Posted on 09/10/2006 9:36:29 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
NEW YORK - ABC aired its miniseries "The Path to 9/11" on Sunday but made editing changes after former Clinton administration officials complained it contained fabricated scenes about their actions prior to the terrorist attacks.
ABC's editing of the five-hour movie, airing on two successive nights starting Sunday, was evident from the very beginning. Twice, the network de-emphasized the role of the 9/11 commission's final report as source material for the film.
The version that aired Sunday also changed a scene that, in a copy of the movie given to television critics a few weeks ago, indicated President Clinton's preoccupation with his potential impeachment may have affected an effort to go after Osama bin Laden.
In the original scene, an actor portraying White House terrorism czar Richard Clarke shares a limousine ride with FBI agent John O'Neill and tells him: "The Republicans are going all-out for impeachment. I just don't see in that climate the president's going to take chances" and give the order to kill bin Laden.
But in the film aired Sunday, Clarke says to O'Neill: "The president has assured me this ... won't affect his decision-making."
O'Neill replies: "So it's OK if somebody kills bin Laden, as long as he didn't give the order. It's pathetic."
The critics' version contained a note in the opening scenes that the film is "based on the 9/11 commission report." That was omitted from the film aired Sunday. A disclaimer aired three times emphasized it was not a documentary.
"For dramatic and narrative purposes the movie contains fictionalized scenes, composite and representative characters and dialogue, as well as time compression," the note that ran before the movie said.
The note said the material is "drawn from a variety of sources including the 9/11 commission report and other published materials and from personal interviews." That differs from a note in the critics' version that said the dramatization "is based on the 9/11 commission report and other published sources and personal interviews."
Critics, such as historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., said it was "disingenuous and dangerous" not to include accurate historical accounts in the movie.
A scene in the movie depicting a team of CIA operatives poised in darkness outside of bin Laden's fortess in Afghanistan, ready to attack, was substantially cut down from the original. Pictures of the waiting Afghanistan operatives are interspersed with those of officials in Washington, who had to approve the mission.
The original version depicted national security adviser Samuel R. Berger hanging up on CIA chief George Tenet as Tenet sought permission to attack bin Laden. The movie aired Sunday did not include Berger hanging up.
The affect of the changes is to deflect specific blame. It ends with actor Donnie Wahlberg, head of the CIA team in Afghanistan, saying, "Are there no men in Washington?"
Another scene in the critics' cut pictured O'Neill asking Clarke on the telephone: "What's Clinton going to do (about bin Laden)?"
Clarke replies, "I don't know. The Lewinsky thing is a noose around his neck."
This was cut entirely from the film that aired Sunday.
Editors left intact a scene that had angered former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, portraying her as being behind a move to inform the Pakistani government in advance of a U.S. missile strike against bin Laden. The movie indicated that was a key factor in bin Laden getting away.
The movie, scheduled to air from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m., finished at 10:40 p.m. ET.
ABC has said little about the controversy, and said Sunday it would not comment.
Thomas Kean, head of the commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks and a backer of the film, said on ABC's "This Week" Sunday that he hadn't seen the final cut of the movie but urged Americans to watch it.
"If people blame Bill Clinton after seeing this, then the miniseries has failed," said Kean, the former Republican New Jersey governor. "That's wrong and it shouldn't happen."
John Lehman, another Republican commission members, said on the ABC News show that he's told the film is equally harsh on the administrations of President Bush and his father, former President George H.W. Bush.
"And if you don't like the hits to the Clinton administration, well, welcome to the club," Lehman said. "The Republicans have lived with Michael Moore and Oliver Stone and most of Hollywood as a fact of life."
___
AP Television Writer Frazier Moore contributed to this report.
He was the afghan leader massoud who was later assinated by bin laden.
I agree with what you have posted. Tomorrow evening we will see how they choose to portray the final days before 911. Will they show the contentious election and how it harmed the formation of the new administration when they assumed office? Will they show the uncooperative nature of the Clintonistas when it came to handing over the reins of power to the new administration at all?
In my heart I feel this is THE major point that must be made in all of this. The outgoing administration played politics with our nation's safety and security.
I will be truly surprised if they show this.
I have an African American friend who is a successful businessman in Sacramento. We were talking one day -- about politics. He said he was a Democrat all his life, but when he saw Clinton on t.v. denying that he'd had sex with Monica Lewinsky and said, "It depends on what the meaning of is, is" -- he said that was it! He couldn't take it anymore. He changed parties and became a Republican. And this guy was raised in the ghetto by a single mom.
That's because they STILL have fbi files...
I think the entire democratic party is terrified by this film. Remember reid proudly proclaiming they (the democrats) had killed the patriot act??
Think of the campaign commercials that can show the dems going against every good thing that has happened in preventing further attacks. Get their floor speeches decrying listening in to the terrorists planning to launch attacks from London etc.
I think we can gain more seats in the house and senate.
It was attempted blackmail. I don't think ABC caved anywhere near enough to make them happy. At least one scene came out more negative to Clinton than the original; the one where O'Niell says "we can kill bin Laden just so he (Clinton) didn't give the order".
All in all I was pleased with the result.
President Clinton killed more than 10,000 European civilians in a single month with his air war against Serbia in 1999, while taking no action during Rwanda's genocide of more than 400,000 Black Africans circa 1994.
He ordered tanks against an American church, killings scores of Branch Davidians in Waco in 1993.
For all of that blood and more, the Left wants him nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. He's their hero.
Didn't Clinton also launch missiles the day that Monica went to court?
When I heard Cyrus (the writer and one of the producers) on Hugh Hewitt's show - they were talking about that scene -- where Sandy Burglar, oops, I mean Berger, hangs up the phone. That scene really was made up. He said that when they were filming, the actor just hung up the phone and they decided to keep it, for dramatic effect.
I think the scene was just as powerful without the "hang-up." You got the feeling of urgency from the operatives on the ground, waiting to get OBL. Sandy Berger's part was just more of the same red tape that weaved its way in and out of the movie. Pathetic (the red tape BS, I mean.)
It sounds worse! It's a far cry from President Teddy Roosevelt -- the buck stops here!
The thing that impressed me most about Part 1 of the Pathway to 9/11 is the utter ABSENCE of Bill Clinton in the effort to get OBL. That, in itself, is pretty damning. And people want to make a holy war over President George W. Bush spending 7 more minutes with the children at the school when the planes hit the towers! Unbelievable!
Absent. He was completely absent. "Deriliction of Duty."
One of the most successful psychops the Dems accomplished was to make everyone believe that "it's all about sex...all about Clinton's private life." Doesn't anyone remember the room full of evidence that the impeachment prosecutors were trying to get the Dems to look at? Stuff like changing the authority so that sensitive dual-use technology could be sold to the Chinese -- money trails from China and Indonesia with real quid pro quo. The MSM/DBM were willing immoral partners in giving the Dems a pass on this, and selling the American public that the whole thing was just a bunch of up-tight, partisan Republicans obsessed with Clinton's sex life.
Wow, that was a powerful scene. That was cut? Now the question. Did it happen as that cut says it happened?
Plus, maybe they really are getting the fact that most Americans are patriotic and want the truth -- hence, the high ratings of Fox News. Someone once said that whenever Hollywood puts out movies that are patriotic, that are family type movies, movies that make people feel good about being Americans, they thrive. Whenever they don't, they bomb. Maybe, just maybe, they're getting it. Is it too much to hope for?
I think that instead of technically saying he nixed it - he did nothing. He was paralyzed with fear. Fear of being blamed for a disaster, as Janet Reno was blamed for Waco, TX. Part I definitely makes it look like no one wanted to get blamed for screwing up, because the big guy in the egg-shaped office sure wasn't going to take the blame, as the late President Teddy Roosevelt "the buck stops here" would have. And may I add, I think President George W. Bush would do so, too. Clinton was and is a pansy.
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