Changing The Subject: An Art Form"

In amongst the not too bright things I have done in my career was to leave CBS/Viacom in 1970 to return to a dying Columbia Pictures.

On my first day, I was taken to lunch to meet the man who was going to transform the Company into an entertainment powerhouse. Bill Butters came to Columbia along with a company that provided pay-per-view movies to hotel rooms. The Columbia management believed that this was to be their salvation.

A few days later, there was a stockholders meeting, and it was expected that there was to be big time trouble for management, in that the stock was under $2 a share, down from the low $30s. Shortly after this hostile meeting began, Bill Butters made a 45-minute presentation of the new corporate subsidiary that was going to return the company to its former profitability and glory. He received a standing ovation, and the anger of the shareholders was turned into big time support of the management.

Columbia Pictures had CHANGED THE SUBJECT. The incompetence of the management was forgotten as everyone basked in the glory of this new subsidiary.

As I watch a parade of Republican spokespeople appear on television to defend Karl Rove, Scooter Libby and the White House staff, I am appalled that the purported network journalists allow these people to CHANGE THE SUBJECT.

Does it matter that Joe Wilson was telling the truth about Niger? Yes, but it doesn't matter as it pertains to Rove/Libby.

Does it matter that Ms. Plame suggested that her husband be sent to Africa to investigate the Uranium business? Yes, but it doesn't matter as it pertains to Rove/Libby.

Does it matter what Joe Wilson said, or wrote about what he did in Niger?Yes, but it doesn't matter as it pertains to Rove/Libby.

When I watch the chairman of the RNC appear on "Meet The Press" and change the subject by attempting to demonize Joe Wilson, and diminish Valerie Plame in front of a compliant Tim Russert, it matters, and matters a lot.

The president has never said, "I have spoken with my senior staff as well as the senior staff of the Vice President and they have assured me that they violated no law nor White House policies as they might pertain to Ms. Plame." Shouldn't Mr. Russert point out to his audience that the president has never said or done this?

The broadcast networks allow the President access to their prime time schedule whenever he wishes to have it. Is it unreasonable to expect that they could give some time to their news divisions to do a prime time documentary that might put the entire affair into unbiased perspective for the people of our country?

Columbia Pictures' attempt to change the subject worked for a while until it was discovered that it was only the sexually explicit content that worked at all in hotel rooms. Butters left, Columbia sold the in-hotel movie business, the shareholders replaced the management and the company prospered.

We need to change the management of our country as well, but we can't do it as yet. But in the meantime, we must not allow the incumbents to change the subject, and we must call on the broadcast media, and Mr. Russert, to help.

While I understand that none of these things comes close to matching the scope of the transgression of a president having any kind of sex in the oval office, yet it still should be looked into.

Norman Horowitz
Media Person

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