It is amazing that when movies come out smearing Ronald Reagan or President Bush there are no problems from anyone. When you make a movie showing the Clinton Administration as incompetent on the war on terror, then the Clintons and leading democrats are for silencing their critics.

It looks like ABC will make some changes to the movie due to this pressure. Isn't it great that Bill Clinton is still abusing power?

I can see why Democrats are scared because it makes Democrats look weak going into the 2006 elections.

I wasn't going to watch the movie, but now I will. It will be shown tomorrow on ABC.

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I just watched the first half. It appeared to be truthful to me, based on everything I have read to this point. Although specific conversations could never be correctly depicted, it sure seems like it covered all the major decisions leading up to 9-11. At any rate, in my opinion it sure paints the Clinton administration as having commited a few major ---- ups. Truth? I think it is probably so.

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Here is another article.

September 7, 2006 -- WASHINGTON - A furious Bill Clinton is warning ABC
that its mini-series "The Path to 9/11" grossly misrepresents his
pursuit of Osama bin Laden - and he is demanding the network "pull the
drama" if changes aren't made.

Clinton pointedly refuted several fictionalized scenes that he claims
insinuate he was too distracted by the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal to
care about bin Laden and that a top adviser pulled the plug on CIA
operatives who were just moments away from bagging the terror master,
according to a letter to ABC boss Bob Iger obtained by The Post.

The former president also disputed the portrayal of then-Secretary of
State Madeleine Albright as having tipped off Pakistani officials that a
strike was coming, giving bin Laden a chance to flee.

"The content of this drama is factually and incontrovertibly inaccurate
and ABC has the duty to fully correct all errors or pull the drama
entirely," the four-page letter said.

The movie is set to air on Sunday and Monday nights. Monday is the fifth
anniversary of the attacks.

Based on the 9/11 commission's report, the miniseries is also being
provided to high schools as a teaching aid - although ABC admits key
scenes are dramatizations.

The letter, written by Bruce Lindsey, head of the Clinton Foundation,
and Douglas Bond, a top lawyer in Clinton's office, accuses the ABC
drama of "bias" and a "fictitious rewriting of history that will be
misinterpreted by millions of Americans."

Clinton, whose aides first learned from a TV trailer about a week ago
that the miniseries would slam his administration, was "surprised" and
"incredulous" when told about the film's slant, sources said.

Albright and former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger also dashed
off letters to Iger, accusing the network of lying in the miniseries and
demanding changes.

ABC spokesman Jonathan Hogan last night defended the miniseries as a
"dramatization, not a documentary, drawn from a variety of sources,
including the 9/11 commission report, other published materials and
personal interviews."

"Many of the people who have expressed opinions about the film have yet
to see it in its entirety or in its final broadcast form," he said. "We
hope viewers will watch the entire broadcast before forming their own
opinion."

Executive producer Marc Platt told The Washington Post that he worked
"very hard to be fair. If individuals feel they're wrongly portrayed,
that's obviously of concern. We've portrayed the essence of the truth of
these events. Our intention was not in any way to be political or
present a point of view."

The miniseries' creator and the 9/11 panel's former co-chairman, Tom
Kean, who was a paid adviser on the film, said some scenes are made up
and plan to include a statement at the show's beginning.

In the movie, FBI anti-terror agent John O'Neill, played by Harvey
Keitel, and a composite CIA operative named Kirk grouse about
bureaucratic red tape following a meeting with Berger and Albright.

"How do you win a law-and-orderly war?" Kirk asks.

"You don't," O'Neill snaps.

The movie then cuts immediately to a newsreel close-up of Clinton
insisting he did "not have sex with that woman" - Monica Lewinsky.

Although the movie thrust Lewinsky into the mix as a White House
distraction, the 9/11 commission's report found Clinton was "deeply
concerned about bin Laden" and that he received daily reports "on bin
Laden's reported location," Clinton's letter notes.


In another scene, CIA operatives working with Afghani anti-al Qaeda
fighter Ahmed Shah Massoud, the leader of the Northern Alliance who was
assassinated by bin Laden days before 9/11, gather on a hill near bin
Laden's residence at Tarnak Farms - the terror thug easily in their
grasp.

"It's perfect for us," says Kirk, a composite character played by Donnie
Wahlberg. But the team aborts the mission when an actor portraying
Berger tells them he can't authorize a strike.

"I don't have that authority," the Berger character says.

"Are there any men in Washington," Massoud asks Kirk later in the film,
"or are they all cowards?"

The reps for an outraged Clinton wrote to Iger that "no such episode
ever occurred - nor did anything like it."

The 9/11 commission report echoes his denial, and found that Clinton's
Cabinet gave "its blessing" for a CIA plan to capture bin Laden and
determined that ex-CIA Director George Tenet squashed the plan.

The third contested scene focuses on Albright, who is depicted alerting
Pakistani officials in advance of a 1998 U.S. missile strike against bin
Laden in Afghanistan - over the objections of the Pentagon. The movie
claims the tip-off allowed bin Laden to escape.

But the 9/11 commission reported that it was a member of the U.S. Joint
Chiefs of Staff - not Albright - who met with a senior Pakistani Army
official prior to the strike to "assure him the missiles were not coming
from India."

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I watched few hours of it and I got so angry at Clinton, Berger and Albright that I had to walk away.

It is amazing that we had Bin Laden SO MANY times and the Clinton administration was worried about legalities even though a grand jury in New York indited Bin Laden.

The first time we had Bin laden was with CIA agents and the Northern Alliance. They had Bin laden's travel plans that hid did almost daily. Same time every day. When the CIA was ready to strike Sandy Berger stated that he didn't want to go ahead, so Bin Laden lived. Then the 1998 Embassy bombings occurred. There is a great scene in the movie were a senior analysts walks in yelling at the CIA director, "It is our fault! We had Bin laden and we let him go! We are responsible for these deaths."

What did the CIA director say? "We can't be sure it was Bin Laden."

The second time was the cruise missile strikes into Afghanistan. We fired off missiles that missed him by 20 minutes or so. Why did we miss him? Because Albright told the Pakistanis that cruise missiles were going to over fly their country HOURS before they were launched. What did she say? "We must inform Pakistan that missiles were going to overfly their country."

What happened after that? Well, the Taliban launched an attack into the Northern Alliance area killing hundreds. Why? Because they were supporting the US.

Bill Clinton, Berger and Albright should be tried for gross negligence. It amazes me that President Bush gets attacked daily from despicable people like Albright and the Clintons about Iraq. Now I know why Sandy Berger was caught sneaking out classified information related to his failures.

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Quote:

Originally Posted by mike It is amazing that when movies come out smearing Ronald Reagan or President Bush there are no problems from anyone. When you make a movie showing the Clinton Administration as incompetent on the war on terror, then the Clintons and leading democrats are for silencing their critics."

(A format experiment in progress to figure how to comment between quoted text)
The "silencing free speech" byte is widespread and alot of codswallop spin brought to you by the masters of deliberate deception. They know its nothing of the sort.

Now, if you really do believe that there were "no problems from anyone" about "the Reagans" (which was a far less important production that nobody claimed was the truth) then its understandable how you might believe some of this. The right makes it look alot worse than it really is.
I remember the loud and sustained furor from the right and in the blogospere over the Reagans as well as the pressure they all called for, to collectively put on the network to cancel the program. But i cant recall anyone spinning that effort as an assault on free speech, because they had a right to apply that kind of pressure just like any other group.
It was just notable how important their hero figures were to their psyches and made more sensitive when they knew there were credible areas where the truth might hurt or bring the icon down a peg or two from their altar. But what if it had aired anyway? It was more a message about the past and not like today, where the message is calculated to further the fortunes of a political party in the next election by justifying the only political rhetoric that the repubs feel they have left - only because it has worked in the past. The fact that its not even true makes it a far more sinister agenda than trying to bring balance to the public discourse about a favorite icon. They should run on their record.

If you're just going for sensation, then thats another thing. But wouldn't it be better to sensationalize something where the facts come down better on your side? I didn't want to get too involved in this subject, but saw this on a blog i checked out for a different reason - (Its the sep 10 comment - i cant figure how to link directly to the current one on the main page.)
http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/

Why were they only giving the right the opportunity to pre-screen it and give inputs, as if they want to please them? What i hear on the left is to go ahead and air it - but just dont make it fiction, while touting it a as non-fiction and a record of the 9-11 commission. Its a subject that affects people far more than "the reagans" and should be at least close to the truth. The American electorate has been bamboozled enough as it is, yet apparently not enough for some people's intents..

It sounded like they might amend some of the sections that even the right acknowledged was a lie. I didn't watch it but did see a small segment just before the worst clip that was making its rounds on the net - an internet hoax thats been embraced by all those who wanted it to be true (the agent aksing for permission to move in on Bin Liner, but was refused) I have a feeling they didn't amend anything though and caved to the counter pressure from the right to leave it as the lie they wanted.
They talk alot about revising history, but their process is to present it as false to begin with and then scream when scholars bring out the facts to refute that. And often, the scholars are conservatives too, but ones who have principles. (You can see alot of that these days, thanks to many of the administrations policies being so odious).

Speaking of conservatives with principles, there are many of them that are siding against this administration on a number of things having to do with the abuse of power going on right now - some have said the abuse has exceeded anything in the past. Wait till the congress runs their first investigation to find facts, to see how many conservatives will come out from under the covers. Bush supporters will not like what they see and many will be surprised - but that would only be because they dont know or believe there has been abuse of power going on.

Its a measure of fear when the repubs have to stoop to using the worst tactics in order to win an election. The poor repubs feel weak right now because they are faced with defeat and are scared shiteless about losing control of the legislature. If that happened, it would give the dems the power to perform the congress's duty and run an investigation on any one of five different things that the repubs have been sandbagging on to protect their party leader. It will show just how much power has been abused by this administration. The only thing the repubs can hope for is to smear the dems as not able to protect America. That is nonsense, yet still effective with the uninformed segments of the electorate.
But if that cant get the votes they need, they still think its will help to keep the base coming to the polls - so much so that they are going to pull out all stops on the sleaze machines. That has always been "their message" - simply being negative about the opponents is what they are best at doing and works very well for them.

"

Were you able to see it? I'm assuming you are in Korea too - If so, where do you reside there and is it relatively easy to get the programs you want to see? Is that ABC program also available to the Koreans? Thanks.

ps - it looks like [/quote] at the end of each quoted paragraph and [quote=mike] at their beginning is what works? Now i gotta find the spellchekker.

If it didn't touch on some of the more egregious errors the new administration committed - like putting terrorism on the back burner and ignoring the warnings of the departing administration that a big terrorist event had to be taken very seriously, then it wasn't truth. That still has to be addressed. The Bushies didn't want to continue with anything the last administration had started, so it couldn't credit them with anything, like being vigilant about terrorism.. That can be understandable if it weren't how low the priority was that they gave to those warnings (as if they knew better) - especially the warning Bush saw before he went on his long vacation - the report he read (PDP) said Bin liner was determined to mount a big terrorist attack on the mainland.
No big deal.

The Bushies are understandably worried about how that gets portrayed, and who could blame them. But its not right to blame the other side to get attention off themselves.

They fought the idea of a fact finding 9-11 commission and only agreed to cooperate when their lawyers set the ground rules. Since the repubs ruled congress, the commission had to cave to their demands or not exist at all. What came of that was a watered down committee that did not try to assess blame and had to agree to not ask certain questions.

There never has been a congressional investigation of anything the repubs know might damage their party leader, like this one would, even though this event demands one. The congressional repubs pledged allegience to their political party's interests over the country's and that has enabled the executive office to abuse as much power as they want - They effectively disabled the checks of the constitution that the framers worked hard to build in, rendering it just a piece of paper as a King takes control of the govt. (The COTUS lasted for 200+ years before it was comprimised by the extremist partisanship of today)

The 9-11 commission is an outside group that had to be very careful not to find blame for Bush wherever it was apparent. So, the full story hasn't been told yet. Its just ironic how the repubs want to acess blame now with a one-sided drama produced by ideological supporters, claiming its a record of the commission. Its understandable though, because that is the best they can ever hope to look - certainly better than having to answer to the inconvenient facts.

Whats also ironic about the administration and the commission is Bush wont do the most sensible things the commission advised. Like the simplest would be to give the emergency services the capability to work on the same frequency in the event of another emergency. (Have they done that yet?) Actually, i'm not sure of any conclusions they agreed to. They wont want to because it represents controlling of this administration. They just want to use the commission for whatever self serving political gains they can get from it (and being controlled isn't one of them because that doesn't fit Roves "strong leader" definition). Disneyland provided them an exclusive opportunity manufacture some political capital for the repub party to bash the dems with.

I'd listen to the actors, who have come out lately to say its fiction - Keitel even hired his own researcher to confront innacuracies and lobby ABC for his lines to be changed. I dont know what the final cut on that produced.

--I think there is a lot of liberal slant to the if, ands or buts about how the Bushites were not concerned about terrorism. remember, they had just come into office where Clinton had eight years to deal with it and almost never got it right. At any rate, the second half is on tonight where it will portray what happened in the Bushes time at bat. I have a feeling this show is going to show an ineptitude for government decision makers to handle these things regardless of political affiliation. The first half kind of gave you the feeling that this is the main message, if there is a message, that they want the audience to take away. In the first half everyone was waiting for someone else to make the decision, which violates the day to day, lowest level decision making requirements many ops types are always taught. When it came to the major decisions, everyone handed it off like a hot potato. That seems to me to be the message here, nothing to do with what party anyone belongs to.

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Where are you guys watching this thing?

I am watching from Hawaii.

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