"I don't believe Democrats often, if ever, try to muscle the First Amendment like this." - Barbra Streisand
For someone who supposedly has nothing to do with a new television mini-series on "The Reagans," Barbra Streisand certainly has a lot to say about it.
Streisand lashed out at the dreaded "Right Wing" for threatening to boycott CBS and their advertisers for showing what was clearly a biased and slanderous TV movie about our fortieth President. Calling it "a sad day for artistic freedom" on her website, she lashed out at those who were instrumental in removing this film from the CBS lineup. "The Reagans," incidentally, also stars Ms. Streisand's husband as Ronald Reagan. Likening this boycott to the furor over comments by the Dixie Chicks, Streisand goes on to call this "censorship, pure and simple."
Really? I would think that if Barbra has learned anything by now, it should be that the First Amendment to freedom of speech also means the freedom to disagree with someone. Like those who protested Natalie Maines' comments about the President by throwing out their Dixie Chicks CDs, the people intending to boycott CBS the nights "The Reagans" aired were exercising the only power they had: the right to freedom of choice. People chose to not watch CBS because it's the only voice they have. I mean, let's be honest--the only way to affect a huge corporation is to impact their bottom line and that's exactly what a boycott of the CBS television network during "sweeps week" would have done.
People exercising their rights to free speech and freedom of choice in a Capitalist society is not censorship. It would seem that someone should translate for Ms. Streisand so that she can actually speak with some facts and accuracy. I suppose this shouldn't surprise me, though, because her website is filled with Liberal rhetoric and rants. To quote her, "this is what the Right Wing does when they are faced with a truth that is not 100% positive for their side - they spread vicious lies and attacks and scream and yell until they get their way. Instead of boycotting and trying to have the movie changed, why don't they all just wait to see the film when it airs like the rest of us."
I think that just about everyone on the planet knows that getting the movie "changed" would never have happened. To be fair, the producers did offer the deletion of one line where the Reagan character in the film says of people with the AIDS virus, "Those who live in sin shall die by sin." While it's the right decision that they delete this--because it NEVER happened--is this what their claims of censorship are about? I'm sorry, but isn't this "quote" a prime example of a "vicious lie?"
The worst part in all of this, at least for me, is that this smear campaign by Babs and her friends is being perpetrated on a man who cannot even defend himself. Slowly dying from the effects of Alzheimer's Disease, Reagan may not even know this is going on. There's a part of me that hopes he has no idea of how people are trying to tarnish his image and only because they didn't have to spine to do it while he was still in the public eye. One can only think that The Great Communicator would have dismissed it all with a casual line and his trademark wit. Instead, the rest of us who remember are happy to rally on his behalf.
Ms. Streisand should know that wrapping yourself in the First Amendment does not mean you can say whatever you want, whenever you want to. They have laws against things like that, and they're called libel and slander. The latter being something Ms. Streisand's friends may learn a great deal about depending on whether Nancy Reagan sues them for this character assassination on her family.
William Smith
ConservativeBlogger.com
