A Question Of Courage, Or Questionable Courage?

It might be imagined from reading this New York Times piece that there's cause for celebration that the thuggish attempts by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus as well as other Latino groups to force stellar documentary filmmaker Ken Burns to alter the content of his documentary on World War II, The War, which will air on PBS in September of this year, to add stories of Latino contributions to the war effort have failed due to the courage displayed by Burns's sponsors (General Motors, Anheuser-Busch, and Bank of America) and PBS itself in their refusal to capitulate to the Caucus's self-serving demands.

Well, there is indeed cause to celebrate the failure of the Caucus's extortionate attempts to force an alteration of the content of Burns's film, and we'd like to imagine that the courage displayed by Burns's sponsors and PBS in their refusal to capitulate to the Caucus's demands was in the service of protecting a documentary filmmaker's right to portray in a documentary of his own making what he feels needs or ought to be portrayed. We can't, however, quite stave off the nagging suspicion that that display of courage had more to do with the Caucus's lack of sufficient economic and political clout than with anything so noble as the defense of a documentary filmmaker's right to make his film as he sees best fit.

But perhaps that's merely the perpetually lurking subterranean cynic in us clambering its way to the surface to secure for itself but a brief moment in the sun, after which it will be content to return to its ordinary habitat and mode of operation.

On the other hand....