Suddenly Concerned About Historical Accuracy, Leftists Attempt to Kill JFK Miniseries

This is America and leftist filmmaker Robert Greenwald and his ilk have every right to wage a propaganda war to pressure the History Channel to kill their upcoming JFK miniseries. The miniseries’ script might not be done yet, but that’s how we roll in this country and until Senator Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) steps in and threatens to put the History Channel out of business, like he did ABC in order to muscle a “Path to 9/11” edit to his and the Clintons’ liking, Greenwald and Co. can all knock themselves out. And knocking themselves out they are: a website, petition, videos, and an all-too expected personal attack against “24” co-creator Joel Surnow, an openly conservative producer and creator of “The Kennedys.”

The New York Times reports that Greenwald appears to have gotten his hands on an early draft of the script for the 10-hour miniseries and found parts of it objectionable. According to a video Greenwald put together — where he has bad actors recreate the “offensive” scenes — JFK was some kind of serial adulterer. Who knew, right? Then there’s longtime Kennedy friend and counsel Ted Sorenson who appears in the video with a not very subtle threat to sue the History Channel should they proceed. He claims the screenplay contains Oval Office conversations that never happened. Who do you think is more worried about Sorenson winning a lawsuit against dramatic license? Surnow or Oliver Stone?

The most important fact in this dust up is that it’s occurring over a project that’s still in the development stage. The script is still being written and will be vetted:

Mr. Kronish, the “Kennedys” screenwriter, said that the History channel’s standards for producing its mini-series are more rigorous than the broadcast networks’, and that his finished scripts will require bibliographic annotations and legal vetting before filming proceeds. He also said that he was drawing upon nonfiction works, including books by Seymour Hersh, Robert Dallek, David Talbot and others. “If I’m wrong,” he said, “I guess all of them are wrong.”

Mr. Kronish acknowledged that some factual details, like the date that the Peace Corps was established, were changed for concision or dramatic license, but not with malicious intent.

“This is not a documentary,” he said. “It is a dramatization.” As its author, Mr. Kronish said, it was his job to “take these people off the dusty pages of history and make them come alive.”

“We do not go into this with an agenda other than to be factually accurate and entertaining,” he said. “The rest of it, let the chips fall where they may.”

David McKillop, the senior vice president of programming and development for the History channel, said that Mr. Kronish had already begun submitting annotated drafts of his scripts, and that the channel stands by their accuracy.

Keep in mind, however, that we’re talking about the History Channel and the irony of The History Channel suddenly getting all worked up over historical accuracy is rich and, not surprisingly, completely lost on Greenwald (and the New York Times):

“Anyone has a right to do whatever they want,” Mr. Greenwald said. “I would never suggest that History channel doesn’t have a right. What I’d suggest is something called the History channel should not be doing political propaganda.”

You have to stop and savor nine of Greenwald’s words: “The History Channel should not be doing political propaganda.”

Does he mean, this History Channel…? Because I Googled and Googled and Googled searching for Robert Greenwald’s Stop ‘The People Speak’ website and came up empty.

Maybe Surnow should cast Matt Damon as JFK and all this “political propaganda” will stop being a problem.

But is it really propaganda? Pulling a few scenes out of the early draft of what must be a 500-plus page screenplay isn’t a very convincing argument. Truth is found in context not cherry-picking.

The Left will point to the conservative uproar over the 2003 CBS Reagan miniseries as some sort of cover for their History Channel assault. But that miniseries was already completed when conservatives started their campaign to have it pulled, and it did eventually air on Showtime. Also, unlike “The Path to 9/11,” the trashing of Ron and Nancy enjoyed a DVD release. I know this because there’s still a copy of it in the used 5 for $20 bin at my local Hollywood Video store — right next to “Welcome to Mooseport.”

Overall, this new uproar from our friends on the left should be looked at as a positive change. Now that they and the History Channel have discovered and embraced the idea of historical accuracy, those of us on the right who have grown disgusted and tired of these awful Hollywoodists and their decades-long smear campaign against our country, beliefs, heroes, religion, and troops, can now rest easy that those days are over.

Right?