Nothing spells hypocrisy like S-T-R-E-I-S-A-N-D. This week, Barbara Streisand seems to have a case of First Amendment fever over CBS’s decision to move “The Reagans” mini-series over to Showtime. Streisand released a statement saying, in part,
I don’t believe Democrats often, if ever, try to muscle the First Amendment like this. For example, in 1983, no one stopped NBC from airing Kennedy, a biopic that portrayed President Kennedy and other members of his family and administration as deeply flawed, even though the movie could have potentially been hurtful to Jackie Kennedy, who was still alive to see it, as well as to her children.
This is censorship, pure and simple. Well, maybe not all that pure. Censorship never is. Due to their experience with the restrictive English government, the framers of our constitution specifically included a ban on prior restraint in the First Amendment, which is an attempt to stop information from getting out there before the public has a chance to see it at all – exactly what is going on in this case. Of course, CBS as a company has the legal right to make decisions about what they do and do not air. However, these important decisions should be based on artistic integrity rather than an attempt to appease a small group of vocal dissidents. Indeed, today marks a sad day for artistic freedom – one of the most important elements of an open and democratic society.
Of course this is the same Barabara Streisand who filed a lawsuit against environmentalists who took aerial photos of California’s coast because one of their 12,000+ photos included a shot of her coastal home.
Apparently in Streisand’s world, the First Amendment (you know, the Julius Caesar version) apparently reads,
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances, unless it inconveniences Hollywood liberals.