Posted on 09/07/2006 10:59:09 PM PDT by hipaatwo
Under growing pressure from Democrats and aides to former President Bill Clinton, ABC is re-evaluating and in some cases re-editing crucial scenes in its new mini-series “The Path to 9/11” to soften its portrait of the Clinton administration’s pursuit of Osama bin Laden, according to people involved in the project.
Among the changes, ABC is altering one scene in which an actor playing Samuel R. Berger, the former national security adviser, abruptly hangs up on a C.I.A. officer during a critical moment in a military operation, according to Thomas H. Kean, a consultant on the ABC project and co-chairman of the federal Sept. 11 commission.
Mr. Berger has said that the scene is a fiction, and Mr. Kean, in an interview, said that he believed Mr. Berger was correct and that ABC was making appropriate changes.
The reassessment came as two Clinton aides mounted an unusual attack last night on the motives of Mr. Kean, a Republican and a former governor of New Jersey. In a letter to Mr. Kean, the two aides, Bruce R. Lindsey and Douglas Band, wrote that his defense of the mini-series “is destroying the bipartisan aura of the 9/11 Commission,” on whose findings the project is partly based. They asserted that Mr. Kean was driven by payments from ABC or his own partisan politics.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Of the Clintons, it can truly be said... They have the uncanny ability to bring out the absolute worst, in everybody... That is, I suppose, their unique "charm"...
the infowarrior
The Clinton officials say that ABC repeatedly refused to send them advance copies of The Path to 9/11, but did send screeners to right-wing bloggers.
"Both Clinton and Bush officials come under fire, and if it seems more anti-Clinton, that's only because they were in office a lot longer than Team Bush before 9/11," said L. Brent Bozell, president of the conservative Media Research Center, who saw a preview of the miniseries. "The film doesn't play favorites and the Bush administration takes its lumps as well."
The film's writer-producer, Cyrus Nowrasteh, whose credits include the 2001 docudrama The Day Reagan Was Shot, dismissed such assertions.
In an interview Wednesday with Los Angeles radio station KRLA-AM, the filmmaker explained away the contradictions with the 9/11 Commission by insisting Path was based on two other books, The Cell by former ABC journalist John Miller and Michael Stone, and The Relentless Pursuit by Samuel Katz.
He also said that he took dramatic license with certain events. "You know' when you're making a movie, a lot of things happen on set that are unscripted. Accidents occur, spontaneous reactions of actors performing a role take place. It’s the job of the filmmaker to say, 'You know, maybe we can use that.' "
But left-wing bloggers point out that Nowrateh has described himself as a conservative and that Disney has a history of trying not to offend the Bush administration, notably by barring its Miramax division from releasing Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11.
"The attacks of 9/11 were a pivotal moment in our history, and it is fitting that the debate about the events related to the attacks continue," ABC added in its statement. A spokesman also said that the network hadn't received any feedback indicating its affiliates were jittery about airing the miniseries.
Some experts, however, doubted that ABC's statement would be enough to stem the flood of criticism.
"I suppose we can't make a judgment until we have seen it," Robert Thompson, director for the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University, told E! Online. "Disclaimers are not enough to satisfy people who can demonstrate that incorrect information is being given out. They're going to make a lot of noise about it and it's going to be in the public conservation for a long time."
Thompson also took issue with the way ABC planned to present The Path to 9/11.
"What I find especially interesting is ABC playing this without commercials presumably as a public service. Now that's kind of odd," he said. "The idea is that your going to show something in terms of public interest without commercials, then it attaches the ownership of the content to the network itself."
While ABC is sticking by the TV movie, one of its key partners isn't. Spooked by the firestorm the film has provoked, Scholastic Inc. announced Thursday that it was scrapping a Path to 9/11-branded "field guide" intended to allow high schoolers to use the movie as an educational tool. Instead, the publisher will distribute discussion materials focusing on "critical thinking and media literacy skills."
"After a thorough review of the original guide that we offered online to about 25,000 high school teachers, we determined that the materials did not meet our high standards for dealing with controversial issues," said Dick Robinson, Scholastic's chairman, president and CEO.
Among the topics Scholastic says its new "media literacy" kit will tackle: "What is a docudrama; how does it differ from a documentary; what are the differences between factual reporting and a dramatization?"
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Definitely starting the smear Kean chapter .. watch for his son, Tom, to start getting heat re his NJ senate election campaign.
Undoubtedly some of the same people would have been interviewed by both the writer of the miniseries and the 9/11 commission staff. It would be interesting to know how those interviews played into both final products and the 9/11 interviews that ended up on the "cutting room floor".
I tend to agree about Kean. Whether or not he's exactly a fool, he's certainly a squish and an establishmentarian. He will end up giving the Rats whatever they want, if they want it badly enough. It's basically what this type of Republican is bred to do.
Perhaps we'll hear from Vince Foster or Monica before the night is over, huh?
Translation: reporters pretended that they would stop at nothing to ask Hillary a tough question, like "Why are you censoring ABC?" then feigned being foiled from this brave (pretense of) fair reporting when one aide lifted a pinky finger at them.
I'd like to hear from Linda Tripp .. anyone heard how she's doing?
Is anyone surprised the spinal gutless Liberal network ABC has done some editing to appease the Clintonistas?
I hope Republicans run ads attacking the pos Sandy Berger and his mentor Billy boy clinton for failing to go after Bin Laden which was one of the main reasons for 9/11 attack.
Mr Kean had better stay out of Fort Marcy Park.
Truth gets buried again...
Under growing pressure from Democrats and aides to former President Bill Clinton, ABC is re-evaluating and in some cases re-editing crucial scenes in its new mini-series “The Path to 9/11” to soften its portrait of the Clinton administration’s pursuit of Osama bin Laden, according to people involved in the project.
Among the changes, ABC is altering one scene in which an actor playing Samuel R. Berger, the former national security adviser, abruptly hangs up on a C.I.A. officer during a critical moment in a military operation, according to Thomas H. Kean, a consultant on the ABC project and co-chairman of the federal Sept. 11 commission.
Mr. Berger has said that the scene is a fiction, and Mr. Kean, in an interview, said that he believed Mr. Berger was correct and that ABC was making appropriate changes."
Gawd, he's going for an oval office moment with a male????
I'm all for accuracy, but Kean could be caving for reasons other than accuracy.
If those "right-wing bloggers" have screeners, we can find out what was changed between then and broadcast night.
As usual, "Clinton officials" (he's out of office now, how can some buttboy be an "official"? Of what?)are lieing, which is part of their nature. Parsing that statement, I suspect they were demanding the ability to rewrite the script. They may still get it, but they had to put on a full court press.
Live Thread: Writer of Path to 9-11 on Radio
This evening ,...here in Los Angeles....
I can't remember, but which one of the networks did a "docudrama" on the Reagans and had Ronald Reagan saying stuff to Nancy, in the privacy of their home, about AIDS and we were supposed to believe that "the watergate man?" was privvy to those conversations. As I recall, the made up conversation was played on TV and the libs didn't care then that the conversation was made up, farfetched, outright lie, etc.
That was US, this is THEM.
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