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Published Letters: 1
Click on my name to see an article in Salon from back in 2000 detailing Barry "drug czar" McCaffrey's role in bribing tv studios to modify their primetime scripts to incorporate anti-drug messages:
Under the sway of the office of President Clinton's drug czar, Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, some of America's most popular shows -- including "ER," "Beverly Hills 90210," "Chicago Hope," "The Drew Carey Show" and "7th Heaven" -- have filled their episodes with anti-drug pitches to cash in on a complex government advertising subsidy[...]
With this deal in place, government officials and their contractors began approving, and in some cases altering, the scripts of shows before they were aired to conform with the government's anti-drug messages. "Script changes would be discussed between ONDCP and the show -- negotiated," says one participant.
Rick Mater, the WB network's senior vice president for broadcast standards, acknowledges: "The White House did view scripts. They did sign off on them -- they read scripts, yes."
McCaffrey and the networks simply do not see their behavior as the least bit questionable.
