I took my mother to see The Post and was thoroughly impressed. It is a very interesting story and frankly, one that should cause modern media to wake up to their real duty. That duty is to the American people and not a political party (either side.)

Sure this “based on a true story” film takes liberties with the truth as it asserted Nixon tried to ban the post from press conferences. A statement that was clearly a liberal slam on current-President Donald Trump dealing with the media. Director Steven Spielberg too may have added one too many crusades as it went off on a tangent to pander to the women’s rights fight against sexism. It is Hollywood though, so that is understandable.

This story is a great testament to the importance of the First Amendment which was explained brilliantly by Justice Hugo Black in his opinion from the case:

“In the First Amendment the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government’s power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.”

The performance by Meryl Streep was some of her best work – and that is saying a lot for a woman with such an impressive body of work. Tom Hanks too, turned in a great performance. Despite a run time of nearly two hours, The Post kept you interested throughout. And that after all, is some of the highest praise one can give a film.

My takeaway is that I am going to dig into those Pentagon Papers to see the truth of the study. It is a condemnation of how much noise we make as citizens, yet how little action we take to vote offenders out of office that this is such a relatively unknown piece of history. Even talking with my mother who was a young adult during these events, she said, “I was too busy raising kids to really pay any attention.”

RATING 8 out of 10

by Chris Doelle

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