Treason Online - Anything for Fame or Money: 11/02/2003

11.06.2003

Ann Coulter Goes to the Movies Don't read this if you like Ann Coulter.

Don't read this if you want to believe Ann Coulter gets her facts straight.

The other night I was enlisted to appear on MSNBC's Hardball to discuss the controversy over the CBS miniseries on Ronald and Nancy Reagan. On the other side was Coulter, the over-the-top-and-over-the-edge conservative author whose latest book literally brands all liberals as treasonous. Conservatives and Republicans have howled that the Reagan movie was a travesty, complaining it portrays Reagan as out of it in the White House and callous toward AIDS victims. On air, I noted that since the movie, as far as I could tell, does not detail how Reagan had cozied up to the apartheid regime of South Africa, the murderous dictator of Chile, and the death-squad-enabling government of El Salvador, it indeed has a problem with accuracy. But the miniseries' true sin seems to be its schlockiness. The available clips make it look like Dynasty meets Mommie Dearest set in the White House.

Coulter started more restrained than usual, though she predictably bashed Hollywood liberals for trying to undermine the historical standing of a president they despised by resorting to trashy revisionism. Perhaps she even had a point. Who could tell what the producers were aiming at? But then she jumped the tracks. She claimed that the movie Patton was made by Holly-libs with "hatred in their hearts" for George S. Patton, the brilliant but erratic World War II general. These filmmakers "intended to make Patton look terrible," she maintained, but because they produced an accurate work, the movie ended up making "Patton look great and people loved him."

Was Patton a left-wing Hollywood conspiracy that backfired? Host Chris Matthews immediately challenged her in his subtle fashion: "You are dead wrong." He pushed her for proof, and she replied, "That is why George C. Scott turned down his Academy Award for playing Patton." Coulter was suggesting that Scott had spurned his Oscar because the filmmakers plan to destroy Patton's image by portraying the general "as negatively as possible" had gone awry.

Matthews wasn't buying. "Who told you that, who told you that?" he shouted. Her Oracle-like response: "It is well known." She added, "Why did you think he turned down the award, Chris? You never looked that up? It never occurred to you?"

Matthews retorted, "Because he said he wasn't going to a meat parade, because he didn't believe in award ceremonies." And Matthews was right. Following the show, I took Coulter's advice and did look it up. I found a 1999 obituary of Scott that noted he had stunned Hollywood in 1971 for being the first person ever to refuse an Academy Award. He had explained his action by slamming such awards as "demeaning" and he had dismissed the Oscar ceremony as a "two-hour meat parade." (Matthews receives extra points for getting this quote correct.) Coulter had twisted this well-documented episode into yet more proof that liberals--especially those in Hollywood--are conspiratorial traitors.

After I described this exchange to someone who once worked with her, he said, "That's Ann. She lives in her own world and she just makes things up." This interlude concerned a small matter. (Who knew we would be debating one of my favorite movies?) But this minor dustup provided evidence to support a serious charge. As Matthews remarked while wrapping up the segment, "Facts mean nothing to you, Ann." If so, why continue to have her on?

Cruise the Cosmos with the League of Liberals
Harmonic Concordance tomorrow night. - Indigo Ocean _ does that mean we all will vote this week?
Veralynne at A-Changin' Times is in Concordance too but not with Bloodthirsty Christians.
Christmas a week after Halloween? our Philosophical Scrivner wants to be British
A TTLB cartoon at Gotham City and another take on Hillbilly Heroin Rush
The author of The People's Republic of Seabrook and I share more than the same white beards, cats, and politics _ we have the same sunsign
This job "creation" chart from the 18 1/2 Minute Gap will make you wish you could Hitchhike the Galaxy
Officially unofficial is in the poppy fields of OZ looking at the tollbooths on the information superhighway
More cyberspace travel will come later _ Enjoy your trip around our cosmos.
Please Welcome Kevin and The Gunther Concept to the League of Liberals. Like The People's Republic of Seabrook, The Gunther Concept is an isolated bastion of reason in the lost State of Texas soon to be the only home of the current pReznit. So update those blogrolls and give a Texas sized Howdy to The Gunther Concept _ the latest link to the League of Liberals.
Project Trinity
A new voting member The Mudshark gives us tales of Missions ~~Accomplished~~ Impossible, Der Gropenfurer Another Dittohead Recovery Program and other good stuff. Please offer a warm League of Liberals
Hammerdown has voted
Spongebob Squarepants has agreed.
No more Great Moments in Hypocrisy, Where's the Outrage, Bush Lied, Schweet - Hammerdown has joined the League of Liberals Please welcome the illustrious SPADEHAMMER to the League and read.
Blunted on Reality has a great post on the Dean Flag Flap and a good reason to vote in the showcase.
The high price of protest, family values, and a Govs Enron ties are amoung the GOP felonies of the week on the Felonious Elephant
Lying Liars, Wrong Answers and Reasons one and 60 FSU loses and T-Rex gets prolific.

11.05.2003

Gutless at CBS
The network’s decision to yank ‘The Reagans’ was just a craven—and short-sighted—bid to keep advertisers happy

Nov. 4 Hallelujah! The Gipper is safe and the hated liberal media humbled. It’s a big victory for the “Elephant Echo Chamber,” the unholy trinity of conservative talk radio, conservative Internet sites and the Republican National Committee. The decision by CBS late yesterday not to air “The Reagans” meant, Matt Drudge exulted, “a tremendous night” for his team.

BUT IF THIS IS, as Drudge says, “the beginning of a second media century, much more of a people-driven media” we should look a little harder at what that might entail. More gutless TV executives? Programming that caters to loud political partisans? Fictionalized treatment of historical figures that cannot be critical?
Look, I’m not defending “The Reagans.” I have neither read the script nor seen it. (No one outside CBS has). It may well be the hit job described in leaked reports or, at a minimum, another stupid docu-drama that distorts the historical truth. It’s a little tacky to be taking a lot of pot shots when the former president is ailing. More important, it is not “censorship” when people organize boycotts or public campaigns trying to keep something off the air. (Censorship, remember, is when the government controls what is published or broadcast). This was plain old free speech.

My problem isn’t with the whining critics, it’s with the CBS executives. In its press release, the network said the decision to cancel the docudrama, scheduled for Nov. 16 and 18 (and sell it to Showtime instead), was based “solely on our reaction to seeing the final film, not the controversy that erupted over the draft of a script.” If you believe that, you think “Survivor” is a nature program. You think CBS is still the Tiffany of networks.
Clearly what happened here is that CBS caved to its advertisers, who feared a boycott orchestrated not just by Matt Drudge and talk radio but by Ed Gillespie of the Republican National Committee, who got into the act last week. This was not only craven of CBS but short-sighted. Docudramas depend on jucy personal material. No one wants to watch one about the brilliant successes of the Strategic Defense Initiative.
CBS’ whopper was exceeded only by Drudge, who told Joe Scarborough on MSNBC that “if they went and did a Clinton story [that was critical] there would be just as much outrage.” Yo, Matt. Spare us. If the Fox network wants to air a docudrama about how terrible Bill and Hillary were (and it’s only a matter of time), do you really think it would be pulled because of pressure from advertisers? Do you think the next time some sleazy producer tries to make a quick buck with the 5,834th docudrama about the sins of the Kennedys that some liberal talk radio establishment will immediately materialize to smite it?
The coup de grace, Drudge reports, was when it was leaked that the Ronald Reagan character, played by James Brolin, referred to himself as “the anti-Christ.” We have no idea of the context of this comment, but it sure sounds like “Reagan” taking rueful note of his critics’ frenzied attacks upon him—-in other words, a pro-Reagan indication of how insane some of criticism of the period turned out to be. Instead, it was deployed as red meat for evangelicals to feast on.

The other scenes that apparently stuck in the craw of the Reagan hero-worshippers and GOP political operatives who saw a way to rally their base were those that depicted tensions within the Reagan family and Nancy Reagan’s controlling personality. Imagine! A docu-drama that actually reflects the headlines from the era! Anyone who was alive in the 1980s knows that the Reagan First Family was close to dysfunctional (as in, not speaking to each other for long periods) and that the First Lady plotted her husband’s schedule with the help of an astrologer and fired his chief of staff. That’s not spin; it’s fact. As Yogi Berra said, you can look it up.
So now we’re in a new media century. I shed no tears for “The Reagans,” which will not make me rush out and subscribe to Showtime. Unless you count “The Missiles of October,” there was no golden age of TV docu-dramas, which have always been the cheesiest meal on the media food chain. Primetime television is uncorruptible, because there has never been anything left to corrupt in the first place.
But I’m glad for the artistic and historical advice now booming through the elephant echo chamber. It’s good to know that network docu-dramas are, forthwith, supposed to be “true,” unless, of course, the truth is somehow “offensive” to the myth, then we’ll take the myth, as long as the myth corresponds to the reigning politics of the moment.
One thing’s for sure: When they make “The Bush Dynasty” docudrama, that “Mission Accomplished” banner won’t be visible in the scene on the aircraft carrier.

A Trip through the Ecosystem mid-section was revealing. 3000 down to 2800 with only 14 liberal blogs. 30 to 40 of this 200 were dead ends. Old dates, switched to MT from blogger, or just dead links. The Ecosystem has lots of deadwood if this section is any indication
2801.Waremouse (6) details
2832.ddjangoWIrE (6) details
2836.Leftist Propaganda (6) details
2845.Loaded Mouth (6) details
2847.The Decembrist (6) details
2859.The Parks Department (6) details
2890.PoLiTicAl - - D i A b L o G (5) details
2894.Charen Watch (5) details
2895.Seize the Fish (5) details
2896.Dubya Chronicles (5) details
2919.Short Hope Unfiltered (5) details
2927.6040hindsight (5) details
2935.Constant Struggle (5) details
2949.Capitol Blog (5) details

AS promised the Liberal Linker is gonna slowly work the way up the Ecosystem seeing what kewl voices lurk in the muck of micro-organisms. Here are 28 of the bottom 150 with at least a bit of a liberal bent.
One obeservation: What's with the 50% Canadian Blogs at this level
These contestants are no-longer no-link wonders
Welcome new Slimy Mollusks.

4942.Turn That Shit Up (0) details
4945.Hypgnosis (0) details
4947.Gore4Dean (0) details
4950.Clark Truth Squad (0) details
4953.American Politics (0) details
4954.Economics and Other Random Stuff (0)
4955.Empty Wheel (0) details
4956.Weather Head (0) details
4957.Jeff Davis (0) details
4963.reagank.com (0) details
4964.Braganza (0) details
4966.Herb Bowlman (0) details
4967.Coprolites (0) details
4968.Fates Worse Than Death (0) details
4970.Unnamed Democrat (0) details
4973.This is not my .com (0) details
4975.The Chestnut Tree Cafe (0) details
4994.Random Thoughts (0) details
5001.canadiansfordean (0) details
5030.April Follies (0) details
5036.It's Craptastic (0) details*
5038.The Daily Travesty (0) details
5039.John McCrory (0) details
5040.Windmills of My Mind (0) details
5041.1 Florida Democrat (0) details
5085.The Ivy Bush (0) details
5086.No Right Turn (0) details*
5092.The Expat (0) details
ROCK THE CONFEDERACY
Welcome to the Future
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The Democratic Veteran asks Where have all the Cowboys Gone? and offers a lesson on the Fish Dyslexicon
Anglican Aftermath and Cowardly Cave are the crux of the avuncular entries on All Facts and Opinions
What rhymes with witch-slapped? and other "horrors" are among the Halloween holdovers at WTF is it Now?
Seek or See different strings on Diebold problems in Va.
Bush Sucks Bush hates Blue Skies read Sick of Bush it is a Principal of Least Effort.
Futurballa voted for Whale Power
Speedkill supports the League of Liberals by vote and voice
Limbaughtomy revisited Escape and Diebold sued see Rush Limbaughtomy
Please welcome Blogs Canada: Officially Unofficial to the League of Liberals
Officially Unofficial has voted and is officially a member. Blogs Canada posts on everything from Farting Fish to Canadian Prescription Drugs and is among the TOP BLOGS of Canada. Welcome Blogs Canada: Officially Unofficial to the League of Liberals and update those blogrolls.
You gotta read this * *** from Happy Furry Puppy Story Time

DIEBOLD Sued Over Threats

Free speech advocates sued a manufacturer of electronic voting machines Tuesday, demanding it stop sending legal threats to groups that publish company documents leaked by a hacker. Voting activists who have received the cease-and-desist orders, including students from at least 20 universities, claim the documents raise serious security concerns about Diebold Inc., which has more than 50,000 touchscreen voting terminals nationwide.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Stanford University's Cyberlaw Clinic filed for a temporary restraining order in federal court. Diebold executives could not be reached for comment Tuesday. But spokesman Mike Jacobsen said in late October that the internal documents aren't necessarily authentic.

A hacker broke into Diebold's servers in March using an employee's ID, and copied thousands of company announcements and internal e-mails. Jacobsen said the documents might have been altered afterward. The hacker e-mailed the data to voting activists, some of whom published stories on their Web logs. A freelance journalist at Wired News also received data and wrote about it in an online story.

In one series of e-mails, a senior engineer dismisses concern from a lower-level programmer who questions why the company lacked certification for a customized operating system used in touch-screen voting machines. On Monday, a California advisory panel refused to certify new Diebold voting machines, saying it plans to investigate uncertified software and hardware that may have been used in a recent election.