Thinking Meat

So apparently there's been quite a lot of consternation on the Left about CBS's preemptive removal of The Reagans after a mass protest from the Right.

I can see their point. Though I don't seem to remember any similar fury at this:

LOS ANGELES — A "Law & Order'' episode about violence during New York's Puerto Rican Day parade provoked angry complaints from Hispanic groups and a promise from NBC never to air the hour again.

"We sincerely apologize for offending members of the Latino community regarding the portrayal of Latinos and the Puerto Rican Day parade ... we have agreed not to repeat the episode on NBC,'' the network said Thursday.

The episode that aired Wednesday depicted a parade day rampage by Puerto Rican youths in which women are molested and one is killed. A Brazilian youth is shown convicted in the death.

I saw that episode. It did not claim to be about real people. Its storyline had little to do with the parade itself; it just happened to be the setting. The killer was not Puerto Rican. The episode was preceded by the then-unusual L&O disclaimer, "The following story is fictional and does not represent any actual person or event." Law and Order has had many positive portrayals of Latinos, including Detective Reynaldo Curtis, a Peruvian played by Benjamin Bratt, and a central character on the show from 1995 to 1999. On the flip side, the show has had unflattering portrayals of virtually every other ethnic, religious, and political group. And yet, based on this one episode, which never generalized about the entire Latino population, the pressure groups managed to get NBC to not just apologize, but also take the episode entirely off the air, including reruns and even syndication, so you couldn't catch it in reruns on A&E or (now) TNT.

Where were the cries of outrage?