"The Path to 9/11" ABC Mini-series

[Ithaca 37]

Anyone watching it? I thought it was OK, not great. I don't like that shaky style of photography. I think the movie makes the Clinton administration look terribly incompetent. Where's the Hollywood liberal bias in this TV movie?

 

[A-con]

Where's the Hollywood liberal bias in this TV movie?

My local ABC affiliate reported that the original version was cut to make it less critical of the Clinton administration because of criticism by “several Clinton administration officials”
So we have a major network modifying it’s programming because of pressure from liberals.
Kind of scary, don’t you think? Basically, they are letting politicians re-write history, but I guess that doesn’t bother you Ithaca.|oo

 

[mtmiller]

Basically, they are letting politicians re-write history, but I guess that doesn’t bother you Ithaca.|oo

I didn't watch. Was this a documentary?

 

[noharleyyet]

I didn't watch. Was this a documentary?

...more like a docudrama...accenting the drama.

Ithaca, they acquiesced to Clinton camp criticism & still made him look bad. You have to see the irony.

 

[A-con]

Part two on tonight.

It might be better if someone moves this thread to the C.E. section.

 

[Ithaca 37]

nhy, "Ithaca, they acquiesced to Clinton camp criticism & still made him look bad. You have to see the irony."

Sure, I've been following the controversy for the last week or so. Maybe some of the criticism was valid. My thought was that maybe they really had gone too far with whatever parts were edited and were trying to be accurate. After all, they sure made Clinton, Albright and Sam Berger look pretty bad, no matter what they took out.

mtmiller quoted A-con, (A-con is on my "idiot" list, whoops! I meant "Ignore" list, so I don't know what he posted) as saying,

"Basically, they are letting politicians re-write history, but I guess that doesn’t bother you Ithaca."

Now, how would A-con know if the politicians, who were actually there in person when the scenes happened, were pointing out mistakes in the script or not? Isn't it plausable that someone could say, "Hey, that's not exactly accurate. Here's what really happened."

Do you think the script writers got everything exactly right the first time? Isn't that what previewing and editing is for? So mistakes can be corrected? Geez, some of you guys are so blinded by your partisanship you think everything that happens is part of some kinda conspiracy. Don't any of you ever preview and edit your posts?

If ABC wanted to make a mini-series that was more sympathetic to the Clinton administration they easily could have.

 

[Nemont]

I watched some of it. It didn't show anybody in a leadership position in a very good light. Tonight will be Bush's night to be ripped on.

Can you imagine the outcry from the left if the Republican congressional leaders wrote a letter to ABC like this? Where is the ACLU to stand up for freedom of the press? Why are the dems afraid of what some TV "Docudrama" protrays? They didn't care about all the inaccuracies in Fahrenheit 9/11?
http://democrats.senate.gov/newsroom/record.cfm?id=262624&

That what bothers me is that if there were inaccuracies then refute them with facts rather then try to stop an admitted fictionalized version of the 9/11. Why are they so sensitive to this? Maybe where there is smoke there is fire?

There is plenty of blame to go around on both sides of the aisle and within the intel community.

Nemont

 

[noharleyyet]

"Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied." (Nemont's tag)

"If you want to be taken seriously....Denying a liberal media bias isn't a good start." (A-cons tag..paraphrased)

Salient taglines.

 

[Ithaca 37]

"Editing changes made by ABC to the first part of its miniseries "The Path to 9/11" were cosmetic and didn't change the meaning of scenes that had angered several former Clinton administration officials, a spokesman for the former president said Monday......"

http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/TV/09/11/abc.miniseries.ap/index.html

 

[noharleyyet]

....so I take it Michael Moore's & Oliver Stone's names didn't roll during the credits for the initial episode

Double header NFL tonite.

 

[Nemont]

Ithaca,

The meaning was removed to connect Bill Clinton to missed opportunities to nab bin Laden. I don't even believe that killing bin Laden after 1996 would have disrupted 9/11 because the plan had been hatched and the ground work had begun.

My problem is that if it were GWB and the neocons putting pressure on ABC to edit this film the left and Hollywood, as well as left of center members of this board, would be going crazy. If the Republican congressional leadership had written letter with the implied threat that the Democrats did the ACLU would be in court right now to "protect free speech". The ACLU and media only care about free speech if it is anti Bush. To say there is no bias in the media is extremely silly.

If the majority of Americans blame GWB for the failings of 9/11 then why would WJC even care how this was protrayed?

Again Clinton is not blame free like all the Bush haters think. There is more than enough blame to go around. In the future GWB and his administration will be answering even harsher protrayls of what they have done.

Nemont

 

[Ithaca 37]

I think the reason the % of Americans who blame Dubya for 9/11 is rising is because more people are figuring out he's not very bright and they've lost respect for him and his administration.

"The percentage of Americans who blame the Bush administration for the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington has risen from almost a third to almost half over the past four years, a CNN poll released Monday found.

Asked whether they blame the Bush administration for the attacks, 45 percent said either a "great deal" or a "moderate amount," up from 32 percent in a June 2002 CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll.

But the Clinton administration did not get off lightly either. The latest poll, conducted by Opinion Research Corporation for CNN, found that 41 percent of respondents blamed his administration a "great deal" or a "moderate amount" for the attacks....................................."

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/09/11/911.poll/index.html

 

[heelerdog]

That percentage is going up because people are basically morons, have the attention span of a chick pea and do not understand cause and effect. Prior to the Clinton Administration if some a-hole even thought he had the nads to take America on he was smacked and hard. For example Col. Khadafy of Libya. For eight years this country bitched up hard and did nothing to those that would do us harm. Bin Laden was simply pushing the envelope. The one thing he f'ed up was actually executing his plan a year too late. If the attacks would have occured one year later I highly doubt our response would have been the same. I can say that because the WTC was attacked once before in 1993 and our response was zilch.

 

[Ithaca 37]

The Monday night second half of the mini-series was just as critical of the Dubya administration, IMO.

 

[A-con]

The Monday night second half of the mini-series was just as critical of the Dubya administration, IMO.

I agree, it was just as critical of the current administration.

Many of the people who previewed the original cut said it laid the blame squarely with Clinton. Then Clinton and his political allies issue threats to ABC and the final cut makes both administrations look equally bad. Any time any politician, from either side of the isle, can dictate programming content to a public television network, there is a real problem.
Nemont has hit much of it on the head. Where is the ACLU ? (MattK are you out there ?) Will there be congressional hearings ? It doesn’t matter if the program was accurate or not, there is a much bigger issue at stake. If Clinton and/or democratic politicians can have public programming bent to their will, then we no longer live in a free country. This makes Dubyas "Patriot act" look like a traffic ticket.

Some thing I found peculiar with tonight’s episode, it made R. Clark out like the hero, the only one in Washington who had any idea what to do. Of course we all know that Clark now works for ABC. Hmmmm, coincidence ?

 

[Hangar18]

...

My problem is that if it were GWB and the neocons putting pressure on ABC to edit this film the left and Hollywood, as well as left of center members of this board, would be going crazy.

...

I think that is exactly what happened when SeeBS cancelled the Ronald Reagan miniseries back in 2003.

Here is a link with a comparison of what the NY Times wrote in 2003 and today.

http://newsbusters.org/node/7558

 

[noharleyyet]

I firmly believe liberal media bias exists....that said, I also firmly believe that no matter a Dem or Repub Administration, Senate, or House, the media will second guess, wheedle, whine, editorialize, manufacture 'facts', as well as downright lie in order to scoop, gain ratings, or career build...strictly 'any means justifying the end' ethics.

All these so called 'memoriam' movies exploiting the 9-11 trajedy are in the same caregory...IMHO.