Admiration for the movie star Charlton Heston poured out of the obituaries and appreciations when he died. He would say he was an actor, which he certainly was, but he was also a star, a riveting presence that could credibly play great men like Moses. But the story of Heston’s activism came like a cautionary note, that he used to be a civil rights hero, but then he wandered badly astray.
Many were struck at the similarities of the late careers of Heston and Ronald Reagan, two actors who became more conservative as the 20th century moved on, and both passed away through the long and difficult descent of Alzheimer’s Disease. Journalists and biographers who suggest a dramatic conversion of these two men – sometimes with a nasty implication that they cynically switched sides in the debate to keep their faltering careers alive – often fail to acknowledge how the political and cultural ground shifted under their feet, causing the leap.












Before ABC News on Sunday night described Charlton Heston as “polarizing” for his conservative views and CBS News dubbed him “controversial,” the Fox News Channel aired a obituary piece which impugned Heston as “infamous for his politics, including his belief that the Bill of Rights is built upon the bedrock of the Second Amendment.”
Remembering Charlton Heston, who died Saturday night in his Beverly Hills home at age 84, the ABC and CBS anchors on Sunday night tarnished the actor's political activity on behalf of conservative causes, particularly his leadership of the NRA, as “controversial” and “polarizing.” Dan Harris, anchor of ABC's World News, asserted: “As President of the National Rifle Association, he became one of the most-polarizing figures in American politics.” CBS Evening News anchor Russ Mitchell declared: “Once the quintessential big screen hero, in his later years he drew as much attention for his controversial politics.”
I guess we shouldn't expect any sense of decorum from Kossacks, but it is pretty lame that they had to 


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