SAMPLE CHAIN LETTER TEXT

I guess we can judge for ourselves when the movie comes out, but if Lincoln is treated this shabbily and the movie is as selective and one sided as these brags portend, this is both very sad and frightening!

The New Australian Alert Wednesday 21 March 2001 1:10 pm Melbourne time

Steven Spielberg's Revenge: Clinton and Lincoln. Did Spielberg boast that his coming attack on Abraham Lincoln was a payback for what "the Republicans did to Clinton"?

Spielberg is making a film that depicts Abraham Lincoln as a racist manic-depressive whose arrogance almost lost the American Civil War. Republicans immediately assumed that this was just another Hollywood hatchet job on conservatives. However, it now appears that the film is going to be a calculated attempt by Spielberg to permanently destroy Lincoln's reputation.

It seems that Spielberg bragged at a private gathering of Hollywood celebs and so-called dignitaries (all of whom are strong Democratic supporters) that his forthcoming picture would be his "revenge for what the Republicans did to Bill Clinton." So taken was one guest by Spielberg's comments that she couldn't stop repeating them to her friends. Well, Hollywood friends love a good story, so this story is now doing the rounds.

She also quoted Spielberg as having said that "by the time I'm finished there won't be a shred of respect left for that racist Republican trash (meaning Lincoln)." Another alleged comment was that "my film will completely destroy any possibility of blacks ever voting for Republicans . . It will be permanently tarred as 'the Race Party.' And that's the best contribution I could ever make to the Democrats."

And you thought Spielberg was a nice family sort of guy.

That the Republican Party's basic plank was abolition is to be suppressed by Spielberg. No mention is to be made of the fact that the Democratic Party was the party of slavery and the Ku Klux Klan; that the secessionist states were led by Democrats will also be ignored as will the fact that the Confederacy's President, Jefferson Davis, was a Democrat, a slave owner and a bitter opponent of abolition.

Does Spielberg know all of this? Of course he does. So why is he prepared to callously destroy the reputation of one of America's most revered figures? Because Lincoln was a Republican and Spielberg has a pathological hatred of Republicans. To him they are just a bunch of budding fascists. How Spielberg arrived at this twisted conclusion is not a question I can answer. But his political intolerance and contempt for the truth puts him par with any communist, fascist or Nazi demagogue. One cannot help but think there is a strong authoritarian streak in Spielberg that comes perilously close to being totalitarian.

Of course, Spielberg needs to give his ideologically motivated assassination of Lincoln a veneer of academic respectability, and Doris Kearns Goodwin is just perfect for the role. She is a known left-wing historian, an unyielding Clinton supporter, as is Spielberg, and a former speechwriter for Teddy Kennedy. (Her husband, Richard, is known as a Kennedy courtier - or is it crawler?). She has also written a book on Lincoln, the very one upon which Spielberg will base his celluloid assassination of the Great Man.

Are there words in the English language that would truly describe what kind of creep Spielberg really is? I don't think so. On the other hand, a great wordsmith like George Orwell would probably have had little trouble in dealing with this political streetwalker.

Gerry Jackson Editor The New Australian http://www.newaus.com.au/