Uncle Sam - The White House Man

As you probably already have heard, CBS recently cancelled their November sweeps month mini-series on the Reagans bowing to pressures from advertisers and other right wing zealots based upon content no one had yet seen. relying on an article in the New York Times reporting on small clips it had seen. While part of the reason for the cancellation of this mini-series had to do with angry advertisers another part had to do with the fact that Viacom, CBS's parent company, is still attempting to get the Republican controlled FCC to allow more media consolidation/concentration in various markets. In other words, part of this decision was based on Viacom wanting the please the FCC in order to gain bigger favors from future rulings. Les Moonves, CBS's Chairman, is a liberal democrat as were the producers of the mini-series, so no doubt Moonves caved into to these pressures and concerns. The reasons Moonves gave to the media for cancelling this mini-series were totally lame at best considering the other junk they have in their line-up of programs. The Reagan mini-series is going to be shown instead at some date in the future on Showtime, one of Viacom's cable channels.

While we recognize that made-for-TV mini-series like this often have major problems with historical accuracy, we feel that cancelling this series because it's not acceptable to to right wing zealots and the Republican Party, represents a serious form of censorship and is totally in line with the Bush team's repression of dissenting viewpoints. If you would really like to know the truth about the Reagan presidency, we suggest you read Haynes Johnson's book: Sleepwalking Through History and Frances FitzGerald's book: Way Out There in the Blue - both are Pultizer Prize winning authors who have done impeccable research.