Should-See TV
Dec. 19th, 2010 10:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eclectic_boyI just finished doing something I've been meaning to do for weeks (well, I'd also meant to do it before, but this most recent instance has been for weeks): watching the documentary The Most Dangerous Man in America. It's the story of The Pentagon Papers, the 7000 pages of classified information about US involvement in Vietnam from the Truman administration through the '60s which military analyst Daniel Ellsberg leaked in the early 70s. Besides being an exciting suspense story, it makes a lot of ethical points about how someone comes to believe that the work they're involved in is terribly wrong -- and how what they do next can be viewed by (and spun in) the media.
Plus the bonus features include sections of President Nixon's secret tapes in which he talks with advisers about the matter. It's pretty astonishing to hear the President of the United States actually say, "I'd line the bastards up against the wall, and I myself would pull the trigger" -- talking about the editors of The New York Times.
Plus the bonus features include sections of President Nixon's secret tapes in which he talks with advisers about the matter. It's pretty astonishing to hear the President of the United States actually say, "I'd line the bastards up against the wall, and I myself would pull the trigger" -- talking about the editors of The New York Times.
