Dangerous Times, Dangerous Talk

“The executive producer of this week’s CBS miniseries, ‘Hitler: The Rise of Evil,’ was fired for publicly likening the climate in America in advance of the invasion of Iraq to the climate in pre-war Germany that allowed the rise of the Third Reich. Ed Gernon lost his job for drawing an analogy. Imagine being axed for expressing an opinion about a period in history when it was unsafe to express an opinion. If it weren’t so nasty, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was all a publicity stunt.” But it’s no stunt, and the continuing backlash against anyone daring to badmouth the current administration has many in Hollywood drawing another analogy, to the old McCarthy blacklist.