Posted on 09/08/2006 10:10:21 PM PDT by TaxachusettsMan
A group of leading American historians today sent the following letter to Mr. Robert Iger of ABC. Stressing the significance of the "traumatic" events of 9/11, the signers of this letter are calling on Mr. Iger to stand up for responsible media treatments of such important historical moments and withdraw the program from circulation. The growing list of signatories will be updated at openlettertoabc.blogspot.com.
The text of the letter follows.
Dear Robert Iger:
We write as professional historians, who are deeply concerned by the continuing reports about ABC's scheduled broadcast of "The Path to 9/11." These reports document that this drama contains numerous flagrant falsehoods about critical events in recent American history. The key participants and eyewitnesses to these events state that the script distorts and even fabricates evidence into order to mislead viewers about the responsibility of numerous American officials for allegedly ignoring the terrorist threat before 2000.
The claim by the show's producers, broadcaster, and defenders, that these falsehoods are permissible because the show is merely a dramatization, is disingenuous and dangerous given their assertions that the show is also based on authoritative historical evidence. Whatever ABC's motivations might be, broadcasting these falsehoods, connected to the most traumatic historical event of our times, would be a gross disservice to the public. A responsible broadcast network should have nothing to do with the falsification of history, except to expose it. We strongly urge you to halt the show's broadcast and prevent misinforming Americans about their history.
Sincerely,
Arthur Schlesinger Sean Wilentz, Princeton University Michael Kazin, Georgetown University Lizbeth Cohen, Harvard University, Nicholas Salvatore, Cornell University; Ted Widmer, Brown University; Rick Perlstein, Independent Scholar; David Blight, Yale University; Eric Alterman, City University of New York. Maurice Isserman, Hamilton College (List in formation)
must read:
"Why We Fight"
http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/MarkMAlexander/2006/09/08/why_we_fight
Why now that you bring him up, yes. And I see he has his PR photos all ready to go.
The Sunday morning talk shows should be interesting.
I normally don't have the sound on or watch much of any of them anymore.
I am not sure that I will watch the 2 parter either... if it even runs. looks like it will but.. ya never know.
It is a shame to see so many "enlightened freedom lovers" so supportive of a Stalinesque move to stifle the project.
Isn't that remarkable? Some of the very same gang of "scholars and historians" who hastened up the Hill to bail out Bubba's soon-to-be-impeached ass, are back in action!
As I mentioned above, as a Roman Catholic I was amazed, back then, to see Father Robert Drinan of the Jesuits testifying with some of this crowd that meeting with an Intern for oral sex in the Oval Office was behavior that should be cultivated, not criticized in a President.
Any moment now Laurence "Lost" Tribe and Doris Kearns Goodwin of Harvard should chime in . . . Tribe is one of the Harvard crowd who, years ago, signed petitions to keep a charter school for black children from besmirching his Cambridge neighborhood. And both he and Goodwin sometimes have . . . uh . . . trouble referencing their sources in publications. If you get my drift . . .
What a bunch of hypocritical frauds.
Most of them don't even bother to show up to teach their classes, and they still get paid.
Stop now.....you're making me LOL and two of my grandsons are sleeping just feet from me!
bookmk ping-a-ling & thanks
tunin' up with this article he had in the Union Loader
http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=John+Kerry%3A+Switch+the+fight+to+Afghanistan&articleId=5e6a24ea-aaee-4ac6-ac67-ed0b000fd338
John Kerry: Switch the fight to Afghanistan
By SEN. JOHN KERRY
1 hour, 28 minutes ago
Donald Rumsfeld — who should have been fired as secretary of defense long ago — gave an ugly speech in which he spoke of “moral confusion.”
There certainly is a lot of moral confusion around these days. It is immoral for old men to send young Americans to fight and die for a strategy that has not weakened terrorism but worsened it. It is immoral to treat 9/11 as a political pawn — and to continue to excuse the invasion of Iraq by exploiting the 3,000 mothers and fathers, sons and daughters who were lost that day. They were attacked and killed not by Saddam Hussein but by Osama bin Laden.
President Bush has a strategy to try to win an election. We need leadership that has a strategy to win the War on Terror.
Iraq has made America less safe. The terrorists are not on the run. Terrorist acts tripled between 2004 and 2005. Al-Qa-da has spawned a decentralized network operating in 65 countries, most of them joining since 9/11. Only Dick Cheney could call this a success.
The situation in Afghanistan deteriorates steadily. The Taliban now controls entire portions of southern Afghanistan, and across the border Pakistan is one coup away from becoming a radical jihadist state with nuclear weapons. Only George Bush could declare this “mission accomplished.”
It’s time to refocus our military efforts from the failed occupation of Iraq to what we should have been doing all along: destroying al-Qaida. We need to redeploy troops from Iraq — keep up the training and counter-terror operations, establish an over the horizon military capacity — and free up resources to fight the War on Terror.
Every time President Bush tells the Iraqis we will “stay as long as it takes,” he is giving squabbling Iraqi politicians an excuse to take as long as they want to. Iraqi leaders have responded only to deadlines. So we must set another deadline to extricate our troops and get Iraq up on its own two feet — a clear deadline of July, 2007. As our generals have said, the war cannot be won militarily. “Staying the course” isn’t far-sighted; it’s blind. Leaving our troops in the middle of a civil war isn’t resolute; it’s reckless. Half of the service members listed on the Vietnam Memorial Wall died after America’s leaders knew our strategy would not work. It was immoral then and it would be immoral now to engage in the same delusion.
Neither can the administration engage in the delusion that we’ve won in Afghanistan. Last Thursday the President said we’re on the offensive against terrorists in Afghanistan, even as the NATO commander said the opposite is true and made a desperate plea for more troops to stop a major Taliban offensive.
We must recommit to Afghanistan. This administration has cut and run while the Taliban-led insurgency is retaking control over entire areas of the country. They’ve cut and run even as we’ve learned that the mastermind of the most recent attempt to blow up American airliners was an al-Qaida leader in Afghanistan. The same killers who attacked us are still plotting attacks against America and they’re still holed up in Afghanistan.
We must send significant reinforcements to Afghanistan: at least 5,000 more troops, equipment, and reconstruction funds. Five years after 9/11, the politics of deception and smear stalks this land. But this cynical strategy can not redeem a Katrina foreign policy or re-elect a rubberstamp Congress. Americans see the truth through the fog of fear.
On the other side, the only thing they have to offer is fear itself. It’s up to us to offer a new course that will actually win the war on terror.
Sen. John Kerry was the 2004 Democratic nominee for President
I KNEW somebody was missing! Larry, baby!
And won't Doris, the plagiargist, fit right in???
If we fight this we can do serious damage to the dems .If we don't the show will air edited and we'll me the chance of a lifetime to show the world what a loosed Klinton really is. I dont think we are taking this seriously enough . If we allow this to happen it's the begining of the end . we will have censorship of the media by the Klintons.
ping to #51, hateful talk from the LT
Most of them have Jewish heads also, that will be promptly cut off by Bin Laden and company, aided and abetted and enabled by the Democrat "traitor/treason" party. American Jews, historians or not, are about as dumb as a human being can get when it comes to politics. These folks must have an inner death wish. Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Abraham, etc. must be turning over in their graves.
Okay, I asked this question earlier today: am I the only person who has noticed just how many of the Democrats have said just this thing in the last 72 hours?
I couldn't begin to tell you how many of them I've heard say almost the exact same thing.
Now, see, Hillary said the very same thing today!
And she talked about Afghanistan, too!
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