The Clinton officials say that ABC repeatedly refused to send them advance copies of The Path to 9/11, but did send screeners to right-wing bloggers.
"Both Clinton and Bush officials come under fire, and if it seems more anti-Clinton, that's only because they were in office a lot longer than Team Bush before 9/11," said L. Brent Bozell, president of the conservative Media Research Center, who saw a preview of the miniseries. "The film doesn't play favorites and the Bush administration takes its lumps as well."
The film's writer-producer, Cyrus Nowrasteh, whose credits include the 2001 docudrama The Day Reagan Was Shot, dismissed such assertions.
In an interview Wednesday with Los Angeles radio station KRLA-AM, the filmmaker explained away the contradictions with the 9/11 Commission by insisting Path was based on two other books, The Cell by former ABC journalist John Miller and Michael Stone, and The Relentless Pursuit by Samuel Katz.
He also said that he took dramatic license with certain events. "You know' when you're making a movie, a lot of things happen on set that are unscripted. Accidents occur, spontaneous reactions of actors performing a role take place. It’s the job of the filmmaker to say, 'You know, maybe we can use that.' "
But left-wing bloggers point out that Nowrateh has described himself as a conservative and that Disney has a history of trying not to offend the Bush administration, notably by barring its Miramax division from releasing Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11.
"The attacks of 9/11 were a pivotal moment in our history, and it is fitting that the debate about the events related to the attacks continue," ABC added in its statement. A spokesman also said that the network hadn't received any feedback indicating its affiliates were jittery about airing the miniseries.
Some experts, however, doubted that ABC's statement would be enough to stem the flood of criticism.
"I suppose we can't make a judgment until we have seen it," Robert Thompson, director for the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University, told E! Online. "Disclaimers are not enough to satisfy people who can demonstrate that incorrect information is being given out. They're going to make a lot of noise about it and it's going to be in the public conservation for a long time."
Thompson also took issue with the way ABC planned to present The Path to 9/11.
"What I find especially interesting is ABC playing this without commercials presumably as a public service. Now that's kind of odd," he said. "The idea is that your going to show something in terms of public interest without commercials, then it attaches the ownership of the content to the network itself."
While ABC is sticking by the TV movie, one of its key partners isn't. Spooked by the firestorm the film has provoked, Scholastic Inc. announced Thursday that it was scrapping a Path to 9/11-branded "field guide" intended to allow high schoolers to use the movie as an educational tool. Instead, the publisher will distribute discussion materials focusing on "critical thinking and media literacy skills."
"After a thorough review of the original guide that we offered online to about 25,000 high school teachers, we determined that the materials did not meet our high standards for dealing with controversial issues," said Dick Robinson, Scholastic's chairman, president and CEO.
Among the topics Scholastic says its new "media literacy" kit will tackle: "What is a docudrama; how does it differ from a documentary; what are the differences between factual reporting and a dramatization?"
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Definitely starting the smear Kean chapter .. watch for his son, Tom, to start getting heat re his NJ senate election campaign.
Perhaps we'll hear from Vince Foster or Monica before the night is over, huh?
If those "right-wing bloggers" have screeners, we can find out what was changed between then and broadcast night.
As usual, "Clinton officials" (he's out of office now, how can some buttboy be an "official"? Of what?)are lieing, which is part of their nature. Parsing that statement, I suspect they were demanding the ability to rewrite the script. They may still get it, but they had to put on a full court press.