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Matthews, Scholars Strongly Denounce Reagan Smear in CBS Miniseries (Hardball 10-21-03)
MSNBC - Hardball w/ Chris Matthews - Transcript ^ | 21 October 2003

Posted on 10/22/2003 6:43:27 PM PDT by Stultis

I'm under the impression that we are required to limit ourselves to "fair use" quotes from MSNBC. Rather than interspersing quotes, I start with my summary and comments and then append some excerpts from the Hardball transcript at the end.

Guests:
Ed Rollins, former Reagan campaign manager
Lou Cannon, author Governor Reagan: His Rise to Power
Martin Anderson, author Reagan: A Life in Letters

Matthews started out confirming that not one of these Reagan experts had been consulted or contacted by the creators of the miniseries. Most of the discussion concerned the quote regarding homosexuals put into the mouth of CBS's Reagan character when the actress playing Nancy Reagan urges the President to addresss the issue of AIDS: "They that live in sin shall die in sin." Also touched on was the equally dubuious exchange with Lou Wasserman where Wasserman says to Reagan, "People know you’re an informer for the black list," and Reagan replies, "I’ve never called anybody a Commie who wasn’t a Commie".

In brief, all of Matthews' guests strong expressed the view that the AIDS quote was entirely oppossed to everything they knew of Reagans personality, demeanor, and his specific views and attitudes towards the subject of homosexuality. Regarding the other quotes is was clarified that, although Reagan did testify regarding communism in Hollywood, where he had been involved in resisting the efforts of communists to take over various unions in the entertainment industry, he never named names publicly.

EXCERPTS, "die in sin" psuedo-quote:

       ANDERSON: Well, Chris, look at this. Like all good pieces of propaganda, most of what they’re saying is correct. It’s what they leave out, like the economic recovery.
       It’s the little poison pills they put in, like the one you just quoted. Now that’s a false fact. Even the lady who wrote it-what’s her name, Eglaus (ph) — admits it was false. And yet the chairman of CBS says we want this to be fair. I suggest he go take a look at the movie he’s about to put out. And they still have time to pull out all the poison pills.

[snippage]

       ROLLINS: [...] He, like everybody else in the White House, were very concerned about AIDS. It was in its infancy and very few people knew a whole lot about it. We did whatever we could to find it early on. And there’s this great myth that he didn’t care about it. He cared very deeply about it, and many of his friends in the art world and the Hollywood world were the first victims of it.

[snippage]

       CANNON: Well, Chris, I fault Reagan for being a little slow on the AIDS epidemic.
       But contrary to any homophobia, Ronald Reagan in 1978, before he was president, there was an initiative on the California ballot that would have discriminated against homosexual teachers and it was-it probably wasn’t constitutional. There were people then who-I think Ed probably remembers-who advised Ronald Reagan not to take any part in this campaign.
       He opposed the initiative. I mean, he actually very courageously, I thought, and a lot of people on both sides of the initiative, credit Reagan for defeating that initiative. So I think it’s really unfair to slam him as anti- gay. He just wasn’t.
       [...] Well, he came from a Hollywood milieu. And so he was used to people who were gay. [...] And he just simply didn’t have the prejudices of many of the people around him.

[snippage]

       ANDERSON: What Lou says is absolutely correct. I remember once in early 1980 on the campaign plain with issue about what do we do about gay groups that want to see him and demanding things. And he sat us down and he said, “Now, look. First of all,” he said, “I know a lot of gays. I was in Hollywood.” And then he reminded us, “You know how many of them there are?” And then he said, “Look, leave them alone.” And that was his policy.

EXCERPTS, "Commies" psuedo-quote:

       MATTHEWS: [...] Ronald Reagan, quote, “I’ve never called anybody a Commie who wasn’t a Commie.”
       Right of all, they argot here. The lingo. Ed, are you familiar with Ronald Reagan talking like that, in this cartoon-like the old Korean War comic books, “Commies”?
       ROLLINS: No. I think-the three of us who have had lots of time around Ronald Reagan know a very gentle man who basically was really a nice person. He was what he appeared to be. He was-he had a great sense of humor, but he would never be disparaging. And was he anti-communist? Yes, he was. Certainly, he had a very strong core. But I just don’t imagine any of that to be true.

[snippage]

       MATTHEWS: [...] during the investigations, the legitimate investigations back in the early ’50s and late ’40s, when he was in SAG as president. Did he ever-Is there any record that he ever testified against anybody or turned in anybody?
       CANNON: No. He was an informant for the FBI. But when he testified, and I reprint some of the testimony in my most recent book. When he testified before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, the counsel, a man named Stripling, was very unhappy with Ronald Reagan because he didn’t name names.
       MATTHEWS: Robert Stripling, he was the chief counsel. He was the guy that got the pumpkin papers, and he’s the guy that helped Nixon nail Alger Hiss, yes.
       ROLLINS: As a matter of fact, if you look back...
       CANNON: Anyway, if you look at the liberal publications of the day, they praised Ronald Reagan’s testimony. So for them to rewrite it this way is really wrong.

[snippage]

       MATTHEWS: I just want to repeat something somebody said earlier, which I thought was brilliant, which is what they do in Hollywood is they soften up their subject like Ronald Reagan. They show some nice pictures. They say some nice things about them that they can’t deny saying nice about them. They do it to soften them up, and they’ll put the dagger in.
       And this is what they did in the movie “Nixon.” They softened him up in a sentimental way and then stuck the knife right in: he’s a drunk; he’s a bum; he’s a bad guy, a crook. That’s what they always do out there.
       There is a prejudice that they don’t know out there in Hollywood. And I think in this kind of case it’s too bad you can’t sue the bastards. Because what is happening here is clearly, these are late hits.

EXCERPTS, "Political Buzz" segment later in the show:

       MATTHEWS: [...] Anyway, coming up, is a new Ronald Reagan television miniseries revising history? I think so. I think it’s trash.

[snippage]

       MATTHEWS: He fought the communists in the labor unions back in the ’40s. He was head of the Screen Actors Guild. He’s been through all that fighting. He was a bit more sophisticated...
       FINEMAN: He was more sophisticated and more knowledgeable, as his letters proved. A lot more thoughtful guy than most people gave him credit for.
       MATTHEWS: But the fact that he was an Elia Kazan guy, that did what he did. And he never did it. There’s no evidence he ever testified against any other member of the film community. This is just totally fabricated, as far as I can tell, James.

[snippage]

       MATTHEWS: I know the Hollywood game. It’s played brilliantly by Oliver stone, who’s totally incredible.
       What they do is they soften up their target, and it’s always a Republican target. Nixon in the movie “Nixon,” here, Ronald Reagan, a man they despise. They soften it up with sentimentalities and they say nice, obviously things about him, and then they put the dagger in. He was the guy who ratted on people during the Cold War.
       Or here’s another one. In another scene Reagan is confronted by his wife, Nancy, about dealing with the disease AIDS, to which Reagan replies, “They that live in sin shall die in sin.” What is he, Jeremiah? People don’t talk like that. And there’s no evidence that he was ever intolerant, ever in his career, towards gay people.

[snippage]

       MATTHEWS: OK. Let me tell you something, when they go out there, they use people like Lou Wasserman, who passed away, because he’s beyond litigation. They use people who can’t sue them, that’s why those names are chosen.
       This is about money. It’s about screwing people without facing any legal risk.

(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.com ...


TOPICS: Activism/Chapters; Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: cbs; mediabias; reagan; reganminiseries; ronaldreagan; smear; thereagans
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To: Stultis
Reagan cut his teeth fighting a communist backed union. They tried to paralyze Hollywoood, with the goal of dominating motion pictures. Baseball bats through windshields, death threats (sound familier, grocers?).

In the face of threats of acid being thrown in his face, he single-handedly (according to the communists) broke the strike.

His wife at the time (Nancy Davis) was liberal, and didn't like it. It led to his divorce.

Notice the mini series left this out.

Ronald Regan single-handedly broke the communist infiltration of the most powerful union in hollywood.

He slept with a .38.
81 posted on 10/23/2003 5:04:31 PM PDT by MonroeDNA (Please become a monthly donor!!! Just $3 a month--you won't miss it, and will feel proud!)
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To: Stultis
The VLWC is doing a much better job of driving moderates and undecided's towards our VRWC than we are in attracting them. We should thank them and ask them to continue commiting political suicide.
82 posted on 10/23/2003 6:11:08 PM PDT by Chu Gary
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To: capydick
Susan Estrich?

Getting old is a terrible thing:



Yeah, but she had that incredibly irritating voice all her life. Even if she was Conservative I would never listen to her!
83 posted on 10/23/2003 6:28:15 PM PDT by Chu Gary
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To: Steve_Seattle
#18 was from Bush_is_a_Nazi. I don't know what he/she said

I think I quoted all of it when I replied in #33.

84 posted on 10/23/2003 7:00:08 PM PDT by Stultis
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To: Stultis
The best thing to do is to boycott the series and the sponsors.
85 posted on 10/23/2003 7:05:28 PM PDT by yoe (Term Limits - and 2 terms are the limit for all elected to a Federal office!!)
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To: MonroeDNA
His wife at that time was not Nancy Davis, it was Jane Wyman. Nancy Davis is Nancy Reagan.
86 posted on 10/23/2003 7:17:56 PM PDT by GWfan
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To: Chu Gary
The VLWC is doing a much better job of driving moderates and undecided's towards our VRWC than we are in attracting them.

Well, if practice makes perfect, they oughta be. They've been at it for thirty years solid.

Reagan was the exception, though, at attracting people to the right and/or to the Republican Party. He got literally millions of blue-collar Dems to vote Republican, at least at the top of the ticket. Possibly even more important for the long term was the political talent that rallied to Reagan from the dark side. I'm not sufficiently intimate with all phases of American political history to say so with absolute confidence, but late 70's and early 80's may well have seen the most dramatic transfer of political/policy talent between parties that has ever occured. And how quickly it happened! Jean Kirkpatrick didn't change her registration until 1985, and she was among the foot draggers in that regard.

Of course this (like the economic recovery) is another reality that will surely be unknown to viewers of The Reagans.

87 posted on 10/23/2003 7:18:04 PM PDT by Stultis
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To: All

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88 posted on 10/23/2003 7:18:12 PM PDT by Bob J
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To: yoe
The best thing to do is to boycott the series and the sponsors.

Unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to resist seeing what they do with it. I will, however, tune it in through the VCR rather than the digital cable box (and tune the later to Fox News) so I don't contribute to ratings.

89 posted on 10/23/2003 7:21:01 PM PDT by Stultis
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To: Stultis
I was listening to Micheal Reagan, his son, talking today. He said that the WHOLE THING, not just the AIDS quotes, is a hit job. He said there is not a shred of truth in the movie - he didn't recognize either Reagan or Nancy, the way they were represented.

He said they portrayed his Dad as a doofus dumbbell and idiot without a thought in his head. He said they had him cursing and taking the Lords name in vain and he said his father NEVER did or would consider talking like that.

All in all, he was furious and said the family was hurt.

The way he was talking, I don't think he thought that taking out a quote or two would fix it. The whole thing was inaccurate and totally a smear job.
90 posted on 10/23/2003 9:01:05 PM PDT by I still care
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To: blake6900
...and I bet he's not mentioned in Al Franken's latest outhouse staple item.

Ouch, I like to keep stapled items out of the outhouse.

91 posted on 10/23/2003 9:10:08 PM PDT by Moonman62
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To: Stultis


We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will
always be prepared, so we may always be free.


Normandy, France, June 6, 1984
92 posted on 10/23/2003 9:14:22 PM PDT by John Lenin (I don't believe in miracles, I rely upon them)
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To: I still care
The way he was talking, I don't think he thought that taking out a quote or two would fix it. The whole thing was inaccurate and totally a smear job.

If that's so I pity the fools stupid enough to sponsor the show. Nevertheless, they must be made to feel the pain. If this turns out to be an a-historical smear, rather than just "interpretation" of historical fact, I think we should press for a written and public repudiation from each and every sponsor.

93 posted on 10/23/2003 9:51:13 PM PDT by Stultis
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To: Az Joe
I wrote to them:

"To whom it may concern:

If you folks go ahead with your slimy hit piece on Ronald Reagan, I will *permanently* remove CBS from my TV's channel lineup.

Oh -- I hear the folks at CNN are feeling lonely. Say hi to them for me, will you?

My Name
My Address"

94 posted on 10/23/2003 9:56:58 PM PDT by Tauzero (Avoid loose hair styles. When government offices burn, long hair sometimes catches on fire.)
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To: Tauzero
CBS comment line:

212-975-4321

Listen to the whole message, there is an opportunity to leave a comment at the end.

Pass the word.
95 posted on 10/23/2003 10:06:57 PM PDT by Az Joe
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To: Stultis
bttt
96 posted on 10/23/2003 10:10:11 PM PDT by Lancey Howard
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To: Stultis
Matthews started out confirming that not one of these Reagan experts had been consulted or contacted by the creators of the miniseries.

What? Barbra Streisand and her puppet husband don't count as "experts" on Reagan?/sarcasm

Seriously, this is what it will take. When even those with liberal political sentiments debunk this as trash, CBS sponsors may start to soften. It's a waste of time to talk to CBS -- only the sponsors matter. (That's how the Left "got" Dr. Laura.)

97 posted on 10/23/2003 11:39:01 PM PDT by Exigence
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To: Steve_Seattle
Chris is one liberal who can be counted on to be fair once in a while.

I agree to an extent, though I almost fell off my chair listening to Matthews that evening. He does sometimes stand up against stereotypes, but only rarely and usually only those for whom he has an ethnic identity. More usually, he is in the forefront of perpetuating stereotypes including current myths about Bush's lies.

98 posted on 10/25/2003 7:28:08 AM PDT by OESY
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To: Exigence
It's a waste of time to talk to CBS -- only the sponsors matter.

And the local affilliates. I'm calling mine, in Dallas/Ft. Worth, next week and asking them not to air this trash.

From the clips, promos and stills I've seen it appears that the openly hostile nature of this pseudo-bio-pic is embedded in the lighting, makeup, music, actors' expressions/demeanor and etc. It doesn't look like it will be possible to "fix" it just by editing out the most egregiously offensive scenes.

99 posted on 10/25/2003 2:38:47 PM PDT by Stultis
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