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.
This photo, supplied by ABC, shows Harvey Keitel who plays FBI counterterrorism expert John O'Neill, in a scene from ABC's miniseries'The Path to 9/11.' The two-part film is a dramatization of the events detailed in The 9/11 Commission Report and other sources which airs on Sunday. Sept. 10, and Monday, Sept. 11, 2006. Former Clinton administration officials criticized the miniseries, saying it distorts history so drastically that it should be corrected or shelved.(AP Photo/ABC, Peter Stranks)
I've been watching it, and I've seen three disclaimers, and they all mentioned the 9/11 report. So I'm not sure what these guys have been watching.
"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?" "
THIS IS DEAD WRONG.
The character who made the comment was the Afghani (Pakistani?) standing next to Wahlberg.
but if it blames Bush using lies, that okay and we all must go see it, right?!
NORM,
What did you think?
I saw it as a disaster for Clinton, Allbright, and the Burglar.
They all came out looking terrible in the cut version.
Pasty faced Clinton intoning "I did not have sex with that woman" was left in and used early on.
ping
The Clinton administration was a disaster in general for everybody except terrorists.
I am a bit biased tho, mind you. ;-)
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."
Quite a change!
.
NEVER FORGET
3 Free Offers from the Sudan, refused by the CLINTONS during the 1990's, to give us our No. 1 Terrorist Enemy OSAMA bin LADEN on a silver platter =
The Attacks of September 11, 2001
NEVER FORGET
.
But I'm concerned with the precedent set of letting the Clinton Administration people in to make editorial changes to protect their legacy. Legacy protection extending to editorial privileges on major TV shows has overnight become the standard. No Republican Presidents, to my knowledge, have ever come close to the post-term legacy cultivation that the Clintons have. If the GOP post-Administrations continue as they have, shunning the strong-arm tactics with media that were used in this case, that would be a more honorable course. But it will be throwing away an effective partisan tool that the other side uses masterfully and without conscience.
Of course, the left would blame the Republicans for diverting the nation's attention away from terrorists and were obsesses with Clinton's private life.
Is it just me, or does that sound WORSE than saying he's preoccupied with impeachment?
BUMP.
The Clintons still remain more powerful domestically than even the President.
The Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud
Even in the editied caveate heavey version the entire Clinton administration comes across as the spineless boobs they were and remain.
The boots on the ground knew what had to be done and couldn't do the job because they were hamstrung by the spineless politcal appointees more worried about their PR image than in defending America.
I watched it. After it was over I turned to CBS and watched the documentary of Ladder Company 7 FDNY on 9/11 made by the two French brothers in real time. It made me cry every time that I see it.
At the end of the documentary, the song "Danny Boy" played as photos of all firefighters killed in the towers were shown 4 at a time.
I didn't need an edited version of events on ABC to tell me that Clinton was negligent.
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