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Red Dawn There's growing proof that America lost the Cold War.
by Knute Berger
THE RECENT CONTROVERSY over the CBS miniseries about Ronald Reagan brings to the fore the issue of the Gipper's legacy. The reason he deserves to be on Mount Rushmore, it is argued, is that he won the Cold War by out-poker playing the commies. But there's mounting evidence that we in fact lost the Cold War. This past week was rich with signs that life in these United States is starting to mimic life in the former Soviet Union.
First, there's the miniseries brouhaha itself. Rather than air the show about Reagan and First Lady Nancy, the network bowed to right-wing pressure and bounced it to the premium cable network Showtime, presumably because cable watchers are less easily offended by the critical portrayal of Alzheimer's patients. Instead of airing the program and taking the heat of bad reviews, it was repurposed purely because it didn't hew to a particular political line. I have little doubt that the miniseries was lousy and involved gross caricatures of historical figures, but isn't that a miniseries' stock in trade? The cancellation of the network broadcast—our version of state-sanctioned TV—was political, pure and simple.
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