Posted on 09/11/2006 6:19:03 PM PDT by jdm
ABC went ahead Sunday with its slightly tweaked but still controversial miniseries, The Path to 9/11. And while former Clinton administration officials still seethed at, what former counterterrorism czar and current ABC News consultant Richard Clarke called "an egregious distortion," many of them joined the rest of the country and simply didn't watch.
A week's worth of complaints from the Clintonites and others didn't convince ABC to pull the five-hour, commerical-free $40 million docudrama. Instead, the network recut the movie, deemphasized its reliance on the 9/11 Commission Report as primary source material and urged naysayers to watch the finished product before making any judgments.
"Having now seen the first night of this fiction, it is clear that the edits made to the film did not address the factual errors that we brought to your attention," Bruce Lindsey, the former President's personal attorney and head of the Clinton Foundation, wrote in an open letter to Disney chief Robert Iger.
"The final product was fraught with error and contained contrived scenes that are directly contradicted by the findings of the 9/11 Commission Report. The film has undoubtedly cemented in millions of viewers' minds a false impression of critical historical events."
Clarke, who served under both Clinton and George W. Bush and now works for ABC News, was equally scathing.
"As someone who was directly involved in almost every event depicted in the fictionalized docudrama The Path to 9/11, I believe it is an egregious distortion that does a deep disservice both to history and to those in both the Clinton and Bush administrations who are depicted," Clarke said in a written statement.
"Although I am not one to easily believe in conspiracy theories and have spent a great deal of time debunking them, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the errors in this screenplay are more than the result of dramatization and time compression [as ABC initially implied]."
Ex-Clinton cabinet members, joined by such news commentators as CNN's Bill Bennett and Fox News' Chris Wallace, noted historians, progressive bloggers and even the miniseries' own star, Harvey Keitel, said that based on review copies of The Path to 9/11, the telefilm unfairly blamed the Clinton administration for the September 11th terrorist attacks.
The critics were especially irked that ABC touted the project as being based on the official 9/11 Commission Report, despite containing scenes that contradicted the report.
ABC ended up cutting about 20 minutes out of the first night's three-hour running time, much of it from the climax in which a team of CIA agents are positioned outside of Osama bin Laden's encampment, seemingly ready to strike.
In the original version, former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger seems to balk at ordering an attack by hanging up on CIA boss George Tenet. That's followed by a scene in which an Afghan in the CIA party asks, "Are there no men in Washington, or are they all cowards?" The next scene includes archival footage of Clinton's video testimony in the Lewinsky affair, implying that he was too busy worrying about impeachment to focus on terrorism.
ABC's editors did some tinkering, removing the news footage of Clinton and cutting the shot of Berger.
But the network left intact a scene in which former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright alerts Pakistan to a missile strike, which, in turn, allows bin Laden to escape--despite the 9/11 Commission debunking the story.
Leftie bloggers also decried ABC's choice of director, David L. Cunningham, and screenwriter, Cyrus Nowrasteh, both of whom have documented conservative leanings.
Unlike the advanced copies sent out to TV reviewers hyping the production as based solely on the 9/11 Commission Report, ABC issued a disclaimer noting The Path to 9/11 was also based on "other published sources and personal interviews."
"For dramatic and narrative purposes, the movie contains fictionalized scenes, composite and representative characters and dialogue, as well time compression," read the disclaimer.
Former New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean, the Republican cochair of the 9/11 Commission who acted as a consultant on the project (though has still refused to confirm whether he was paid for those services), stated on ABC's This Week on Sunday that he thought The Path to 9/11 was accurate, though he admitted not having seen the final cut.
"If people blame Bill Clinton after seeing this, then the miniseries has failed," Kean said. "That's wrong and it shouldn't happen."
ABC declined further comment Monday.
As for Bill Clinton himself? "He made the choice that most Americans made," Clinton Foundation spokesman Jay Carson told the Associated Press. "Of a fictionalized drama version of Sept. 11 or the Manning brothers playing football against one another, he chose the latter."
Indeed, The Path to 9/11 was crushed by NBC's season premiere of Sunday Night Football, which pitted Peyton Manning and his Indianapolis Colts against brother Eli and his New York Giants. The football game drew an estimated 20.7 million viewers to 13 million for The Path to 9/11, per Nielsen Media Research. ABC did get a small measure of consolation by beating CBS' 9/11 documentary, which attracted 10.6 million in its third airing.
Part two of The Path to 9/11 , which presumably will focus more on the Bush administration's fumbles, airs Monday but faces the possibility of drawing even fewer viewers. ABC plans to split the broadcast in half to accommodate President Bush's speech from the White House.
As I have said on other posts here, someone is out to get Bill Clinton and the Democrat Party, and it is not being driven by Republicans, Conservatives or the VRWC, that Hillary Clinton loves to blame for everything anti-Clinton.
Bottom line is this miniseries, regardless of who gets what blame was a wake-up call for the American people. We are at war, and one of our major political parties (Democrat) does not have a clue. Americans better wake quickly.
As I have said on other posts here, someone is out to get Bill Clinton and the Democrat Party, and it is not being driven by Republicans, Conservatives or the VRWC, that Hillary Clinton loves to blame for everything anti-Clinton.
Bottom line is this miniseries, regardless of who gets what blame was a wake-up call for the American people. We are at war, and one of our major political parties (Democrat) does not have a clue. Americans better wake quickly.
OMG...That Richard Clarke guy is a god. He knew all, told all, saw all, felt all and is a rock star. Did he write this movie? Direct it? Was he a consultant? I know he is paid by ABC for some crap.
I had a fantasy of all of Disney's online editors walking out when asked to cut the original show.
I think the editors did a marvelous job on this movie.
Exactly
I thought the same thing myself. 13 million is quite an audience.
Liberals are so accustomed to Hollywood produced garbage that their ability to differentiate between integrity and dishonesty and reality and fiction has been drowned in a sea of ignorance and absurdity.
Corrected version: As for Bill Clinton himself? "He made the choice he always made throughout his entire administration, and indeed, his entire life. He distracted himself with bread and circuses while leaving others to take the blame for the problems he had created."
There, much better!
Wow, what a fair a balance article. 20 guys saying how bad it is, and one guy in one line semi-defending it. The MSM will never get it.
Patriots?? This movie cost $40m and was broadcast without commercials. Kudos to ABC, maybe they are acting like the American Broadcasting company, for a change.
I saw both nights.
The long and short of it is this. It seems to me that the sept 11th attacks can be put down to two elements.
1. Political correctness gone mad.
2. Fear of offending countries that hate us anyway.
So the fertilizer needed for 3, maybe 4 acres of crops is now a scandal. ABC should have left well enough alone after the big show.
Yes. In the movie he is running the country almost singlehandedly. That actor has some crazy eyes though. Too many closeups.
Can you USE your brain and your imagination? Yeesh...how old are you? 90?
Can you USE your brain and your imagination? Yeesh...how old are you? 90?
FMCDH(BITS)
I think that one of the biggest flaws that was portrayed, was the ubiquitous concern of those in power in the Clinton administration with covering their own a$$es rather than considering their duties to protect and defend the citizens of the US.
No, kudos go to Disney, the owner of ABC. ABC would never have funded this project. This project was funded by Bob Igar, the CEO of Disney, etc. The CEO actually has told the Clinton scum and vermin and the traitor Democrat Party to pound salt. IMHO, what it actually means is that some powerful sector of the American Democrat Jewish power structure has become disenchanted with the Democrat Party and Bill Clinton. The complete ignoring of Cinton, his lap dogs and the entire Democrat Party sends a powerful message to the Democrat political party. Plus, the Democrat Party is having big trouble raising money. It says, "Boys, you don't count for squat!!! Come November, not only are you not going to gain seats, you are going to lose seats, no matter what the your MSM lackeys and pundits say or predict. You boys are going down, and now that you have become the anti-Israel, hate Israel political party, we are going to help GW Bush and the Pubbies flush you down the toilet!!!". Oh, by the way, Rahm Emanuel, better get out your old ballerina tutu outfit, you will need it after November.
No, I'm not kidding. Did you read my whole post? If you did, you know why. Sheesh.
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