The creator of such shows as "All in the Family," "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman," and "The Jeffersons," Norman Lear is a pioneer of a more candid, socially realistic genre of television programming and a champion of democratic values.

Mr. Lear founded People for the American Way to defend core First Amendment freedoms, and the Business Enterprise Trust to celebrate businesses that advance the public good while achieving financial success.

Blog Entries by Norman Lear

Lyndon Johnson, His National Security Advisor and His Secretary of Defense Say All

489 Comments | Posted November 23, 2009 | 12:10 AM (EST)


Was the Vietnam War an act of prescience, or simply a prelude to today? You decide after hearing the principals in the White House at that time discuss the agony of that moment. The first 1000 people who respond to this blog by emailing here will receive a...

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Backpfeifengesicht = Lieberman

126 Comments | Posted October 28, 2009 | 10:10 AM (EST)


Google the meaning of backpfeifengesicht and see if it doesn't evoke Joe Lieberman!!

You looked it up? See what I mean? What is it about that face? Would it evoke the same feeling if you didn't know who the man wearing it was, and what the man wearing it...

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Why I Have Some Empathy for Balloon Boy's Dad

148 Comments | Posted October 21, 2009 | 09:38 AM (EST)


So the Heene family put one over on us, you and me, just plain folks and families all across the country. But CNN and MSNBC and Fox??! And those giant, senior broadcast institutions of newsworthiness, NBC, ABC and CBS, who certify legitimacy by just covering such stories with a straight...

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Conservatives and Off-Base Lefties: Can You Top This?

280 Comments | Posted October 11, 2009 | 09:21 PM (EST)


Well over half the people who walk the face of this earth come from among the three Abrahamic traditions or faiths: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It is no secret that there has been no love lost and little understanding between Islam, the fastest-growing of the three, and the other two....

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"Good for the Jews?" or "Go Know!"

115 Comments | Posted August 3, 2009 | 11:38 AM (EST)


You rush into her small linoleum floored kitchen some 60-70 years ago and tell my delicious immigrant grandmother the Yankees won the pennant or that King Edward VIII just abdicated his throne, something she had no way of knowing anything about, and she was sure to reply, dumbfounded but whimsical,...

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Call Me a Bleeding Heart Conservative

77 Comments | Posted June 19, 2009 | 12:31 PM (EST)


Yesterday, a conservative blogger who prefers to be anonymous wrote a post titled "'Born Again American Is Liberal". He says that of a song written by Keith Carradine and sung by a number of average, working Americans from across the country, who are for the most part

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An American Heartbreak

105 Comments | Posted May 29, 2009 | 04:43 PM (EST)


Tom Brokaw famously called my generation the greatest. I'll accept the title for those of us still around, but only for the years preceding 1945. I'm not so sure we weren't too content with ourselves post-World War II. We began to believe our press as it were -- something to...

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Who Needs Republicans With Democrats Like This

191 Comments | Posted May 25, 2009 | 11:28 AM (EST)


"Oh, my God!" any media brainwashed American TV viewer might exclaim today when they see a grown up, a certified adult, let alone an adult so many other adults elected to represent them in the United States Senate, say something so inane!

Senator Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska, we...

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Watch Out -- It's Going Around

31 Comments | Posted May 21, 2009 | 11:21 AM (EST)


I have been a Democrat all of my life. As a young man I remained faithful to my party despite the disgusting antics of Senators Bilbo, Rankin, Thurman and their like. These scurvy fools were larger than life -- perhaps they all seemed that way before television shrunk them --...

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To Arkansas State Senator Kim Hendren's Grandchilden

73 Comments | Posted May 17, 2009 | 08:01 PM (EST)


Dear Mark, Jim, Gayle and Hope:

I appreciate you love your grandfather, who referred last week to Senator Charles Schumer as "that Jew," and I would hope that love continues even as, on occasion, you know he can be a horse's ass.

I grew up with a Dad not...

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Dear Justice Scalia...

475 Comments | Posted April 29, 2009 | 10:31 AM (EST)


As a born again American who has taken the pledge to make my citizen's voice heard, I'd like to offer my heartfelt thanks to Justice Antonin Scalia and his four conservative cohorts on the Supreme Court. God bless them, yesterday they voted 5-4 to uphold the FCC ban...

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Open Letter to Tony Perkins

Posted April 15, 2009 | 11:28 PM (EST)


Dear Mr. Perkins:

I was initially delighted to see that you had joined so many other American Christians in responding to the Born Again American campaign. But your recent "Last Word" column makes it clear that you have misunderstood the campaign, and I'd like to give you a...

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Come, Shoot the Messengers!

Posted March 19, 2009 | 02:18 AM (EST)


So some dozens of men and women, many of them relatively young, graduates of our best business schools, stars in the business firmament of the giant financial institution they worked for, which giant institution was now receiving billions of bailout taxpayer dollars, accepted large bonuses under the terms of the...

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"Born Again American": How the Idea Came About

Posted January 29, 2009 | 10:53 AM (EST)


In the Living section of the Huffington Post, Dr. Judith Rich expresses her complex reaction to the title, "Could You Be A Born Again American?," a song sung in a music video by Americans across the country who are actually living the real life stories in the verses...

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A Preamble to Election Night

Posted October 31, 2008 | 04:21 PM (EST)


Here's a preamble to election night:

I am predicting that 26% of single ownership newspapers will call it a landslide for Obama. Only one media conglomerate will refrain from using the word. 66% of those voters who have been calling themselves "Undecided" will admit to fraudulently claiming their independence...

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Call for Warren Buffet

Posted September 25, 2008 | 02:49 PM (EST)


In this dire financial crises, the meltdown of our financial markets and all the other catastrophic descriptions of the current situation, is there nothing profoundly simple and sensible that can be done to calm the chaos and burgeoning sense of panic that is coming on us like Hurricane Jake? The...

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President Palin? It's a Possibility

Posted August 31, 2008 | 10:04 PM (EST)


God forbid anything unfortunate happens to John McCain should he win the election. Yet, you have to admit it is exciting to contemplate a Sarah Palin presidency. According to her interview in People magazine, she doesn't sleep much and has more than one blackberry. But when duty calls, she...
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My Choice for Vice President

Posted August 19, 2008 | 07:05 PM (EST)


If I wasn't certain it would be like pounding sand down a rat hole, I would be taking out full page ads to tell the world I saw the man who should be the Vice Presidential running mate for either Barack Obama or John McCain. For John McCain because he...

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Where Is My Troop Train?

Posted April 7, 2008 | 04:24 PM (EST)


In the last 20-minutes of a flight that brought me home from half way around the world the other day, I read about a movie called Stop-Loss and knew I had to see it as soon as I could. Not because it seemed to be an anti-war film. As related...

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Archie Bunker vs. the Attorney General

Posted December 15, 2007 | 03:24 PM (EST)


I woke up this morning and over coffee and my daily newspaper saw the front page story, DELAY IS SOUGHT BY JUSTICE DEPARTMENT ON CIA INQUIRY, read a quote by our new Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, and immediately thought:

"Of course! I know where I heard that reasoning before. In...

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