TV Docudrama Blames Clinton for 9/11

NewsMax.com ^ | 9/06/03 | Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

[kattracks]

An upcoming TV docudrama chronicling President Bush's actions in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks blames President Clinton's "weakness" for leaving America vulnerable to the disaster.

Titled "DC/9/11: A Time of Crisis" and set for broadcast Sunday night on Showtime, the film "rarely misses a chance to suggest that the Clinton administration's weakness was to blame for the disaster," reported the New York Times on Friday.

In one poignant exchange, Bush is shown telling Prime Minister Tony Blair, "I want to inflict pain . . bring enough damage so they understand there is a new team here, a fundamental change in our policy."

Besides blaming Clinton for 9/11, the film's positive portrayal of President Bush as a decisive commander-in-chief during America's darkest hour has rankled liberal critics, who complain that "DC 9/11" will likely give Bush a political boost heading into an election year.

"Simultaneously dull and disgraceful," fumed the Washington Post's Tom Shales on Saturday, "'DC 9/11' . . . uses the tragic attack on America in 2001 as the basis for a reelection campaign movie on behalf of George W. Bush."

"The two-hour film often plays like a propaganda piece for the president," complained the Boston Herald's Amy Amatangelo.

In a particularly irksome development for Bush-haters, Timothy Bottoms was chosen for the film's lead role. Bottoms' positive portrayal of Bush in "DC 9/11" is a far cry from his previous role playing the president before the 9/11 attacks, when he portrayed Bush as a stumbling ignoramus in the 2001 Comedy Central send-up, "That's My Bush."

Beyond Bottoms' uncanny physical resemblance to Bush, "DC 9/11" offers dead-on physical impersonations of National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, played by Penny Johnson, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, played by John Cunningham.

The film was written and produced by Lionel Chetwynd, who purportedly had access to many White House insiders.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

Bush Administration
War on Terrorism

[IncPen]

I think what the critics are saying is, "this movie would have been much better if you'd have let Aaron Sorkin handle it"

[ALOHA RONNIE]

NEVER FORGET

---

...WHY...

...did HILLARY & BILL CLINTON refuse 3 Free Offers from the Sudan during the 1990's to extradite our No. 1 Terrorist Enemy OSAMA bin LADEN to a U.S. Jail & Trial that would have stopped the Attacks on US all on September 11, 2001..?

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'Remember the Lost and Suffering on September 11, 2001'

http://www.TheAlamoFILM.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=33

---

.."IS it SAFE?" = HILLARY on Senate Armed Services Committee..

http://www.TheAlamoFILM.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=629

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.."IS it SAFE?" = President HILLARY

http://www.WashingtonDispatch.com/wdforum/DCForumID1/186.html

---

NEVER FORGET

[ALOHA RONNIE]

NEVER FORGET


To sign our U.S. 7th Cavalry Veterans of the Battle of IA DRANG-1965 Petition for President BUSH to award Tower 2's Lifesaving Sept. 11th Hero RICK RESCORLA =

http://www.lzxray.com


NEVER FORGET

[CedarDave]

Except for Condi, amazing resemblance to the real persons, especially Laura.

[nutmeg]

I'd like to see this but I'm not going to buy Showtime for it.

Same here. Darn, I sure wish they could run this on one of the networks somehow.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for the heads up!

[nutmeg]

ping!

[nutmeg]

ping!

Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my infrequent ‘miscellaneous’ ping list.

[GUIDO]

My sister and I talkled about this last night and that was the first time she had heard about the movie. So she called first thing this morning and then called me to tell me they could hook up immediately and it was $12.00 more a month and if she decided she didn't want it, they would pro rate it.

I myself have been busy all day and now reading this have remembered to call them. I will call them Monday or Tuesday to cancel.....

[ALOHA RONNIE]

HILLARY Diane RODHAM
WILLIAN Jefferson CLINTON

On the side of our Terrorist Enemy HO CHI MINH during the Vietnam War

On the side of our Terrorist Enemy OSAMA bin LADEN now and during the 1990's.

The Enemy is now Within...
and always has been.

[Ann Archy]

You got me!!!

Correction Memo to All Democats who say something HONEST abut Clintons: Do NOT go near any rented apartments in DC......and always remember Vince Foster.

[Ann Archy]

Was that apt in Georgetown really leased by the DNC??

[Timesink]

Losing bin Laden is a dramatic, page-turning read, a riveting account of a terror war that bin Laden openly declared, but that Clinton left largely unfought. With a pounding narrative, up-close characters and detailed scenes, it takes you inside the Oval Office, the White House Situation Room and within some of the deadliest terrorist cells that America has ever faced. If Clinton had fought back, the attacks on September 11, 2001 might never have happened.

In a twisted sort of way, it was probably better that BJ was too busy with his sink to bother with bin Laden. If 9/11 hadn't happened, all it would have done, IMHO, is put off the inevitable a few more years ... maybe one year, maybe five, maybe 20, I can't say. But I do know that the lunatic fringe of the Arab world has been wanting to destroy the United States for decades, and some group would have managed to pull off something eventually, even if bin Laden had been taken out. And if there had been no 9/11, that something would have happened later, but it also probably would have ended up killing far more Americans than died in the 2001 attacks.

Bin Laden thought he was just getting started. But in reality, he got cocky and overplayed his hand, and America woke up as a result. If the American people and government had been left to sleep until bin Laden or some other wacko Wahhabist group got their hands on serious WMDs, the carnage here would have been unimaginable. As would the size of the US response.

[Timesink]

Showtime plans to air the movie several times next week -- the dates/times are listed on last night's DOSE!!!

DOSE?

[Timesink]

Why not get it to someone who has the material to encode it to the internet?

My guess is it's already out there via the usual P2P trading mechanisms. If not, it will be by 10:15pm ET Sunday night.

[Hazzardgate]

I hope so too! If I hear anything I will freepmail you ;-)

[Timesink]

Do Showtime productions eventually get to DVD, Blockbuster or other channels? I don't want to miss this docudrama.

Yes, but it usually takes some months. If you want to see it anytime in the near future, your best bet will be to get a VHS or DVD copy from a fellow Freeper, or try to download it off the net after it airs tomorrow night.

Of course, a lot of people have been known to sign up for HBO or Showtime and then call back and cancel the next day. ;) If you have a digital cable box, any new channel you sign up for will be made available to you instantaneously (and cancelled instantaneously).

[Mark]

But, But,,,the Boston Globe had this to say:
DC 9/11' is too pro-Bush, and too late

By Mark Jurkowitz, Globe Staff, 9/6/2003

If "DC 9/11: Time of Crisis" could ever be cut down to a bite-size portion, it would make the best
presidential reelection ad ever conceived, one that would force every Democratic challenger to
abandon the chase for the White House.

Most Americans, of all political stripes, would agree that in the frantic days after the
terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, George Bush's steely leadership and deft tone helped stabilize
a nation knocked out of its equilibrium and stripped of its comfortable preconceptions. This
Showtime "docudrama" promises to give viewers a behind-the-scenes look at the administration's
machinations and deliberations in the days right after 9/11. Instead, it proves a slick piece of
propaganda that deifies the president and portrays the wheels of government as turning with
well-oiled precision in the face of the gravest crisis to confront the country in a generation.

Whether visiting the injured, ordering an ultimatum to the Taliban, perusing Psalm 23, or affirming
American values in a misty-eyed conversation with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice,
Bush (Timothy Bottoms) is unbowed, unflappable, and unwavering. He is, to put it in Hollywood
terms, part John Wayne and part Gary Cooper, with a little Jimmy Stewart tossed in for good
measure.

Based on interviews with many top White Hou se players (including Bush himself) and
interspersing real footage with filmed re-creations, "DC 9/11" is crisply paced and entertaining
enough. Some of the actors, including Bottoms, bear a striking resemblance to their characters.
John Cunningham, for example, does a particularly good job capturing the aggressive energy of
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. (But George Takei as Transportation Secretary Norman
Mineta? He'll always be Sulu from "Star Trek.")

One also can't discount the emotional power of some of the indelible moments from those days.
Even in a film this worshipful, the depiction of Bush's first trip to visit the survivors and rescuers at
ground zero in New York will bring a lump to your throat.

But the biggest problem facing "DC 9/11" is that the effort feels stale. Anyone even vaguely
interested in the subject has had plenty of opportunity to learn from a number of media sources
how the Bush administration formulated a new foreign policy out of the ashes of the World Trade
Center. And now that we're struggling with the bloody and difficult reconstruction of Iraq, battling a
resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan, and searching for allies to help shoulder the burden of our new
geopolitics, a shiny post-mortem of the days following Sept. 11 feels dated and darn near
irrelevant.

One of the more provocative moments in "DC 9/11" occurs in a meeting when administration
hawks Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney joust with Secretary of State Colin Powell
(portrayed here as a squishy multilateralist) over the threat posed to US security by Saddam
Hussein. In light of all that's happened since the towers fell in New York, maybe that could have
been the opening scene of a much more interesting film.

DC 9/11: Time of Crisis

Directed by: Brian Trenchard-Smith

On: Showtime

Time: Tomorrow at 8 p.m.

[L.N. Smithee]

Showtime brought us -- among other deliberately offensive fare -- Queer as Folk. It is this type of programming that they speak of when using their slogan, "No limits." Seeing that the "limits" that they don't have usually have to do with common standards of decency, I have suggested that they should say, "No depths."

Now that they are airing something that is almost unheard of in Hollywood -- a docudrama that ISN'T hostile to either real or imagined conservative figures -- they are beginning to back up their talk.

For the sake of the movie, I hope it's not as hokey as the Oliver North miniseries starring David Keith that aired many years ago on CBS. The script -- based on a book by the Washed-up Post's Ben Bradlee -- was even-keeled in its treatment of Ollie, detailing both his heroism on the battlefield and his troubles with his wife, who wanted him to retire from public life before he took the post that led to his fame/infamy. My problem is the guy that played a befuddled President Reagan, who could have just have well been playing Clarabell the Clown from the old Howdy Doody show.

[onyx]

Thanks for the great post, links, and ping to me.

It occurred to me that nobody benefitted more from BKO's tragic death than the Clintons. Were BKO still alive, Hillary would have to be high on drugs to even consider a run for the WH.

Yes, yes, we have BKO's book(s), but BKO lit-up every room she entered and when she spoke, people listened!

God rest her sweet soul.