the real question? Namely, who really cancelled this?
Surely this whole dustup would have made for much better ratings. Doesn’t it make more sense for the series to have been killed by Viacom (who owns CBS)? After all, they are the ones who currently need regulatory favors from Congress to help with their Interactive TV. And by my judgement, having one of their companies air something critical of Reagan would not please the current leanings of Congress.
Just another thing to throw into the debate.
I’ll give a similar example here.
I’m a Mormon. I do not live in Utah – I’m orginally from Alaska, now in Texas at Graduate school.
There was a movie on TNT several years ago called the Avenging Angel. As far as an action western goes, it was fairly typical. As far as HISTORY, it was mostly lies and distortions about how the Church in Utah acted back during Pioneer days. The Danites (secret police that killed bad mormons) were largely an invention of the sensationalistic press at the time. Legitimate historians know that there were no officially sanctioned Danites in Utah (there was an unofficial group of Danites that were all excommunicated in Ohio, but that was before Utah).
Again, a recent book “Under the Banner of Heaven” also is a lot of distortion about how the Mormon church acts – it takes a guy with serious problems and tries to paint him as typical of the church as a whole.
So, did the Church argue that TNT not show the movie, or that the boosk shouldn’t be published? No – they released a review of the book (a version of which can be found here at an unoffical mormon webpage: http://www.fairlds.org/pubs/Krakauer.pdf ) and have a spokesman make a few comments on the movie – but there was no attempt to get the movie or book cancelled or removed or rewritten to be more “balanced.” Sure, they were unfair hatchet jobs – but as PAD said earlier, the best way to fight free speech is with more free speech, not prior restraint or censorhip.
FWIW.
Surely this whole dustup would have made for much better ratings.
Not really. With the controversy around this project, it would have driven a lot of people away from viewing. If it were just a negative pic, it would have been one thing. But the lies and distortions in the film content turned alot of people away. Heck, if Les Moonves had stood behind the product, it would have had a better chance. This is the time where the networks want people to watch, not air something that turns away a large part of the potential audience.
For someone who so creatively structured together the wonderfully brilliant mind exercise that was the novel “Q Squared”, the explanation given as to why Sunday’s movie on NBC is trying to be mixed up with this Tuesday’s ABC news interview just doesn’t make any sense. You may attempt to define it as “irony”, but the attempted analogy really doesn’t work. Would’ve worked if the focus was on Sunday’s NBC movie, but trying to draw a connection with Tuesday’s interview conducted by Diane Sawyer makes about as much sense as Gary Larson’s infamous “Cow Tools” Far Side cartoon.
PAD,
Do you really have no conservative friends?
I guess that would explain a lot…
Peter,
Your irrational hatred of conservatives in general and republicans in particular is a shame. I’ve been reading your postings for some time now and know that you read libreal slanted books, but do you ever read anything written by a conservative apologist? At least to understand the other side better? Do you have any good friends who have a different, more conservative, world view than you? It seems that you see your political views as the “side of the righteous”, and anyone who has a different perspective is a devil. I know liberals pride themselves on “Diversity”, well how about diversity of thought? In most of your attacks on the GOP you take the weakest argument they could possibly offer, you rebutt it, and then tout how stupid the GOP is. Well, that takes absolutely no brain power at all. You should rethink all this distain you have for people you disagree with. Be more open minded.
Sigh
No wonder PAD doesn’t have any conservative friends. But then again people who talk with their tongues planted firmly in their cheeks are often misunderstood. Right PAD?
I’m not your friend, and aside from the color of the sky, we’ll probably never agree on anything, but this conservative still likes you, Peter.
Surely it is not because this forgotten person is black and Jessica is white and blonde?
Actually, no. I’m certain that this is not the case.
I think it’s because one can be called a “babe” and I was never tempted to call the other such. It’s pure aesthetic crap. It’s shallow. It’s horrible. It’s not neccessarily racist.
CJA
I knew it was DUCK SOUP! Whoo-hoo! (just adding some positivity to the proceedings)
eddie
Just thought all of you’d like to know… you can read the original shooting script of “The Reagans” here at http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/11/07/reagans_script/index_np.html . Now we can all have a look at it, instead of talking about could-bes and what-may-haves. You will either have to subscribe to Salon.com, or sit through a brief ad to get a ‘day pass’ to read the whole script, but I think most people here would be willing to do one or the other.
That the shooting script has been released in no way validates the argument that “there’s nothing to complain about, because now everybody has access to it, and all you free-speechers out there have your free speech.” As anyone who’s read the shooting script for, say, “Star Wars,” and compared it to the film can attest, a script cannot make up for the lack of the movie.
tOjb
could not agree with you more david! way to go, you tell ’em! You are the bravest man I have ever known! You have the guts to admit you have no idea what you are talking about! That is rare!
Bill & I had the following exchange:
>>Me: Where’d he say that? Because at the bottom of the other Reagans thread (around post 112), Peter says that liberals are just (and possibly more) prone to censorship as conservatives. I don’t know where you’re getting your information from, but you’re completely mistaken or deliberatley lying. <<
>>Bill: Well, old spot, there’s the alternate explanation of my having read the following line from PAD, available to anyone who knows how to hit the down arow key:
“It’s not just that it’s about Reagan. I’d have just as much contempt for them if they bagged a Clinton/Lewinsky biopic because liberals squawked (which, by the way, we all know they wouldn’t.)”<<
Ah, I see — I interpreted the second “they” pronoun differently than you did. I assumed “they” meant the networks, who would never bag a Clinton/Lewinski mini due to liberal squawking. I’m guessing you took the “they” to mean liberals, reading that they’d never squawk at the C/L mini?
Personally, I can see liberals squawking over the C/L miniseries, but not being as effective in getting it pulled — in part because of the lesser sway they hold on society right now, but mostly because I can’t see any network pulling something with those salacious Oral Office details.
As for the Duck Soup bit, I apologize. I was grumpy when I wrote that. I have seen Duck Soup, but it’s been a while and I just didn’t get the reference.
Rob
“The first time I saw that dámņëd ad for the movie, I was literally enraged. We’re talking seriously pìššëd øff here, folks. The thought that there is a group of people out there who have the incredible nerve to make a MOVIE about some bìŧçh whose ever-so-important supply truck full of extra sporks managed to take a wrong turn sickens me. The American flag waving in slow motion makes me want to burn down the homes of the idiots associated with this film.”
How does the fact that the media is overblowing her story make Ms. Lynch “some bìŧçh?” The animosity being displayed toward someone who was over there simply doing her job and probably got raped for it is ridiculous. If you don’t like it, turn off the dámņëd TV, but what’s the point of slinging barbs at someone you’ve never met and has done nothing to you personally?
Rob says:
Ah, I see — I interpreted the second “they” pronoun differently than you did. I assumed “they” meant the networks, who would never bag a Clinton/Lewinski mini due to liberal squawking. I’m guessing you took the “they” to mean liberals, reading that they’d never squawk at the C/L mini?
And let that be a lesson to me–it didn’t even occur to me but yours is actually the more likely interpretation.
So in the words of Emily Latilla…”Never mind.”
Well, old spot, there’s the alternate explanation of my having read the following line from PAD, available to anyone who knows how to hit the down arow key:
“It’s not just that it’s about Reagan. I’d have just as much contempt for them if they bagged a Clinton/Lewinsky biopic because liberals squawked (which, by the way, we all know they wouldn’t.)”
Well, old bean, since I’ve said repeatedly in the past that many liberals are just as pro-censorship as conservatives, you might have taken that knowledge with you and read the sentence as it was intended: “We all know they wouldn’t,” in repeating the “they,” referred to the network, not liberals. I said that they, the network, would not pull a Clinton/Lewinsky film if liberals squawked, because the networks aren’t afraid of liberals.
The conservative GOP, on the other hand, which controls the regulatory commissions that oversee the networks…those guys the networks *are* afraid of.
Pronoun trouble, obviously.
PAD
I liked this letter somebody wrote to salon:
Quote
“The thing about bad guys is they don’t know they’re bad. They have wives and children who love them. Ronald Reagan was a bad guy. He needs to be exposed as the homophobic bášŧárd he was. I don’t care what his daughter thinks of him. My friends are dead and he made sure they died helpless and alone.”
I have just watched a report within the British news about a coming interview with Jessica Lynch on US TV. I don`t know if it will be the same as the broadcast PAD brought to our attention.
She said that she is no hero, that her story had been told inaccurately and that she will tell the truth. Ms. Lynch is still recovering from her injuries and was shown using two crutches.
I hope that this is a good sign.
Pronoun trouble, obviously.
Which is why I end up with my bill shot clear around to the other side of my head.
Ronald Reagan was a bad guy. He needs to be exposed as the homophobic bášŧárd he was. I don’t care what his daughter thinks of him. My friends are dead and he made sure they died helpless and alone.”
I think Reagan should have said and done more for AIDS victims but, as someone who was working in bioresearch during the time in question, this is malarkey. The idea that the president withheld his preternatural superpowers that could have wiped this scourge from the land is goofy. at the time I recall an active campaign by radical gay activists against some researchers–even claims that the whole thing was a false conspiracy to close down the bathhouses (Watch AND THE BAND PLAYED ON, no Reagan lovefest to be sure).
I remember one scientist bìŧçhìņg that if he had to do it all over again he would have worked on diabetes instead, since he never saw diabetics accusing him of complicity in murder.
If this guys friends died alone who’s fault is that? Projection, much?
This is sort of off-topic, but look at the pic for which I put the link.
http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/afp/20031111/capt.sge.dko01.111103092947.photo00.default-384×269.jpg
I wonder who’s the ventriloquist and who’s the dummy.
JHL
Here’s some non-existant liberal censorship:
http://volokh.com/2003_11_02_volokh_archive.html#106815421701296358
http://volokh.com/2003_11_09_volokh_archive.html#106838923188892259
http://volokh.com/2003_11_02_volokh_archive.html#106823101741816697
“Ronald Reagan was a bad guy. He needs to be exposed as the homophobic bášŧárd he was. I don’t care what his daughter thinks of him. My friends are dead and he made sure they died helpless and alone.”
Yeah, if they had only instituted quarintines during his presidential term maybe this all could have been wiped out years ago, just like every other major disease before it.
“Ronald Reagan was a bad guy. He needs to be exposed as the homophobic bášŧárd he was.“
By this logic, I’m a bad guy. Except that I’m not a bášŧárd.
Worse, I’m one of the best guys you’ll ever meet. My codes of honor and ethics prvent me from kicking the šhìŧ out of people weaker than me. Hëll, they motivate me to defend those weaker than me.
Anyway… my point… I still think it’s extreme to assume someone’s a bad guy for not assuming that homosexuality is as normal as apple pie.
CJA
Liberals have no sway and no one is afraid of them?
here’s proof they have some sway and are just as interested in censorship as conservatives are:
http://www.nationalreview.com/derbyshire/derbyshire200310300759.asp
excerpt here:
Bear in mind here that I was coming to this college to talk about analytic number theory, not homosexuality or “straight flight.” It was not the topic of my address that bothered the lady, but my opinions about unrelated matters. Her position was not: “Mr. Derbyshire is coming here to voice unacceptable opinions.” (A position that would be deplorable enough in itself. As if the minds of Midwestern liberal-arts students are so delicate they need to be shielded from dangerous ideas!) Her position was: “Mr. Derbyshire holds some opinions I consider extreme, and so I do not want him on my campus at all, in any capacity.” She would presumably object to me being hired as a janitor on her campus, because of my opinions.
My point is that perhaps the liberals should be a little more organized and counter things like this if they hate it so much.
Yes, that was called “the Civil Rights movement.”
The left has been using that as justification for moral supremacy for 40 years. It’s expired. Especially since an evil demagogue like Al “Get the blood-sucking Jews out” Sharpton can run for president from there.
Of more recent vintage, it’s starting to happen again. What do you think the flood of liberal-slanted books hitting the stores is right now but a countermeasure and response to the barrage of “liberals and the Clintons are responsible for everything that’s wrong” that has been pouring through every outlet in the supposedly liberal media.
Liberals became self-satisfied and arrogant, certain the country would never swing to the right because, y’know, who in their right mind would want to *give up* rights? They paid the price as the country put the GOP in charge and now everything from free speech to right to trial to protections against search and seizure to a woman’s right to choose is under fire.
You forgot the part about conservatives eating babies raw.
What actually happened was that McGovern and Eugene McCarthy let the leftists that Truman had purged back into the party. Most of the country doesn’t share their beliefs, esp. about national security. The attitude towards the South, parodied by The Daily Show as “put down your shotgun, get off your cousin, and vote for me” (for Howard Dean) doesn’t help. Even a liberal like novelist Roger Simon, who campaigned for McGovern, is going to vote for Bush:
http://rogerlsimon.com/archives/00000469.htm
And the GOP, learning *nothing* from history, have allowed themselves to become nastier and even more arrogant than liberals. It hasn’t occurred to them that, in time, they will in turn pay the same price.
Just a matter of time.
It’s been 30 years since Nixon beat McGovern. Since then, the only Democratic presidents have been Carter, who barely won even after Watergate, and Clinton, who ran as a centrist when foreign policy had receded after the end of the cold war. Did you notice who won the governorships last week? Mickey Kaus called this kind of thinking a “liberal cocoon”, like the LA Times readers who were convinced that Gray Davis would win. Mark Steyn has more:
http://www.instapundit.com/archives/012410.php
The revelation about the truth behind Jessica Lynch caused quite a stir here in Britain. Just to be clear, nobody blamed the poor woman. But it fueled the discussion about the “war on terror” and added to the very bad impression the USA already left with many people in Europe.
You mean the nonsense about special forces soldiers using blanks? That’s been disproven. Are going to claim her rape allegation is a lie?
Reports about Guananamo Bay are shown here quite regularly and many said, now this was revealed, what will be next? My husband said, if they find something now in Iraq many people will wonder if the USA hasn`t simply planted it there. I agree.
Funny how no one in Europe minds the dissidents in Cuba who got sentences of up to 28 years.
To quote Conrad of Gweilo Diaries, “Sometimes I get worried about the legal precedent in Guatanamo. Then I remember what people like that did to Danny Pearl, and I realize i don’t give a f**k.
Unfortunately, when I learned that native reporters in Iraq were arrested when they printed critical articles about the US soldiers in their country, I have serious doubts that this is the case.
Didn’t happen. A newspaper was shut down when it printed articles inciting violence.