No one actually believed Aaron Sorkin when he said he didn’t have an ideological ax to grind in making his new HBO series “The Newsroom.”
But the level of vitriol against the right on the series, in just three initial episodes, is remarkable even by HBO’s progressive standards.
Last night’s installment took us back to 2010, a time when the Tea Party’s influence was set to shape both local and nationally relevant elections. The show’s fictional news room goes into battle mode, courtesy of Sorkin’s liberal pen, according to Newsbusters.
[‘Newsroom’ star Jeff] Daniels went on a lengthy, factually-challenged rant against the Tea Party besmirching folks like Rand Paul, Sharron Angle, Jim DeMint, and Allen West while conveniently pushing to raise taxes on the nation’s richest one percent.
Potentially worse, mixed in with characterizations of real people were manufactured personalities that don’t exist.
The producers concocted a phony member of Congress called Bryce Delaney just defeated in a primary by a Tea Party candidate.
During an interview with Daniels, Delaney claimed he lost because he said at a townhall meeting that Obama wasn’t a socialist. He also made the awful “mistake” of co-sponsoring a bill with a Democrat that provided for homeless veterans to receive housing vouchers and services such as counseling and job training.
The episode also managed to compare former Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann to disgraced Sen. Joe McCarthy as part of the journalistic fireworks on display.
Is it any wonder HBO quickly renewed the show for a second season despite mixed reviews and mediocre ratings?
UPDATE: As if we needed any further proof of “The Newsroom’s” far left bias, along comes Dan Rather to give his full-throttled approval of both the show and the third installment in particular.
Courage.