The recent cancellation by the History Channel of a mini-series on John Kennedy has drawn a lot of criticism on the right for the network's lack of backbone in dealing with the powerful Kennedy family and their allies.

Now, even the Boston Globe has come out and chastised the Kennedy clan and their sycophants who pressured the History Channel to withdraw the program:

THE KENNEDYS and their admirers in Massachusetts may or may not be right in condemning a new eight-part History Channel miniseries as salacious and historically dubious. Whether that contention is just should be apparent when the series airs. But while Kennedy supporters would be performing a service in correcting the record, they overstepped their bounds in strong-arming the History Channel into abandoning the show.

The History Channel now claims that the series is bad for their "brand,'' which is heavy on documentaries. But the time for that realization was when they read the script, not when letters poured in from Kennedy admirers, many of whom occupy powerful positions. The clear impression is that the History Channel pulled the plug not out of concern for historical fidelity, but in fear of alienating those who admire the Kennedys.

It's almost exactly the same chain of events that led CBS to pull "The Reagans'' back in 2003. So those who are prone to construct conspiracy theories about liberal control of the media, like those who bemoan the baleful effects of conservative talk-radio outrage, should look elsewhere. The simple fact is that the Kennedy and Reagan brands still have great force in rallying people to Democratic and Republican causes, and those who support those causes don't want to see the brands sullied.

Actually, the problem with the Reagan series was that the Gipper was being played by an anti-Reagan actor, the script was written by an anti-Reagan screenwriter, and it was conceived by an anti-Reagan producer. Plus, it was so bad that Showtime, the network where it eventually ended up being shown, only ran the program a few times before filing it away in a dusty vault.

Apparently, there is nothing in the Kennedy program that hasn't been documented by biographers and other close observers of the Kennedy clan. Just because the Kennedy PR machine doesn't like the warts of JFK to be on display doesn't mean that they should have the power to deny the airing of the show. John Kennedy was, in many ways, a fascinating historical figure and we are all the poorer in knowledge for being denied the opportunity to get a different take on his life than we ordinarily get from his apologists.

Hat Tip: Ed Lasky