In perusing the left blogosphere looking for reaction to the ABC mini-series The Path to 9/11 one would think that the project was chock full of lies, historical inaccuracies, and pro-Republican propaganda.
But look a little closer and you find that all liberal blogs highlight the same 3 scenes as proof of bias by Disney and the writers. That’s three scenes in a 5 hour movie. Is that reason enough to condemn the entire project with the most outrageously exaggerated, end of the world rhetoric imaginable? One would think that the film they are talking about was a Republican campaign commercial by the wild flights of hyperbole they’re throwing around.
The left’s condemnation of the few minutes of admittedly historically inaccurate scenes (that if ABC can’t cut or fix will probably doom the show entirely) represents only one half of the forces who are critiquing the film. The complaints about the portrayal of Clinton and his people failing to act are being made by the cadre of Clintonistas who see any revelations regarding this aspect of 9/11 as a direct threat to Hillary’s candidacy. Some of these same actors who are yelping the loudest have dreams of serving in the Clinton II presidency. And aside from the evident license that the screen writer took with the specific scenes under attack, there is a sense that Clinton and his people would rather the entire project disappear down the rabbit hole.
But there is a whole other side to the liberals efforts to tear this show apart. This is the faction that is screaming that the film doesn’t blame Bush enough for 9/11. How do they know if they haven’t seen it? The know because The Narrative that they have been using for 5 years to undermine his Presidency is a tissue of lies, half-truths, deliberate exaggerations of the facts, and hysterical intimations of evil. In short, the truth – even if it is revealed in a flawed docudrama – threatens the alternate reality they have created about 9/11.
Go to any 5 lefty websites and you will probably see the same picture on a couple of them. It’s a shot of Bush sitting in the classroom (now with a Mickey Mouse Club hat on his head) as the planes hit the towers. This is the image of 9/11 the left wants the American people to remember. Not the falling towers. Not people jumping to their deaths. They are using ridicule to belittle the President because they know that memories of 9/11 will revive feelings from that time that would be unhelpful to their efforts in November.
Bush himself is attempting to resurrect those feelings during this anniversary. His travels that day will take him from Washington, D.C., to New York, to Pennsylvania. And he is going to give a prime time speech that night.
This, the left can deal with. They can rightly point out that the President is playing politics with the anniversary. But the feelings of solidarity with the President that the American people demonstrated in the aftermath of the attacks scares the holy living beejeebees out of the left. And that’s why they are attacking this film with more energy and vigor than they have ever demonstrated attacking the enemies of the United States.
The film has the potential to undermine both the Clintonista’s whitewashing of history and the BDS-enraged bloggers who seek to save their threatened Narrative of events from being challenged by reality. And the pressure they are putting on ABC will more than likely succeed. Watch for ABC to announce the cancellation tomorrow morning and instead offer the film for release on DVD.
And then watch the heads roll at ABC over this $40 million boondoggle while the left goes back to denying the very essence of what 9/11 meant.
6:14 pm
Yeah, Rick, I think you are right. The moonbats are going nuts over this, just this evening on Tucker Carlson’s show a dem, I think Moran?, was foaming at the mouth saying it is packed full of lies and lies shouldn’t be told to the American people about this fateful day. Oh really, is that so, please try and explain to me that billy boy was NOT distracted by monica baby while he was playing with a cigar and her in a house that I pay rent on. Didn’t he also take a call from arafat or someone while she was under his desk doing, guess what to billy boy?
!!
Most of these loons have not seen the movie yet and still they are crying. I don’t recall em upset over fat boy moore’s lies and distortions, but thats O.K. cuz his film trashed Bush and none of em had a word to say about the piece of trash on Reagan, a living President that has Alzheimers for God’s sake, but thats O.K. cuz he is a Republican so let the slime fly.
The idiots are so transparent, you can see right thru em, and yes, they are worried that crown prince bill was asleep at the switch for 8 years on terrorism AND I DEMAND TO KNOW WHAT SANDY BURGLER WAS STUFFING IN HIS PANTS DURING THE 9/11 COMMISSION HEARINGS, but that little issue dropped off the radar.
If ABC caves it will prove them to be hipocrites as Tucker said, you should not be telling a T.V. station what to air, this is a free country and thats what our troops are fighting for, but of course the moonbat dem argued that point also.
UNBELIEVABLE.
6:27 pm
Two points:
(1) Remove the made-up facts (counterfactual scenes), and the docudrama is hard to object to. Some of us left-of-center people will object anyway, but our objections will have less substance.
(2) The stories, which seem true, of how the pre-production copies were almost entirely circulated to R-wingers suggest either (a) strong right-wing bias, or (b) a marketing campaign leveraging right-wing bias, or© both, and (d) counting on free publicity due to complaints from the other end of the political spectrum. This is strongly suggestive of a political project, along the lines of a Michael Moore film.
6:29 pm
The Democrats were more responsible for what happened on 9/11 and they know it at least subconsciously. This is the reason that want to reject any chance people might see the truth. Yes the Bush administration had their chance to do something about what happened but the reality is that the Clinton Administration was 75% of the problem and Bush Adminstration 25% of the problem but the leftists want to make Bush’s 25% suddenly become 100%.
This reminds me so much of Katrina: Democratic Leaders were mostly responsible for what happened in NOT getting the people evactuated, NOT getting the levees fixed, and NOT policing the city after the disaster struck. Yet even though FEMA was 10% responsible for failings thata 10% suddenly becomes 100% and pinned to Bush.
If nothing else the Left is the best in the world at propaganda and spin. I guess when you dont have ideas or leadership or a plan for the future you need to be good at something to dupe all the people you can to vote for you.
6:58 pm
The real problem is this film destroys the Democrat narrative of lies they planned on running on. The last stone in the wall of lies came out today when the Democrats wrote an addendum to the Senate report and are now trying to sell it to the parrot media as if it were the final conclusions of the report.
BTW: The Senate reports conclusions are nothing but years old news repackaged and trotted out for effect. The effect is going to be to show how stupid they think the public is. Read Senator Rockefeller’s speech on the Senate floor right before the war. Rocky is the only one to say that Iraq was an imminent threat, and that he saw them getting nukes real soon. Not Bush, not Cheney, but Senator Rockefeller.
7:01 pm
If they decide to offer this on DVD, man they are they are going to get allot sales. This thing sure has gotten allot of free publicity.
9:14 pm
When I came across this interview my jaw nearly dropped to the ground.
Q: I mean, isn’t it the case that this film actually does show Sandy Berger hanging up the phone in the middle of a conference call, when there are U.S. personnel whose lives are at risk on the ground, and they have bin Laden in their sights, and that really nothing like that ever happened?
KEAN: Well, the question, Shaun, is whether — whether it was Sandy Berger, or whether it was the head of the CIA? Whether the call was hung up on or whether it was totally — whether it was disrupted by a failure in communications? I mean, these are all historically, I think, open questions. But again, this is a, you know, this is a miniseries, not a documentary.
It’s not like the scene that has been so upsetting never happened, but rather the detail of how the phone call ended is in dispute.
If all the complaints are this trivial ABC should be able to fix them.
10:52 pm
Your audience needs to read Orwell’s 1984. That should provide them with the kind of insight to understand what the Dhimmicrats are doing viz. the attempted extortion of ABC.
Regards,
-the Canine Pundit
http://caninepundit.blogspot.com/
11:45 pm
.
Seems like the narrative is working.
Re the latest CNN poll:
...... when asked if Bush should be impeached, 30% say yes.
During the Monica Lewinsky imbroglio, just 19% of Americans initially thought Pres. Clinton should go. That was in February of 1998. At the height of the scandal, 29% of Americans thought Clinton should get the boot.
11:48 pm
Remember that the photograph also shows Bush holding the book upside down – ‘cause he can’t read of course!
I’m thinking that if Slick Willie were holding the book it would be sideways with an extra piece of paper flopped down… if you catch my drift…
It would a lovely thing if ABC released a “Director’s Cut” version on DVD and it sold a BUNCH of copies such that the dems have their collectivist noses rubbed in it.
12:07 am
“That’s three scenes in a 5 hour movie. Is that reason enough to condemn the entire project…”
Rick, if someone did a biography of you that was 100% accurate except for one little scene with you having sex with a goat, you would be okay with it? I mean, its just one scene that is not accurate.
I’m pleased to see not all of the Right has taken leave of their senses and understand that the issues raised for the Reagan Mini-series parallel this one :
Glenn:
I see you quote me on your blog—for the record, I oppose this miniseries as well if it is fiction dressed up as fact, creates caricatures of real persons and events that are inaccurate, and inserts quotes that were not uttered, especially to make a point that was not intended. I said as much on Bill Bennett’s Morning in America radio show (as did he, btw) this a.m. That ABC is stating “the movie contains fictionalized scenes, composite and representative characters and dialogue, and time compression,” is not at all comforting on this issue. 9/11 needs no fiction, nor does its buildup. It was all dramatic—and horrifically dramatic—enough.
Sincerely,
Seth Leibsohn
Producer-Bill Bennett’s Morning in America
Fellow-The Claremont Institute
Final note: Putting out lies that misinform the public harms this nation, whether it is about 9/11 or Reagan. And it diminishes the Right’s integrity at a time when the public is growing increasingly skeptical of the Right’s own narrative.
5:18 am
Seth, good post but the left needs to be just as fair and balanced as you are advacating on historial facts, but that will NEVER happen and clinton was responsible for some of what happened wheather it is aired or not or words were changed, the entire part 2 of the episode bashes Bush and they have NO problems blaming this whole thing on Bush.
9:36 am
Well, the reason the left has their panties in such a twist over this is because they fervently believe they own and control the old media, which is theirs to use to determine what Mr. Moran calls “the Narrative” but is more accurately described as “the pseudo-Narrative.”
It matters little whether this show is aired in its entirety or altered beyond recognition. In today’s world, the original edit can be shown all over the world via the internet. Moreover, any historical inaccuracies in the film can be exposed in a matter of minutes. So the truth will out, and nothing can prevent it.
This is what drives the leftists to distraction. Their feeble grasp on old media is weakening and they have no control over new media. And like the spoiled children they are, their only response is a screaming fit.
I’ve always said there are two and only two kinds of people. One kind read Orwell’s 1984 and identifies with the tortured individual and says, “Thank God I’m an American.” The other kind reads 1984 and identifies with the oppressive government and says, “Oh, that’s how it’s done.”
The people on the left today are of the other kind and grew up thinking they knew how it’s done. Thus the infiltrated the Democrat party, then the largest and most influential party, old media and academia. Goebbell’s Big Lie is their mantra; Orwell’s Newspeak (i.e., political correctness) is their strategy; intimidation is their tactic; and totalitarianism is their goal. By the 1990s they had almost fully realized their will to power.
But along came talk radio (thank you, Rush!) and the internet, then the bloggers and most recently video blogging and Wide Awakes Radio. The left’s tenuous hold on media and their ability to determine the pseudo-Narrative is fading right before their eyes, and there’s nothing they can do about it. No wonder they’re livid.
11:28 am
All this brouhaha does is focus the country’s attention on the Clinton Administration’s actions during the 90s, or lack thereof. How stupid is the left to throw such a fit? Now American’s are thinking what are they hiding, and will focus like a laser beam on digging out the truth. It will remind them how grateful they were that Bush was in the White House instead of Gore, the fackless Clinton’s right hand man.
11:54 am
Scaring the Beejeebees Out of the Left
Rick Moran’s take on the liberal furor over “The Path to 9/11″:
This, the left can deal with. They can rightly point out that the President is playing politics with the anniversary. But the feelings of solidarity with the President th…
12:32 pm
As a conservative I STRONLY urge ABC to correct the falsehoods and misrepresentations in the upcoming “Path to 9/11†before it is shown. And I am not the only conservative say this.
John Podhoretz, conservative columnist and Fox News contributor says: The portrait of Albright is an unacceptable revision of recent history and an unfair mark on a public servant who, no matter her shortcomings, doesn’t deserve to be remembered by millions of Americans as the inadvertent (and truculent) savior of Osama bin Laden. Samuel Berger, Clinton’s national security adviser, also seems to have just cause for complaint.
James Taranto, OpinionJournal.com editor says: The Clintonites may have a point here. A few years ago, when the shoe was on the other foot, we were happy to see CBS scotch “The Reagans.”
Dean Barnett, conservative commentator posting on Hugh Hewitt’s blog says: One can (if one so chooses) give the filmmakers artistic license to [fabricate a scene]. But if that is what they have done, conservative analysts who back this movie as a historical document will mortgage their credibility doing so.
Chris Wallace, Fox News Sunday anchor says: When you put somebody on the screen and say that’s Madeleine Albright and she said this in a specific conversation and she never did say it, I think it’s slanderous, I think it’s defamatory and I think that ABC and Disney should be held to account.
Captain’s Quarters blog says:If the Democrats do not like what ABC wants to broadcast, they have every right to protest it — and in this case, they had a point.
Bill Bennett, conservative author, radio host, and TV commentator says: Look, “The Path to 9/11” is strewn with a lot of problems and I think there were problems in the Clinton administration. But that’s no reason to falsify the record, falsify conversations by either the president or his leading people and you know it just shouldn’t happen.
2:01 pm
Brian is all over this site publishing words from those he would call the radical right.
Brian, this is simply a movie. You have to understand that the Westwing is over and there is more than PBS to watch.
While you are at it, Brian, maybe you can explain how Clinton made us safer after the embassy attacks or the Cole or…..Thought so.
2:16 pm
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