Conservatives protecting one of their own
By Bob Schneider
CNN
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Actor James Brolin poses as President Ronald Reagan on the set of CBS' "The Reagans." The mini-series will now only air on the Showtime cable network.
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Some political figures create a cause. The cause endures and influences events long after the politician has left the scene.
That's what happened in this week's political Play of the Week.
On October 21, The New York Times reported details of the script of a CBS miniseries about the Reagans scheduled for broadcast in November.
The portrayal was unflattering. The following is an excerpt from "The Reagans" script:
Fictional Ronald Reagan: "We can't sell weapons to Iran. They're a terrorist country, and we're supporting Iraq."
Other man: "Believe me, sir, all we're doing is opening up communications."
Fictional Ronald Reagan: "Open them up."
(Other man winks.)
Conservatives' antennae immediately went up. No one from the Reagan family or the Reagan administration was involved in the project. There is no record that the president -- or the first lady -- said some of the things in the original script.
For example, the script had the fictional Nancy Reagan saying, "From now on, you don't just call the president to tell him what's happening. You call me!"
"We had plenty to go on to know that this was a biased hit piece, a smear, if you will, from the left," said policy consultant Michael Paranzino, who started a Web site
"I launched it on a Sunday," Paranzino said. "By Monday night, I was getting, 10, 12 e-mails a minute, and I've never seen anything like that."
The Republican Party started a petition drive demanding that CBS appoint a team of experts to vet the film for accuracy -- or else constantly remind viewers that the story was fictionalized, something CBS acknowledged from the start.
"It smells of intimidation to me," Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-South Dakota, said Tuesday.
It worked. CBS pulled the broadcast, after suddenly discovering that the final product, "does not present a balanced portrayal of the Reagans."
But fictionalized stories about the Kennedys, for example, have never elicited the same level of protest. Why did it happen with Reagan?
"He's so important to that conservative movement. Kennedy isn't. He's not important to ... any movement in particular. He's important to the country," Robert Dallek, author, "An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963," said.
When a cause believes its leader has come under unfair attack by its enemies -- Hollywood, liberals, the media -- it rises to his defense. And in this case it achieves the political Play of the Week.
James Brolin, the husband of well-known liberal activist Barbara Streisand, played Reagan. In fact the creators of the project were liberals.
Now liberals and artists are angry at CBS for caving into conservative pressure.
They're asking, did this have something to do with the fact that CBS's parent company, Viacom, has important business interests it's pursuing in Washington, D.C.?
