ABC's "Path to 9/11" Treads on Clintonites' Feelings
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by Josh Grossberg
Sep 7, 2006, 3:45 PM PT
Safe to say that Bill Clinton won't be TiVo'ing ABC's The Path to 9/11 this weekend.
Several of Clinton's minions, including former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger and the former President's personal attorney and Clinton Foundation head Bruce Lindsey have put pen to paper this week asking Disney CEO Robert Iger to yank the ballyhooed miniseries.
According to press and marketing materials, the two-part docudrama, airing commerical-free Sunday and Monday, is based on the 9/11 Commission's sweeping review of what led to that national tragedy five years ago. But according to the Clinton crew, the miniseries plays fast and loose with history to wrongly cast blame of the terror attacks on Clinton officials.
"The content of this drama is factually and incontrovertibly inaccurate and ABC has a duty to fully correct all errors or pull the drama entirely," wrote Lindsey. "It is unconscionable to mislead the American public about one of the most horrendous tragedies our country has ever known."
As the pressure mounted Thursday, with additional attacks from left-leaning sites like Media Matters and ThinkProgress.org and liberal bloggers, ABC said it would not pull the $40 million miniseries starring Harvey Keitel and Patricia Heaton and Donnie Wahlberg, releasing a written statement asking viewers to take a wait and see approach.
"The Path to 9/11 is not a documentary of the events leading to 9/11. It is a dramatization, drawn from a variety of sources including the 9/11 Commission Report, other published materials, and personal interviews," the network said.
"No one has seen the final version of the film, because the editing process is not yet complete, so criticisms of film specifics are premature and irresponsible...We hope viewers will watch the entire broadcast of the finished film before forming an opinion about it.