Barbra Streisand: The new Janet Reno
By Michael Moriarty
web posted November 24, 2003
An e-mail pen pal from Illinois suggested I write an editorial commemorating
my fateful meeting 10 years ago with President Bill Clinton's Attorney General
Janet Reno in the Ulysses S. Grant suite of the Willard Hotel in Washington
D.C. During that fateful meeting in November 1993, Reno demanded government
control of primetime television. That's blatantly unconstitutional.
After mulling over what has happened to Reno since then -- Parkinson's
disease, her loss in the Florida Democratic primary campaign, and her dubious
achievement award for being listed as number seven in the year-end "Whacko" list
-- I felt it would be unfair to pick on her anymore.
However, Barbra Streisand obligingly made herself a target by coming out
of the gate with her version of The Reagans' story. By all accounts, she
is the new Janet Reno, kicking a man when he's down and, in an editorial,
portraying herself as the victim of censorship following CBS' decision
to cancel the controversial mini-series.
At Waco, Reno and her Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms posse put the inhabitants
of the David Koresh compound through sleep deprivation by playing, at full
blast, Nancy Sinatra's These Boots Were Made for Walking! They played it
all night. Then they provoked the incineration of 80 men, women and children.
Apparently, Streisand put on her spiked heels and, with a cat o' nine tails,
began singing her own version of the angry, feminist's anthem while deliberately
trying to tear down a man who's on his knees with Alzheimer's disease. It
takes many months of dedication to create propaganda like that. She was
obviously very dedicated to the task.
That the former President was almost single-handedly responsible for tearing
down the Berlin Wall, freeing millions of Europeans from dictatorship,
and did it without firing a shot -- no collateral damage -- hasn't impressed
Babs in the least. To me, it was a near miracle, but to the new Janet Reno, it
was evidently some kind of personal attack on her.
If Streisand were a card-carrying member of the Communist Party, I might
understand. However, her eager participation in the National Democratic
Committee's successful effort to have Mario Cuomo thrown out of the loop
in 1990 -- he's Catholic, you know, and not really in the inner circle
-- thereby engineering Clinton's nomination as the Democrat candidate for
President… well, it all adds up to a few of the reasons I left my
job, my city, my home, my marriage and my country and moved to Canada.
Streisand's claims of censorship, after CBS politely allowed her tripe
to air on its franchise channel Showtime, sticks in the craw of a man who
faced real censorship at the hands of the Clinton administration. I was,
at the last minute, yanked from two talk shows -- the Today Show and
Tom Brokaw's Dateline NBC, and then told my possible debate with the censorship-loving
Senator Kent Conrad would be replaced by the censorship-loving head of
the Federal Communications Commission. "That's the only day he can
make it to New York." So, basically get rid of Moriarty's defense
of free speech on television.
NBC, the network airing the series Law and Order, in which I starred for
four years, suddenly turned its back on me and on their constitutional
responsibilities as well. NBC had me quickly replaced, behind my back,
with Sam Waterston. I had to learn, from a Manhattan reporter, that my
own agency, ICM, would not be losing the seven-figure income that would
have been due me in a fifth year. Ten percent of one million dollars is
not chump change.
My anger at Janet Reno has cooled down over the years. I'm enjoying a peaceful retirement
up here in British Columbia, sharing my memories -- a considerable number
of them -- with my family and friends. I really don't need the headache
again.
However, Streisand came back from the wings of her Hollywood mansion and
kept up her desire to be the female Frank Sinatra and actually out-do him.
Not only would she be a kingmaker by getting Clinton elected, she
would be a king-destroyer by tearing down the best Republican President
since Theodore Roosevelt. Actually, from viewing what President Reagan
achieved in terms of freeing so many people from Communist slavery, he
does have the touch of another great Republican -- Abraham Lincoln.
It's a talent of the left to make their political opponents take the blame
for sins the Democratic Party has been engaged in for decades. However,
Oliver Stone's film on Richard Nixon had the extraordinary genius of the
greatest actor in the English-speaking world, Sir Anthony Hopkins, who
expanded a basically pathetic man to Shakespearean dimensions. I doubt
if the same thing will be true of Streisand's film on Ronald Reagan.
I met Streisand for 10 minutes on the set of Children of Fortune, one of
her husband's movies of the week. Neither of us could possibly like each
other. That became evident rather quickly.
Ms. Streisand, you told me that you had asked Katherine Hepburn, a veteran
of the Stratford Bard Festival, if she'd "ever done Shakespeare." I
replied, after having worked with Ms. Hepburn, that it would be like asking
you, "Did you ever sing, Ms. Streisand?"
Your question to the Reagans, "Have you ever done anything
good for America?" will have the same resounding, angry response from
the entire North American public as the one you've just received from me. 
Michael Moriarty is a Golden Globe and Emmy Award winning actor who has
appeared in the landmark television series Law and Order, the mini-series
Holocaust, and the recent mini-series Taken. In 2002 he won an Emmy for
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie for his work in
James Dean.
Other related articles: (open in a new window)
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25, 2001)
Californians have a new voice for energy conservation, reports Shelley McKinney. It's none other than Barbra Streisand
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