History network pulls plug on Kennedy project

LFRAgain don't get me wrong - I have no issues with or moral hangups with the Kennedy clan. Their personal doings are just that. The moral indignation by the religious freaks and too many on the right are not my forte. Well, one must temper that with a certain amount of clarification. The Presidency of the US is a bit more important with a higher degree of heavy responsibility than most any other profession on the planet, so a certain moral fortitude can and should be expected. But boffing Marlyn Monroe on the Presidential yacht doesn't concern me so much. JFK had honor and bravery and I can admire the man. I think his presidency has been glossed over due to the tragedy of his death - by that I mean it wasn't anything stellar or any great 'Camelot'. He didn't have that much time to do very much, and the Cuban Missile Crisis and Bay of Pigs are hardly things to really be proud of. Teddy I do have an issue with. Yes, he spent his life I think trying to atone for his mistakes - but it says something about a person when they get loaded, drive off a bridge with a girlfriend in the car and make no effort to get her out or even report it right away. Image and getting caught meant more than human life. Just saying - my opinion.

The question would be was the series more true to life (too true to life) and cut because someone with influence thought it would slander the family, or was it just slanderous rubbish. If the latter then it should have been squashed. I'm just against the 'prettying up of history' for reputation's sake.

Is it because the ugly truth of the vaunted Kennedy clan is, well, ugly?

Yes.

"Let's ignore JFK's trysts with MM or that Teddy left some woman for dead in a drunken stupor."

The American public is -- or should I say "was" -- more than aware of these issues. And yet they still chose to set aside the human frailties of the man in favor of what Kennedy's accomplishments as a president, a distinction that still seems to elude a conservative right bent on dictating to the rest of America what morality should and should not be.

Newsflash: Americans don't care, as long as the guy in the White House is doing his job. The office of the president is sworn to uphold the constitution of the United States, not some vague, undefined moral code that ebbs and flows with the political climate.

So when the Marilyn Monroe affair hasn't left Americans frothing at the mouth in moral self-righteousness, conservatives are left with little else but to wholly fabricate a Kennedy so inept, so incompetent, so morally bankrupt as to practically justify his asssassination as a necessity.

Enter "The Kennedys," by Joel Surnow, as ficticious and politically motivated a smear job as one can ever hope to see.

The History Channel did the right thing in dumping this turkey.

"W" was an independent film produced

The History Channel is not a "public" entity, it's a company. SOoit is independent too.

BTW - I really like the W movie.

"The History Channel is hardly the scholarly accurate bastion that some seem to think,..."

Disagree with your assessment. Scholarly? Maybe not. But they have a respectable reputation and from what I've seen fair and balanced programming(I'm sure you've heard that before).

The History Channel is hardly the scholarly accurate bastion that some seem to think, so why should this series be treated any differently? Is it because the ugly truth of the vaunted Kennedy clan is, well, ugly? Historical fiction is more the norm than the exception by any film makers in the US. Are we finally coming to the conclusions that the American public is indeed too dense to realize that films about historical people or events are rarely true to the actual history portrayed? Is it because the left cannot tolerate any smearing of their political gods? Let's ignore JFK's trysts with MM or that Teddy left some woman for dead in a drunken stupor. THEY are American royalty after all!

A life dedicated to public service by a family does not make them devoid of the corruption and debauchery that such power, wealth and privilege brings. It likely would have been a sucky mini-series anyway, but to not show it because some liberal Kennedy supporters didn't like it seems a poorly excuse to me.

"It was probably very accurate. Did these people protest "W" as well?"

"W" was an independent film produced and directed by Oliver Stone and which of course had a point of view. While the subject of history can be open to interpretation, the History Channel evidently felt "The Kennedys" pushed the envelope too far, and could damage their brand.

Me, too.

^^ I concur.

"It was probably very accurate . . . "

"there was probably too much reality portrayed . . . "

“Probably?”

And it’s precisely these attitudes that sum up the entire problem with modern conservative politics. A half-assed, intellectually lazy "probably" becomes all the justification politicians and the constituents they cater to need to pursue a host of misjudgments, miscalculations, and mistakes that have plagued Republic thinking since dumbed-down, say-anything and do-anything-for-a-vote Neo-conservatism overtook and gobbled up a far more intelligent and conscientious GOP before the abject stupidity of the Ditto-head-dominated 90s.

It's why the U.S. is mired in Iraq. It's why Wall Street was allowed to rip off the American People – multiple times. It's why a whole host of issues facing the country from education to the economy to public safety are allowed to fester unchecked while the Republican Party resorts to any trick it can, including lying, in order to dominate American politics unchallenged, the plurality be damned.

Sure, what are a glaring few errors, inaccuracies, and outright fabrications in the historical narrative? It’s no big deal when the only purpose of the project is to create a path by which the viewers can more easily reach the writers’ own fact-devoid preconceptions. Facts be damned, eh?

Pathetic.

casting Greg Kinnear and Katie Holmes should already tell you something about this "project".

It will be on the net shortly.

It was probably very accurate. Did these people protest "W" as well?

Contrariwise, there was probably too much reality portrayed that did not match the Camelot myth that developed post-assassination.