Time to Take Away Disney's Political Candy

[CatWoman]

Matt Stoller is a blogger at MyDD.

I looked through the FEC filings this morning, and found some interesting and expected information about Disney's chief, Robert Iger. Though he gives generously to both parties, Robert Iger isn't a wingnut. He's a neoliberal businessman who believes that pro-business moderates from both parties should run the country.

I imagine he's probably pro-choice, and he thinks of himself as sympathetic to the Democratic Party, though not what he perceives as the crazy part of the party. This is true of most of the big media moguls, like Sumner Redstone of Viacom. They are Democrats, but they want political favors from Republicans. Of course, these guys need to realize that Iger's going to ruin their nice big media business if he doesn't step up, and step up soon.

I imagine that Iger's in a tough spot. He doesn't hate Clinton, in fact he probably likes him. Iger's probably superangry that Bill Clinton is speaking out against this movie, as Iger thought this movie was mostly accurate. I mean he's the President of Disney, he's busy, he didn't read the 9/11 Commission report (who did?), and both Clinton and Bush made mistakes, right? That's what the movie says, so he was told (if he was told anything at all). Iger probably wasn't paying attention to ABC entertainment, thinking that they had this under control, especially the sensitive details. His subordinates promised a really cool new marketing campaign using the internet and bloggers instead of the traditional expensive Hollywood marketing junkets. This movie was edgy, hip, but serious, a real examination of a somber moment in American history. Right, Mr. Iger?

Given what I know about how big corporations think, I bet the political slant to the movie wasn't strictly intentional on Disney's part. I bet that Disney's ABC division used a set of PR firms and flacks that decided that 9/11 belonged to conservatives, and so hired conservative movement players to produce, market, and distribute this film. They got Tom Kean, so there was adult supervision. What a perfect event setup, to make ABC the place for the country to turn on 9/11. In this fragmented universe, wouldn't it be great to have a time when the country came together, on one place, to really understand this event through the medium of television. And how wonderful if this were on ABC. It would be AN EVENT.

Ha ha ha.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matt-stoller/time-to-take-away-disney_b_28983.html

[AX10]

1. kick