(Dis)Trust but Verify: How CNN’s Pathetically Bad Reagan Documentary Betrays History
The Clown News Network, the Corrupt News Network, the Communist News Network, the Clinton News Network — take your pick. CNN has been called all of these things over the years; many think they all suit the cable network, while still others call it the “Fake News” network of cable television. Their lead teleprompter reader, Wolf Blitzer, once played “Celebrity Jeopardy.” He managed to get nearly every answer wrong, ended up thousands of dollars in the hole, but apparently because they felt sorry for him, was allowed to participate in Final Jeopardy — where he also flubbed the question.
Just the other week, he theorized on air that the Barcelona terrorist attack was a copycat of the murderer in Charlottesville — completely ignoring the history of recent Islamic terrorists.
This is but one example of how CNN has forgotten history and forgotten facts (let’s not even begin to talk about Jim Acosta). In the just-aired “The Reagan Show,” they managed both. It is sad to see this once proud and fiercely reliable cable system descend into an instrument of liberal hatred and invective.
“The Reagan Show” depicts the Great Communicator as a showman, a con. He’s a doofus, a jokester who never takes his job seriously. There are lots of selective bloopers and intentional delays in his answers. While Reagan was well-known for his quick wit, we must question why CNN’s “The Reagan Show” wanted to make this the sole focus. Surely it wasn't to show that he could have fun, was it? That he could put a smile on his face? And others’?
No, it was to mock him. What was billed as a lighthearted look at the behind-the-scenes taping of the President, instead tries to make him a laughingstock. We don’t have to even ask for their motives. Those like CNN are literally incapable of praising the President now, much less President Reagan then. Not one mention of the turnaround from the Carter Recession. Not one mention of the crushing defeat of the Soviet Union and winning the Cold War (if anything, glorifying the defeated Gorbachev and ignoring the alliance with Thatcher and Pope John Paul). Not one mention of his other successes nor of his huge popularity.
All clips are selectively (corruptly?) edited to give the appearance of an awkward old man. To give one example of this: during the annual pardoning of a turkey one Thanksgiving, Reagan joked about shooting more of them. Because the audio was solely on Reagan’s microphone, we, the audience, could only hear his laughter, no one else’s. So it’s only Reagan laughing and … we get the impression, no one else. Complete silence. Fake and Gullible News? Contemptable? You bet.
Stretch that scene out to some 90 minutes, and that’s what you have here. You get a difficult, elderly man who makes jokes, mispronounces words and names, repeats himself (there was a good twenty-second montage of him just saying the Russian “Doveryai, no Proveryai” [Trust, but Verify] at various venues), and ignores the media.
There’s a large section of the documentary that is focused solely on the name “Star Wars,” which critics gave to his Strategic Defense Initiative. Forget the fact that a large percentage of Americans supported the program, or that it was, in fact, a good idea, and had been successfully deployed; let’s cut to Democratic congressmen and NATO members mocking the President and mocking his “evil empire” remark and the miscasting SDI as a Death Star.
Even the title of the documentary emphasizes this supposed-charade and supposed-fakeness of his presidency. The first clip shows a quip, “There have been times in this office when I wondered how you could do the job if you hadn't been an actor.” After a smattering of praises and condemnations (calling him “out of touch,” criticizing Reaganomics), the montage of clips ends with Reagan saying that he wanted to “make America great again.” Subtlety was never the left’s strongpoint, especially when we get clips of threats of nuclear annihilation.
Only Democrats and liberals and teleprompter readers are interviewed for this waste of a film. They all trash Reagan. What a surprise. There is Sam Donaldson, wig firmly in place, claiming Reagan lived in a make believe world! There is Jessica Savage, long deceased, who once asked me how the delegates who went to the Republican convention could in turn go to the Democratic convention and be just as enthusiastic! She thought they were the same people. A network reporter! Such stupidity was and is rampant among the national media. Just ask one to take a basic civic literacy exam.
CNN charges that the whole Reagan presidency was a show. That is quite a damning accusation. Apparently they never read about the Kennedy presidency, in which every movement of JFK and his family was filmed, photographed, and recorded, except, of course, Kennedy’s dozens of illicit and even dangerous sexual encounters. FDR was never photographed in his wheelchair, a deliberate conspiracy by news photographers. Sounds like a show to us.
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New program indicative of cable network's escalating problem with facts, fairness and reality
What else would we expect from CNN. It's founder is a horses ass and created his businesses in his image.
You mean Ted Turner
As for what he created:
"In a joint study by the Joan Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University and the Project for Excellence in Journalism, the authors found disparate treatment by the three major cable channels of Republican and Democratic candidates during the earliest five months of presidential primaries in 2007:
They have been trashing Reagan for 30 years.
Reagan was the last great president, the last of Americas great leaders.
America is praying for the day we find another leader that could even carry his overcoat.
When we do, all this political stagnation will end......
But not until....
they have to trash Reagan is the sad part, cause anyone else they have put up will be judged against his presidency. So far, they have been miserable failures in comparison. the only one that has even had moderate success was Bill during his first term, but he still managed to create the business atmosphere that caused the 2007 economic collapse. So so yeah bill has serious issue as far as being a great president.
The last two presidents, may be good men at heart.
But fucking DISASTERS OF MEGA PROPORTIONS as presidents.