Al Rantel: CBS Faking Shock Over Reagan Smear

NewsMax ^ | 11/7/03 | Limbacher

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

Like Claude Reines in "Casablanca," CBS's Entertainment chief Les Moonves professed this week to be "shocked, shocked" that his network's biopic of Ronald and Nancy Reagan turned out to be such a biased smear job that he had to cancel its broadcast on the Tiffany network.

But Los Angeles radio host Al Rantel says that CBS brass should have known what they were getting when they found out that two longtime proteges of Barbra Streisand, Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, would be producing the film.

"It's like somebody hiring Yassir Arafat to do a movie about the life of (former Israeli President) David Ben-Gurion," the KABC talker told his audience. "Those two guys (Zadan and Meron), as believers in the gay left, would like nothing better than to smear Ronald Reagan."

Rantel, who's gay himself, told NewsMax this week, "Probably no talk show host in America is as familiar with the gay left as I am . . . I can say with certainty that no single politically active group despises Ronald Reagan more than the gay left."

Those politics, said the conservative talker, include trying to blame Reagan for the AIDS crisis ever since the illness erupted during his first term.

That might explain "The Reagans" most controversial episode, where Zadan and Meron have the 40th president callously condemning AIDS sufferers to death with the line, "Those that live in sin shall die in sin."

Says Rantel, "Zadan and Meron fit the political mold that we are talking about, and CBS in hiring them to do the story of the Reagans should have known what they would get, i.e. a hatchet job."

[farmfriend]

bttt

[KC_Conspirator]

The only people that ahte Reagan more than the uber gay left, are communists, who Reagan defeated around the world.

[Revolting cat!]

Like Claude Reines in "Casablanca,"

Good ole NewsMax! Start out with an overused cliche but can't even spell it correctly! Besides it wasn't "Claude Rains", it was a character played by actor Claude Rains!Sheesh!

[Spook86]

A couple of facts Al Rantel left out of his convincing argument. First, the suits at CBS reviewed--and approved--the script before filming ever began. Secondly, the same executives viewed (and reportedly loved) a rough cut of the film, with its most infamous parts intact. Had conservatives not found out about the movie and reacted, this slanderous film would have run--intact--on CBS. But Al Rantel's main point is true: for CBS to feign shock over the Reagan movie they approved is nothing but pure, unadulterated hypocrisy.....

[bertdog1]

....and to think that I have been faking shock over CBS faking shock. When will the absurdity end?

[alloysteel]

I personally am astonished that SeeBS even expressed a fake shock. They must think they grabbed a 20,000 volt high-tension line while standing in water to their knees.

Think of what the effect would be if the power was on.

[HenryLeeII]

....and to think that I have been faking shock over CBS faking shock. When will the absurdity end?

Now let me ask, is that genuine fake shock you are displaying, or phony fake shock...or could it be phony genuine fake shock?

[Cicero]

As a matter of fact, I well remember that homosexuals whom I knew, many of them intelligent people, had a strange kind of knee-jerk reaction blaming Ronald Reagan for the AIDS epidemic.

The original guilty party, if anyone, seems to have been a Canadian airlines attendant who picked up AIDS outside the country and spread it across the U.S in a very short time by visiting bathhouses across the U.S. in an epic sexual spree. But Reagan got the blame.

[eggman]

Those politics, said the conservative talker, include trying to blame Reagan for the AIDS crisis ever since the illness erupted during his first term.

AIDS was already being spread in the gay community before Reagan took office. It became a crisis not because of anything Reagan did or did not do. There was not even a test for AIDS antibodies until 1985. Yet even the mention of the gay lifestyle having any responsibility for the spread of AIDS causes an immediate backlash and labeling the person as homophobic.

[elbucko]

Al Rantel is a local ABC radio host, here in Southern California. The other night while he was discussing this topic on the air, Mark Christian, Rock Hudson's "former lover" called Al's show. To set the record straight, Christian said that Reagan and Hudson were friends. He said that Hudson had been invited to the Reagan White House a number of times.

Christian also said that Reagan called the dying Hudson, on the phone, and wished him well in private. Christian was annoyed at the charge of homophobia directed at Reagan.

I am positive, if Reagan had known what to do about aids, he would have done it.
God bless you, Ronald Reagan.

[elbucko]

...had a strange kind of knee-jerk reaction blaming Ronald Reagan for the AIDS epidemic.

I noticed that phenomenon too. It's not unlike Nixon getting the blame for Vietnam rather than Lyndon Johnson. Aids began infecting gays in the US while Carter was president. The hysteria just had not begun until the 80's.

[TontoKowalski]

Good ole NewsMax!

I appreciate just about any conservative media voices, but I always get the idea that their articles consist of what was discussed thoroughly on FR the previous day.

Do they do any independent journalism, or just re-package work and opinion pieces done by others?

NewsMax is like leftovers.