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Late breaking news (11/6): an individual who works for CBS News has emailed Musicangle to plead his network's case. The individual claims that CBS head and "staunch Democrat" Les Moonves pulled the series not because of pressure but because after having seen the rough cuts, he decided he was not getting the movie he'd ordered, and that it was not sufficiently strong to be aired during the crucial November sweeps (ratings). "This is business, baby," our correspondent avers. We'll take him at his word, though given how much crap ends up on the networks, the reason is still suspect.

Of course this will fuel the hysteria on the right and fan the flames of "liberal media bias." Naturally, it's just fine with these right wingers that Faux News is presided over by Chief Commissar Roger Ailes, Republican operative, who runs the news network the way the Communist Party ran Pravda.

Original rant:

Bowing to the threatening mob mentality of the Republican right, CBS television says it will cancel its planned mini-series on former President Ronald Reagan, originally scheduled to run this month. The mini-series apparently doesn't sufficiently fawn over the former president, treating him as a human being instead of as a demi-god boxed, packaged and ready to be chiseled into Mount Rushmore, which is on the Republican right's agenda as soon as Mr. Reagan passes away.

When Showtime ran it's absurd, cartoon-like depiction of President Chimp's post 9/11 activities, liberals and Democrats didn't raise a stink, apparently thinking that most Americans would see it for what it was: a piece of Soviet style propaganda.

It is of course the American way, to allow free expression—something the crypto-fascists running America today obviously revile—so rather than let the series run and succeed or fail on its own, these people have done what they did when they stopped the vote in Florida—they've organized their mobs and threatened the network with retaliation if the show airs as scheduled. And pathetically, it seems as if CBS will cave.

One wonders if the real offense was the script, or casting object of right wing hate Barbra Streisand's husband James Brolin as the former President.

As it stands, we'll never know, though there are plans to run the series on Showtime.

You can call CBS at 212 975-4321 and complain, or sit and do nothing as the Germans did in the 1930's.