Posted on 09/06/2006 6:02:32 AM PDT by PDR
The docudrama that ABC will air next week commemorating the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks seems likely to revive some long-running disputes over whether the Clinton or Bush administration has more to answer for in neglecting indications of a pending al Qaeda attack on the United States.
“The Path to 9/11,” a five-hour, two-part depiction of events prior to the attacks, is to air Sept. 10 and 11. And early reviews among veterans of the Clinton White House are decidedly negative: They argue that the show downplays the Bush White House’s culpability while inventing some scenes out of whole cloth to dramatize the supposed negligence of Clinton officials.
That complaint came to the fore at a National Press Club screening of the show late last month, when Richard Ben-Veniste — one of the 10 members of the independent Sept. 11 commission, whose final report producer Marc Platt credits with supplying much of the mini-series’ detail and narrative structure — rose to denounce the veracity of a key scene involving Clinton national security adviser Samuel R. Berger.
Berger, portrayed as a pasty-faced time-server by Kevin Dunn (Col. Hicks in “Godzilla”) freezes in dithering apprehension when a manly and virtuous CIA agent played by Donnie Wahlberg radios in from the wilds of Afghanistan to say that he and his noble band of local tribesmen have Osama bin Laden within sight and begs for the green light to terminate him with extreme prejudice. In the film, the line goes dead before Berger offers any reply.
The moment is clearly intended to encapsulate the notion of American inattentiveness to the terror threat in the 1990s — a point driven home when the camera pans back to show Berger surrounded by a supporting cast of fellow Clinton administration nervous Nellies, including Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and Defense Secretary William S. Cohen.
So when the post-screening question-and-answer session began, Ben-Veniste stood to say that the Berger-bashing scene didn’t square with the research he and the other commissioners conducted. “There was no incident like that in the film that we came across. I am disturbed by that aspect of it,” Ben-Veniste, a loyal Democrat, told the panel, which included both the producer and the commission’s GOP chairman, former Gov. Thomas H. Kean of New Jersey.
Berger, reached by phone after the screening, seconded Ben-Veniste’s criticism. “It’s a total fabrication,” he said tersely. “It did not happen.”
That is not likely to prevent the film from being embraced far and wide among Bush supporters. Even before its airdate, the show is being hailed as a breakthrough in the conservative blogosphere. One blogger marveled in an interview with scriptwriter Cyrus Nowrasteh that “one unbelievable sequence shows how . . . Sandy Berger . . . actually hung up the phone on the CIA agent on the ground.”
Neither Berger nor Ben-Veniste was consulted on the film. Kean, however, is an official adviser; he says the incident was a fictionalized composite. It was “representative of a series of events compacted into one,” he replied to Ben-Veniste at the time. In a phone interview a few days later, he added, “It’s reasonably accurate.” And he offered a prediction that the show will “get just as many howls from Republicans.”
WTC1, Mogadishu, Khobar Towers, US Embassies in Africa, USS Cole and everything else inbetween are the undeniable proof that Clinton did nothing relevant to stop terrorism.
Unfortunately for him he was a Clinton ass-sniffing weasel!
heard Rush talking about it yesterday... convinced me to watch it
Clinton embolden islamic fascists worldwide, when he bombed Christians in Serbia, that is the prelude to 9/11 imho.
When I signed on this morning and pulled up Netscape the first thing I saw was an article about this.....went to it and saw it was a blog as well. Obviously a very liberal blog, but it was fun reading some posts from the extreme-lefty-Bushhaters.
http://www.netscape.com/viewstory/2006/09/05/richard-clarke-blasts-key-scene-in-abcs-9-11-docudrama/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fthinkprogress.org%2F2006%2F09%2F05%2Fclarke-blasts-abc%2F&frame=true
The libs are all about free speach as long as they're speaking.
It may be good if we tell ABC that people want to see the movie, so they won't have second thought. Contact them:
http://abc.go.com/site/contactus.html
ABC will cover Clinton's ass once again and they will make it look like it's Bush's fault....period.
and stole the documents that prove it
Agree. I actually simply told them my interest to watch the movie. I'm just afraid that if DUers send them thousand e-mails protesting the movie, without anybody shows interest in watching it, they may cancel or alter the movie.
While I realize that all RATs are intrinisically evil, there is something about that BenVeniste character that takes evil to a whole other level. I think he had something major to do with Watergate - some sort of RAT counsel or something of that sort. He always has the appearance of a furry, multilegged creepy crawly thing that you see when you turn over a large rock in the woods. This guy oozes evil from every pore. Hollywood's central casting couldn't come up with a more convincing villain. Some day I predict we're going to find out something about this slimeball that will make even seasoned political observers blanch.
Oh also, I don't happen to like the guy :)
It's great how the media is giving the opponents of this movie ample time to dispute what it contains. Just like they did when Michael Moore's movie came out... uh... nevermind.
A minor nip and tuck can be taking out Albright and Berger's part in all of this. NEVER TRUST DEMOCRATS TO TELL THE TRUTH!!
Exactly right. Fortunately for the nation Slimey was not convicted.
He is a vile piece of work.
Where was the left's outrage over Farenheit 911?
This "docudrama" hits them right where it hurts the most and they hate it.
They are apoplectic on DU. How, they whine, can this be permitted to be shown? It is simply a series of fabrications and events taken out of context! The producer is a rabid conservative activist... bla bla bla.
Unlike Farenheit 911, which was produced by a serious, unbiased, non-partisian film maker, who went to painstaking detail to represent the real truth.
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