On February 19, Dorothy Rabinowitz, the acid-tongued commentator of the Wall Street Journal, published a stinging attack on the History Channel for running a film contending that Lyndon Johnson was directly responsible for the murder of John F. Kennedy and seven others. Controversy about “The Guilty Men,” had been brewing for several days; complaints poured into the television network from, among others, former Presidents Ford and Carter, LBJ's widow, and public television guru Bill Moyers, Johnson's former press secretary.

A History Channel spokesperson announced that the network had not endorsed the film and had shown it only “for public debate.” In the face of the continued uproar over the shoddy production, Channel officials appointed a panel of three veteran historians to explore the film's documentation and thesis. The results of this study should not be hard to predict.

This raises the question why the History Channel didn't have one or more qualified historians view the film before it was put on the air. Rabinowitz asked, “…If even this primitive piece of conspiracy-mongering could win a respectful airing on the history channel—on the ground, no less, that it's a subject worthy of public debate—then what dregs of crackpot theory would the network consider beyond the pale?” She noted that an Oliver Stone film glorifying Fidel Castro had been dropped by HBO because it lacked documentation. “Mr. Stone might have done better going straight to the History Channel.”

But I think there's a deeper problem with the History Channel: It is not only sometimes superficial and unprofessional, it is almost always deadly dull, doing much to convince viewers (if they needed convincing) that the past is irrelevant and that the study of it is almost certainly boring in the extreme. I have watched it many times, almost always coming away disgusted.

The network's strong emphasis on war might lead younger viewers to believe that human conduct rarely rises above barbarism. Grainy films about Hitler seem endlessly fascinating to network officials. (The normal din of weaponry and slaughter was brightened a bit recently with “Sex in World War II,” featuring Hugh Hefner.) Entire topics of human life go virtually unexplored. Themes that have been explored at tedious length in the media, such as the discovery of ancient Egyptian artifacts and the latest underwater findings, are shown repeatedly. The cutting-edge work of professional historians, which many of us find exciting, goes unexplored, as do debates among leading historians about the meaning of the past. News about recent books and articles is left to C-Span, which devotes at least a little time to the subject.

And then there are the commercials—that endless parade of noisy, mindless, degrading nonsense, seen on almost all of the channels, which seem to take up 30 percent of an average hour. They render serious consideration of anything impossible.

It is a truism, at least on the right, to say that television is a major force in the cultural decline of the West. The serious drop in the quality of programming at the Arts and Entertainment Network and BRAVO reveals much, not to mention the many channels devoted exclusively or in large part to sleaze. Perhaps we can't expect much more from the History Channel. But why can't we? Shouldn't the historical professional rise up as a body and demand more of a network that is often misusing and trivializing something vital to the education of civilized human beings? I say, let's talk less about current election campaigns and more about the life of the mind. Scholars should let the suits at the History Channel feel some well-informed heat. Often.