March 24, 2008
The Clintons are at it again. There is no length to which these scheming affronts to plain decency will not go in order to protect themselves — i.e., his precious legacy and her perceived entitlement to ascend to the throne.
Keep the truth from the American people
Obviously embittered by the failure of their acolytes and thugs to intimidate ABC into canceling the 2006 film The Path to 9/11, they are now going to the ends of the earth to prevent the release of that film on DVD. This time, ABC's brass is cooperating with them. But one shareholder is blowing the whistle on that little party.
Meanwhile, talk radio, The L.A.Times, Wall Street Journal, and now this past weekend the Washington Times have reported that Robert Iger, CEO of Disney — the parent company of ABC — is sitting on any release of the film to the video store shelves.
Background: The Senate politburo
Five high-ranking Democrat senators called a news conference in Washington in the fall of '06 to demand that the network pull the film from the airwaves. (See The enemies of free speech are on the march — Part 5, The Senate censorship politburo, 9/10/06) They were echoing the mantra of Clinton National Security advisor Sandy Berger, who told ABC, "You gotta yank it." This, of course is the same Sandy Burger who elevated the process of "yanking" to a new art form by stealing National Archives files (for which he was fined by a court of law) so the 9/11 commission wouldn't see how inept the Clinton administration was in dealing with the threat of Osama bin Laden and Islamofascism.
The fact that senators have life and death power over the FCC which regulates the broadcast industry was not lost on network execs. They could have read code language to that effect if the senators had simply opened their mouths in polite protest. But that exercise in deciphering wasn't necessary. The Senate politburo avoided the niceties, went straight for the jugular, and issued a threat that was about as subtle as a sledgehammer.
Even after ABC execs wimped out and cut some of the most damning scenes, the film still clearly showed dithering and a dereliction of duty on Clinton's part.
Protecting Hillary
Earlier this month, at ABC/Disney's annual shareholder meeting, shareholder Tom Borelli accused Iger of withholding Path from the DVD market. Iger responded by claiming that the decision was motivated by business considerations, not political ones.
But in an interview with KFI (Los Angeles) radio talker John Ziegler, Path screenwriter Cyrus Nowrasteh quoted an ABC executive (whom he declined to identify by name) as volunteering (with no prompting) the information that if Hillary Clinton were not running for president, this would not be a problem.
To which Nowrasteh replied, "That's an argument for releasing it sooner rather than later."
Shareholder Borelli is calling Iger's bluff: He says he will offer to buy the DVD rights to the miniseries. And he has the organization and connections to pull it off — provided Disney is willing to sell. But if Disney execs refuse, they are deprived of the "business considerations" flim-flam. Thus, that fig leaf for corporate cowardice disappears.
Borelli is a portfolio manager for the Free Enterprise Action Fund, which seeks "long-term capital appreciation through investment and advocacy that promote the American system of free enterprise." His group counteracts exactly the kind of liberal censorship evident in this case.
In-kind contribution?
So here's the "bottom line." There is no bottom line. Literally. Here you have a leading broadcast corporation that is willing to sacrifice an opportunity to recoup up to $40 million — the estimated cost of producing the film, which ran on ABC without any commercial content — all to protect Hillary Clinton.
Though Borelli has fired off a letter to Disney's general counsel suggesting a meeting to discuss his bid for the film, he suspects that no amount of money will persuade Disney to allow Path to 9/11 videos to be made available to the public.
What about Disney shareholders?
"Neither personal nor presidential politics should be any reason to deny shareholders a potential source of revenue," Borelli argues.
Indeed. Corporate management has a moral and fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders to follow through on recouping the millions of dollars in losses. It requires no brain surgery to conclude that the docudrama that aired on the network on the fifth anniversary of 9/11 was commercial-free precisely because it was anticipated the Clintons and their ilk would intimidate commercial sponsors into bailing out.
So the politburo had to threaten ABC outright.
ABC's response
Zenia Mucha — Disney VP for Communications — told the Washington Times the investment in making Path a DVD just wasn't worth it. She also said that Borelli had quoted a Nowrasteh op-ed in the Wall Street Journal as if it were a news article.
Mucha is one of the best in the communications business, going back to her days with Senator Al D'Amato and Governor George Pataki. But in this case, she has a defective product to finesse. It isn't her fault that belittling the money to be made on a Path DVD doesn't pass the laugh test. Given all the news media exposure this controversy has generated, it is safe to say making money — big money — on a DVD version would be the least of the worries of those who possess the rights to it. It netted an over-the-air audience of 25 million in 2006. And BTW, first-person op-eds are not necessarily suspect in terms of truthfulness. The WSJ op-ed backed up its opinions with facts.
Corporate titans are often berated by liberals for being too dollar hungry. In truth, big corporations have been known to eschew profits for worthy purposes. In this case, however, the problem isn't "greed" — just a political cover-up. ABC is afraid to make money for telling the truth.
Nowrasteh has even suggested that the DVD include responses from Bill Clinton, Sandy Berger, and (Clinton Secretary of State) Madeleine Albright. That offer won't satisfy the Clinton politburo, which would rather just shut up its critics — saves the time and trouble of inventing more lies in rebuttal.
Even Oliver Stone — the movie producer not exactly known as a flaming right-winger — has derided ABC's position as "outrageous."
Raising more questions
Other than censorship, there are some policy issues involved here.
1 — Does the money spurned by ABC amount to an "in-kind" contribution to the Clinton campaign? Let the lawyers haggle over whether it should be counted as loot for the Hillary war chest.
2 — This, again, highlights the lengths to which the Clintons will go to lie and obscure their record and lack of character. They will stop at nothing to silence anyone who stands in their way. Perhaps that is why no high-ranking Clinton official has written a book containing any of the juicy details reflecting badly on the credibly-accused rapist or his power-hungry wife. Could it be that no one wants to end up like Vince Foster?
3 — This episode adds yet another reason why this column must respectfully disagree with radio talkshow hosts Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham in their well-intended efforts to suggest that Republicans cross over and vote for Hillary Clinton in the Democrat primaries because she will be "easier to beat" in the fall.
Some of us just want the Clintons off the national radar — the sooner, the better. Then conservatives can deal with a McCain-Obama campaign without having to go up against the full threatening and malicious weight of the Clinton machine, with its police state tactics, goon squads, etc. If Hillary is a senator for life, so be it. That's New York's problem, and she is but one of 100. At least she's not in the White House as Number 1.
It comes down to this: Boosting Senator Clinton now in hopes she will be "easier to beat" is risky at best. Many of us just want the Clintons and their "permanent campaigns," their scurrilous "war rooms," secret police, and never-ending efforts to rewrite history and stifle free speech off the national stage and out of our faces.
Wes Vernon is a Washington-based writer and veteran broadcast journalist.