If the script that was downloadable at Salon.com is an accurate draft of “The Reagans” script, the Showtime movie on Sunday night is going to be an amazingly stilted attack piece. Rich Noyes and I read through hundreds of silly pages, and Rich’s summary of slurs describes what Showtime viewers might see is loaded with these propaganda themes:
1. Reaganomics victimized the poor.
2. Reagan won the Cold War by overcoming conservative warmongers like Al Haig.
3. “Idiot” reporters in the White House rooted for Reagan. (This is clearly the most hilarious lie.)
4. The film centers on Reagan being flummoxed by Iran-Contra, including John Tower lecturing Reagan on how he would be impeached.
5. Reagan began losing his mental faculties even before the assassination attempt in 1981. (Strangely, this almost-CBS movie also suggests CBS anchor Walter Cronkite covered the 1987 INF Treaty signing, even though he retired in 1981.)
6. The Reagans were a very, very dysfunctional family, with Nancy hitting Patti on a regular basis, Nancy screaming at Michael to go back to his “real parents,” and Nancy being sold on how she could be the “center of power” in Sacramento.