John Fund in today’s Wall Street Journal Political Diary…
Ronald Reagan didn’t have many buddies in liberal Hollywood after he became president. Merv Griffin, who died yesterday at age 82, was perhaps his closest friend there. The former bandleader, talk show host and TV producer understood television as well as anyone in the medium’s history. He also knew that Ronald Reagan was an historic figure and worked hard to make sure he was remembered through his chairmanship of the board of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. In 2004, he was one of the honorary pallbearers at Reagan’s funeral.
But perhaps his greatest service to his old pal came in 2003 when CBS was preparing to air a four-hour docudrama on the lives of Ronald and Nancy Reagan. The film depicted Reagan as a doddering fool at best and also implied that he was a bigot who had been indifferent to the suffering of AIDS victims. After consulting with Nancy Reagan, Griffin took to the airwaves to denounce the film as "a disgrace" and defended the Reagan record, telling MSNBC that Reagan’s greatest achievement was "rescuing the country from the Democratic Party, who had administered America into 18 percent unemployment and interest rates of 21 percent."
The outraged reaction of the American people to the Reagan miniseries forced CBS honcho Les Moonves to order the film off his network. It later aired on Showtime, a cable TV subsidiary of CBS, and was balanced by a panel discussion that pointed out many of the liberties the film’s makers had taken with the truth. His old friend Ronnie wasn’t able to thank him for his spirited defense, but yesterday after Griffin died Mrs. Reagan issued a statement honoring her "dear, dear friend" for all he had accomplished.
— John Fund