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CBS executives this week scrapped plans to air a miniseries on Ronald and Nancy Reagan, under pressure from conservative groups. After a copy of the script leaked, Republicans said the two-part saga, The Reagans, was a smear on the former president and his wife. In one scene, Nancy Reagan urged her husband to support AIDS research, and he replied, “They that live in sin shall die in sin.” The former first lady was portrayed as a cold, manipulative social climber. Network executives tried to salvage the miniseries by editing it “with a machete,” a source told Newsweek. But the finished product was not a “balanced portrayal,” CBS said in a statement, so the network decided to license the four-hour saga to Showtime, a cable service owned by the same parent company, Viacom.
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