Okay, whats the deal?Is the CBS Reagan Movie good or bad?

[romantico]

I'm confused.Is this just a smear job movie or is any of it factual?I'll watch it, I just want to know what to expect.Heard Bab's on Oprah saying its a true portrayal of Reagan.I don't want this to come back & discredit Dems!

[leftyandproud]

1. factual smear job

;)
All I know is...it makes Reagan and Nancy look bad...and the freepers hate it, so it must be good!

[meegbear]

2. I consider it payback ...

for DC 911.

But I'm sure if a made-for-TV movie about the Clintons put them in a not too favorable light, that would be different.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

3. From what star Judy Davis says...

it sounds like a look at the Ronnie & Nancy that may be a little more illuminating than RWers want.

Judy is good people and I can't image her taking the role if it was a RW masterbation material.

[UTUSN]

4. The Wingnut Yakkers Have Been Frothing for 2 Days

O'WHORELY, DRUDGE, Tony SNOWjob. They keep pulling two supposed quotes-RAYGUN-"never-said" (about Gays deserving AIDS) and Nancy (Anne Frances ROBBINS) being the one to suggest that catsup is a vegetable and stirring up the morans into a frenzy. At first I, too, thought we might be headed to a backlash, but then, what the hey, full steam ahead. As somebody mentioned above, there was that FAKE 9-11 movie, so LET THEM FROTH. DRUDGE said today (who-knows) that Nancy is sending out her flying monkeys, whassisname the creator of Wheel o'Fortune, to pull strings at CBS to get it shelved or modified. If RAYGUN were to die before the airing, well then... In the meantime, there's gonna be a whole lotta Lib bashing going on----like that's something new or different? Let'er RIPPPPPP!!

[Nederland]

5. Haven't seen it

All I've heard is the two pieces of dialog concerning the Hollywood blacklist and AIDs. While these examples are clearly an inaccurate portrayal of Reagan, two pieces of dialog do not make a whole movie. Who knows, perhaps the entire thing is, on balance, accurate.

[loudnclear]

8. It is a movie, afterall...and what was inaccurate about the catsup story?

I remember catsup being counted as a vegetable and at the time Reagan receive a lot of flak about it.

No one ever screamed about any Kenndy movies except for the Kennedy family and those objections were soundly ignored!

Turnabout is fair play. If CBS backs out we may as well admit that our democracy is dead, dead, dead!

[loudnclear]

6. Anything true that diparages Ronnie will discredit Dems..

So what? Can the freepers discredit Dems anymore than they already have? You didn't hear quite a smear campaign when the Kennedy movies hit the screen and many freeps took the movies as gospel...just like many believe that Charleton Heston is a spiriitual man and closely of the character of Moses. It really doesn't matter...the movie should be shown and let the chips fall where they may. Every movie that contains negative innuendo about liberals or Dems is taken as historical fact, even by the media who should know better. Every movie that contains negative innuendo about conservatives is attacked before it's even released. We have alreday lost much of our freedoms thanks to the hypocritical right wing in this country...if CBS doesn't show this movie because of the slime ball attacks it's receiving it will indicate that we have lost another big chunk of our freedoms. All the people I heard on Hannity and Drudge today saying that they were not going to watch this movie will watch it even if it means that they tape it for viewing at a later time. There is just too much known about Reagan's term that was factual and embarrassing and Nancy's control and interference is one of these facts. While the right attacks Hillary for being 'co-President' it completely ignores the real influence of Nancy and her meaness over Ronnie which even Reagans former cabinet members talked about shortly after they left their positions. In Reagan's initial briefing with outgoing President Carter, Carter chronicled how disappointed he was that Reagan seemed to be so detached and disinterested in the issues Carter was briefing him on...to the point that Reagan even seemed to fall asleep during onve of the conversations. The fact is that Reagan was not suited to be President and because of the way our system is set up...it really doesn't matter if a dope is elected President. The dopier and more ill-informed the President is the more the sheeple love him. It enables them to feel a degree of superiority or equality that they cannot enjoy with an intelligent, informed, principled person at the helm. Reagan was a disaster and every bit the international embarrassment that Bush is. Both happened to in place at some critical times. Reagan gets (unwarranted) credit for the downfall of communism when in fact the USSR was imploding on its self because of all the spending on the arms race and the war machine. Soon America will follow the same fate as the USSR...it might take a little longer but a few more "pre-emptive" attacks on other countries and a few more years of the military-industrial complex soaking up our resources and our moral character and it will all come tumbling down.

But i rant. Bottom line: I am going to watch the movie with great anticipation!

[Junkdrawer]

7. If I didn't know better, I'd swear it was a Rovian self-smear...

BTW: That's one of Rove's favorite tricks: pull a last minute dirty trick on yourself so that it look like your opponent has resorted to smear tactics - then play the wounded puppy.

If anyone thinks this Reagan send up will help Democrats, the have another think coming. All it's doing is reenergizing the RW base after the Plame/Rush fiascos.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

9. iot is GOOD..if they are afraid of it ...it has to be truthful!

they are pissed off because striesands hubby is in it and a bunch of other liberals

[UTUSN]

10. Kick for DAMN THE TORPOEDOES, FULL STEAM AHEAD!

[maggrwaggr]

11. Reagan was a puppet and a fool

and it's about time somebody told the truth about him rather than naming airports and highways after him.

Hell, even my DAD, who's the ultimate military right-wing evangelical fundie says Reagan was just a puppet.

[Yupster]

12. Who was he a puppet of?

Not the party, because they worked to keep the nomination away from him. He took over the party from the Ford, Michel group.

[Yupster]

13. I think it will be used for the next twenty years

by Republicans as the incontrovertible evidence that Hollywood is a liberal bunch who make movies to smear conservatives.

If it really has Nancy slapping 5 year old Patti the night he gets elected governor, as is the rumor going around, it will be great ammunition for conservatives everywhere for years. That would be indefensible, as the movie makers would have invented a kid just to make Nancy look like Joan Crawford. Patti was born in 1952 and would have been 14 when her dad got elected governor.

Hopefully that rumor is dead wrong.

I know poetic license is allowd in movies, but I'd argue makers should be careful when dealing with recent historic events. I would say it would be wrong to have Reagan storming around the Oval Office cursing if there was no evidence he ever did that.

Certainly inventing a kid just so the villain could slap her would be really pretty abhorant to me.

No way to know if any of these rumors are true or not though until we see the movie.

[Yupster]

14. True portrayal becuase Babs said it was?

Isn't she kind of on record as hating Reagan's guts.

Wait till they make the Clinton mini-series and Richard Mellon-Scaife promises that the movie is a true portrayal.

[UTUSN]

15. The Wingnuts Are in Full Assault and *Won't* Let Up

The wingnuts continued their onslaught against the movie on Faux Watch, the counterpoint to CNN's "Reliable Sources", among other places. At least they made the point here that only ONE source is being used for ALL of the wingnut frothing heads: The NYT piece by somebody who has read the whole script. Everybody else-----Michael RAYGUN, Peggy NOONER, Tweety, et al., are ALL taking their departure from that ONE source, quoting the AIDS line and such.

We have our answer HERE in this thread: Nobody has raised much heck, except among true believers pro and con, over the 9-11 movie or stuff about the KENNEDYs. That's IT. It's a movie, let'er RIP.

[UTUSN]

16. Link to the ONLY Source Who Has Read the Whole Script

Jim RUTENBERG of the NYT. And this article quotes out of the Edmund MORRIS autobio, "Dutch", where RAYGUN *does* make a biblical reference to AIDS, so what's the problem?

******QUOTE*****

http://www.iht.com/articles/114751.html

.... In "Dutch," Reagan's authorized biography, the author, Edmund Morris, writes that Reagan once said of AIDS, "Maybe the Lord brought down this plague," because "illicit sex is against the Ten Commandments." ....

*****UNQUOTE****

[Imajika]

17. It is just bad all around

The problem here is that over 50% of the country voted for Reagan twice. At the moment, the nation is split roughly 50/50 between Democrats and Republican. Reagan is hero on the right, that means he is a hero to millions upon millions of Republicans.

For CBS to create a Reagan movie that appears to be chock full of actors, actresses, writers, supporting staff and contributors that were opposed to Reagan and everything he stood for is simply begging for controversy.

This movie will cement, for God knows how many further decades, the notion that the networks are biased to the left. It is going to look like a hatchet job to the right. Geeze Barbara Streisands husband? Ofcourse the Reagan lovers are gonna get wound up over something like this.

Can you imagine how we would react if a movie about Jimmy Carter was put together by a staff of conservative writers and contributers like Newt Gingrich, Tony Snow, Dennis Miller, Bo Derek, Bob Dornan, etc, etc, etc.

I mean, come on. If CBS wanted to do this they should have involved people from the left and the right.

Why the hell do they feel the need to make a Reagan movie anyway. I'd rather not see anything on television about Ronald Reagan. Leave biographies like this to the History Channel or A/E where people whom are interested in those things might watch. If nothing else, at least wait till the guy is dead. This will look like a low blow from CBS. It will appear that the network is not only picking on a conservative icon, but one whom some will feel sorry for because of his advanced disease and inability to defend himself.

You know what's gonna happen. This dumb CBS movie will run, and for weeks and months afterwards, the media gasbags on CNN, MSNBC, FOX and elsewhere will bloviate on and on and on and on about how wrong it was for CBS to run this movie, how many factual errors there were, how wonderful and great Ronnie really was, how there really is liberal bias in the media, etc, etc, etc. It will really be sickening.

It is just bad and unfortunate all around. Further, I bet the ratings will suck, and no matter how aggrieved the right wing Reagan worshippers will surely be, they will come out looking better at the end of the day because the likes of Chris Matthews will spend the next 8 years talking about how terrible Hollywood treats conservatives.

Ugh.

Imajika

[UTUSN]

18. Except for the "50-50" Numbers

"Half of the country" didn't vote for RAYGUN. Only the part of ALL of the eligible voters who ACTUALLY VOTE. If everybody eligible would actually vote, there would hardly be ANY Repuke in office anywhere. And the 50-50 division is only among the politically interested people who vote, with the Repuke half being pretty much THEIR WHOLE Repuke population, while our 50 is the tip of the (non-voting) iceberg.

And as for us giving the wingnuts ammunition, heck, they shoot with WHATEVER ammunition they've got, all the time. The answer is, to e-mail Tweety and the rest and drum BACK at them that the 9-11 movie was a LIE, and steal their thunder that way. Also, the other part of the answer is to GO AHEAD with the movie. And I hope it turns into a camp, Mommie Dearest icon.

[OHdem10]

19. Regan is used as apropaganda tool to inspire the base--

and since this is a movie more about his and Nancys Relationship
rather than a historical treatment of his presidency, this makes the native restless . They fear people might learn something about the Regans as people they might not like. There were many stoies which unfavorable about their family relationships even when Regan was President. They were not played 24-7. The Title--THE REgasn--\
gives the clue this not a lot about his running the country and more about the person. GOP taking a preemptive strike and Hollywood is their favorite target. CBS had better not back down.

Does not anyone remember that in his first years as PresidetAids was
not understood. The line in the country was this is a lifestyle
disease. Does no one remember all the marches and protests and fight for INH CDC to do more study. People from the adminstration
stated lifesyle disease. Not necessarily Regan. You had Roberston Falwell and other Moralists saying God "s wrath was on us.
Homosexsuality is an bomination and we are bering punished. There
was no correction or messages sent from the White House for them to shut up. It took a long time for people to understand
Aids. Am I the oldest person on this board.??

Instead of everybody saying Oh we are going to be blamed for years
and the GOP are going be on our case.;'''We shold be standing up for CBS--they are not that stupid as make something absolutely
denigerating. We have to start fighting back instead of assuming
false guilt. Think of all the things tey do and say to abokut Liberals on a daily basis. GOP is being smart--they do not want their base to be led astray by what might be the truth. The are trying to discredit the movie so their base will not be influenced.
The TV Media are Rockefellar Republicans -- they kmnow their bounds.

[Yupster]

20. That's fine if the movie is accuracte

If it has scenes like Nancy hitting her five year old daughter when there wasn't a five year old daughter, then it's indefensible.

None of us wil know if it can be defended or not until we see the movie.

[kayleybeth]

21. The right wing collective conniption fit is backfiring

Most people wouldn't even know about it without all the shouting from the wingers. Most liberals/Dems would not have given a rat's hiney about this mini-series except that the right wingers started having fits about it. All of the publicity will probably do nothing except send the ratings way up.