Disney Blames Clinton: “The Path to 9/11″
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ABC, whose parent company is Disney, plans to run a two-part “docudrama” about the events that led to the 9/11 attacks. The program claims to be culled from the 9/11 Commission Report though there’s been an admission from ABC that facts have been dramatized and events compressed.
Advance copies of the program were sent to 900 people – right-wing bloggers, right-wing radio, and right-wing television folks for them to review. President Clinton, who is featured prominently and inaccurately in the film, was denied a copy. Scholastic, that educational supplies stalwart, planned to distribute study companions for “Path to 9/11″ in our public schools.
The hubbub began when it became clear that the writer, partisan Republican Cyrus Nowrasteh, was intent on blaming 9/11 on Bill Clinton. In order to do so, he departed from the 9/11 report to fabricate situations in which the Clinton administration chose not to kill Osama bin Laden. And even though the program has yet to hit the airwaves, the media is already repeating the program’s disinformation.
Clearly an attempt to rewrite history as George W. Bush’s new clothes become more and more transparent, the Path to 9/11 is a piece of propaganda produced by partisan Republicans and distributed by and to partisan Republicans in order to (a) repeat the fiction of ‘weak on terror’ Democrats; and (b) take the heat off GWB.
I called my local ABC affiliate yesterday (Sinclair’s WLOS) and spoke with the General Manager, Jack Connors. Connors liked saying, “You haven’t seen it, have you?” in an attempt to get me to withhold judgment. I explained that the 900 right-wingers who saw it have provided a wealth of information. Connors was unmoved when I told him I would boycott his station, call his advertisers, and vow to boycott them as well. What got him was when I told him that airing this show was “dishonest and wrong”. He sat in silence for several seconds, and I hung up.
The good news is that people are coming out against this blatant unamerican propaganda: Senate Democrats, Bill Clinton, Scholastic has withdrawn support, Harvey Keitel (who appears in the program), Richard Minter, and more.
ABC started feeling the heat from callers and media yesterday and released a silly statement claiming, “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.” This, of course, is untrue. 900 right-wingers have seen the film, though ABC claims they continue to edit it.
Our job is to help ABC either fix the factual inaccuracies or pull the show. 9/11 was pivotal in our nation’s history, and teaching Americans falsehoods about it is wrong. There are a lot of ways to get involved in this effort. Here are a few.
Send an email to Disney’s Chair, former Senator George Mitchell.
Send an email to Robert Iger, President and CEO of Disney.
For Asheville area folks, call Jack Connors at WLOS (828-684-1340) and call WLOS advertisers to let them know they’re about to lose money.
Write a letter to the editor.
Call your local cable company and have all Disney channels blocked, then tell Disney.
The public opinion worm is turning, and we can keep things moving in the right direction. Go get ‘em Hooligans.
8 Comments
September 8th, 2006 at 8:49 am
i’m still adding to the list of sponsors – i’ve got a three-hour chunk of wlos to fast-forward through when i get home. be prepared for a lot of indifference and a lot of blahblahblah from the people who answer the phone when you call, though, but be persistent.
it’s kind of a bummer, too: i was really looking forward to the new season of “lost”…
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September 8th, 2006 at 11:48 pm
i take particular disregard to heated reactions like yours to a film you have not even seen yet. alright, i have no doubt that there are innacuracies and dramatic license in this abc docudrama. i think abc has said as much. thank oliver stone for the docudrama overreach by the way. but i think your reaction is an overreach given the fact you have not seen it. and now i hear abc is still editing this and that days before it is set to go on air in reaction to pre-actions like yours. gotta hate that pre-emptive war strategy of gwb don’t ya? gotta love the fuckin talibam. no dissenting opinions, thoughts or displeasurable ideas please. we can, after all, slice your fuckin head off. and knock down old worthless statues in the process. c’mon man! let abc say what its gotta say. who fuckin cares who their owned by? go to the independent media if you want independence. we have so many outlets, attempting to muzzle one is just a bad idea.
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September 9th, 2006 at 6:00 am
Nonsense, writ.
The film was pre-screened by right-wing wackos across the country and was going to be taught in our public school by Scholastic. It’s part of an election year strategy, and it’s turning 9/11 into a hit piece on Democrats.
It’s not o.k. If ABC wants to call this thing a right-wing fiction piece, then maybe we could talk about all that free-ass speech, but they’re touting it as “based on the 9/11 Commission”. This portrays the film as factual. Those who have seen the film – before ABC backtracked into “we’re still working on the final edit” – have reported inaccuracies, and the writer & director communicated to right-wing bloggers that despite any edits “the failures of the Clinton administration” will remain intact.
It’s propaganda. If ABC wants to label it as such, then I’ll no longer have a problem with it.
But it’s strange, writ, that you get upset with me for exercising my free speech rights in an effort to get ABC to behave more honestly. You seem to be pro-honesty. No one’s muzzling anybody – I’m just trying to find a little realness regarding the most traumatic event in my American lifetime.
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September 9th, 2006 at 6:03 am
Also,
Disney/ABC doesn’t have to do anything different. They can run what they want when they want. But there will be consequences for hopping in bed with the pro-war evangelical Clinton haters. Period.
It’s impossible to muzzle them. They can only muzzle themselves.
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September 9th, 2006 at 8:04 am
I have to agree with Screwy here. The key to this controversy is the fact that hundreds of copies of this docudrama were sent out in advance specifically to be reviewed by a very select audience. I think that it would have come off without a hitch if it weren’t for that fact.
Such low level right-wing bloggers as Paterico received advance copies and immediately began heralding it specifically because it blamed 9/11 on the Clinton administration and vindicated the Bush administration.
When Clinton, Berger, Albright, et al requested copies they were denied.
I’d like to know if anyone actually believes that an unfinished, unedited copy of an upcoming program would be mass produced for review if it did not represent what they thought was a finished copy.
I agree with Writ about free speech, however the criticism is based on the actual film that ABC chose to send out.
Election year – Terror – Democrats Weak – Republicans Strong – Ratfucked Again!
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September 9th, 2006 at 11:56 am
okay, the reaction is based on what a small number of people said about the film who were given an advanced copy. which is not now going to be the final one because abc had always planned to change it based on their feedback. hmm… sounds like typical hollywood ga-bull-dee-guk to me. make the product to make the audience comfortable, don’t challenge the audience. and whether its friedly to the right or left wing, its inherently a docudrama overreach. it can’t be perfect no matter what.
i still do not think it is fair to criticize a film you haven’t seen. that’s how books get burned. the people who want them burned and the people who burn them almost never have read them. they have only heard of accounts from the people who have. it was stupid of abc to put out advance copies — at least artistically. but commercially i suppose all this controversy is just going make that cash register ring louder. if there is a plot that abc is hashing, its not a conservative or liberal one. its a financial one. the end product therefore has to be taken with a grain of salt no matter what it is. that would have been the case in any event.
again, we have to understand that abc is just one of a bazillion networks. the consumer should never put their trust in one network. instead, they should know that each network can only deliver a portion of the reality they are trying to portray. so, i never worry when one show on one network is say, off the mark — which again i don’t concede in this case because I HAVEN’T SEEN IT. and again, what if i were to see it and think it was totally correct? in a free society i should expect that not all of my fellow audience would share that conclusion. thus, i should at least keep an open mind. and to the extent that the film is worthy of discussion post hoc, then perhaps people of different opinions can share their thoughts and learn from each other. so, with that in mind, what is the big deal? isn’t calling the ceo of disney a little over the top at this point? i mean if you think it is going to be that bad then just don’t watch it.
but enough of that! i’d like to know whether anybody on this blog does have criticism for the clinton administration’s handling of the terrorism issue. i mean, i think we all agree that bush didn’t take terrorism as seriously as he should have prior to nine-eleven. and certainly folks on this blog are displeased with bush for the way he has handled things post nine-eleven. but i’d like to hear some honest feedback for the clinton administration on this blog. i think reasonable people can come to the conclusion on certain decisions clinton made and think — he’s too smart of a guy, he should have known better. and i think it is a fair question to ask whether clinton was too tied up in the impeachment mess to govern effectively. if that were the case, then it is a pox on both houses! republicans should be ashamed for treating the presidency like some local sheriff’s office that they could scandalize. democrats should be ashamed for clinton not leveling with the american people sooner. his poll numbers were solid the entire time!
if my reaction was too venomous, i suppose it was driven by my passion for free expression of ideas in a free society. people have got to be allowed to put their foot in their mouths if we really live by this tenet. it is all part of self actualization. and to be fair, my reaction was driven also by about six beers and some chronic.
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September 9th, 2006 at 6:48 pm
i love you, guys!
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September 9th, 2006 at 8:50 pm
I was not one of the lucky right-wing recipients of an advance copy, much as I would have appreciated the honor. In fact, I’ve spent most of the week traveling and otherwise not reading blogs, so I’m a little behind. I do have the following knee-jerk reactions, which I am prepared to modify in the face of facts or reason:
1. The lefties who are worked up over this were often among those outraged when the righties wanted that movie on Reagan modified (as I recall it was moved to cable).
2. The righties who are outraged that the lefties are worked up were themselves worked up about that movie about Reagan.
3. “Fahrenheit 911″ was riddled with roughly comparable distortions, and I don’t recall any of the “truth” fetishists on the left complaining about that. And don’t give me that the “Path to 9/11″ is going over a broadcast medium. That is a silly difference that makes no difference to the justice of the question.
4. This whole thing strikes me as a publicity stunt gone awry. If it is in fact the case that ABC sent this only to righties, then it looks as though it was trying to stoke exactly this sort of outrage to boost ratings.
5. In any case, the violent reaction of the Clintonites to all of this has massively boosted the impact of it. I’m guessing that the left-wing reaction will do far more to increase the audience for this thing than anything Hugh Hewitt might have written about it. I know for a damned certain fact that I am only going to watch the thing because of the outrage of lefty politicians and bloggers.
6. The fusion of collapsed scenes and real names strikes me as really dumb. ABC has definitely hurt its credibility among those for whom it had credibility. I was not one of those people.
7. Much as you guys don’t like to hear it, the spinning of “history” has reached epidemic levels on both “sides.”
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