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**Essefsbyday** · 08-10-2006, 02:08 AM

Well, in case you don't know, ABC will air a 6 hour long miniseries this Sunday and Monday called the "Path to 9/11". It is directed by a friend of Rush Limbaugh, who even makes Rush seem liberal. The worst part about this film though it how ABC is treating it. For example, ABC sent free copies of the film to conservative elected government officials if they requested, yet when Clinton and other liberals requested a copy, they were denied. Not only that, but ABC is sending out letters to 100,000 high school teachers, saying that ABC will send them free copies of the film to show in the classrooms. In addition, ABC is planning to have people be able to download it for FREE off of the iTunes music store. And believe or not, when it shows this Sunday and Monday, it will be completely commercial free.
IMHO, the movie shows how there is truly no such thing as a free media... at least in the U.S
Anyway, here's an article off of the New York Times:
Quote, originally posted by New York Times »9/11 Miniseries Is Criticized as Inaccurate and Biased

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 5 Days before its scheduled debut, the first major television miniseries about the Sept. 11 attacks was being criticized on Tuesday as biased and inaccurate by bloggers, terrorism experts and a member of the Sept. 11 commission, whose report makes up much of the films source material.
The six-hour miniseries, The Path to 9/11, is to be shown on ABC on Sunday and Monday. The network has been advertising the program as a historic broadcast that uses the commissions report on the 2001 attacks as its primary foundation.
On Tuesday, several liberal blogs were questioning whether ABCs version was overly critical of the Clinton administration while letting the Bush administration off easy.
In particular, some critics including Richard A. Clarke, the former counterterrorism czar questioned a scene that depicts several American military officers on the ground in Afghanistan. In it, the officers, working with leaders of the Northern Alliance, the Afghan rebel group, move in to capture Osama bin Laden, only to allow him to escape after the mission is canceled by Clinton officials in Washington.
In a posting on ThinkProgress.org, and in a phone interview, Mr. Clarke said no military personnel or C.I.A. agents were ever in position to capture Mr. bin Laden in Afghanistan, nor did the leader of the Northern Alliance get that near to his camp.
It didnt happen, Mr. Clarke said. There were no troops in Afghanistan about to snatch bin Laden. There were no C.I.A. personnel about to snatch bin Laden. Its utterly invented.
Mr. Clarke, an on-air consultant to ABC News, said he was particularly shocked by a scene in which it seemed Clinton officials simply hung up the phone on an agent awaiting orders in the field. Its 180 degrees from what happened, he said. So, yeah, I think you would have to describe that as deeply flawed.
ABC responded Tuesday with a statement saying that the miniseries was a dramatization, not a documentary, drawn from a variety of sources, including the 9/11 commission report, other published materials and from personal interviews.
The events that lead to 9/11 originally sparked great debate, the statement continued, so its not surprising that a movie surrounding those events has revived the debate.
Former Gov. Thomas H. Kean of New Jersey, the chairman of the Sept. 11 commission and a consultant on the miniseries, defended the program, saying he thought the disputed scene was an honest representation of a number of failed efforts to capture Mr. bin Laden.
I pointed out the fact that the scene involving Afghanistan and the attempt to get bin Laden is a composite, Mr. Kean said, adding that the miniseries format required some conflation of events. But, he said, The basic fact is that on a number of occasions, they thought they might have been able to get bin Laden, and on those occasions, the plug was pulled for various reasons.
Mr. Kean conceded that some points might have been more drama than documentary. Some of the people shown there probably werent there, he said.
Online commentators seized on remarks made last week by Rush Limbaugh, the conservative radio host, who said The Path to 9/11 had been written and produced by a friend of mine out in California named Cyrus. From what Ive been told, Mr. Limbaugh said, according to a transcript on rushlimbaugh.com, the film really zeros in on the shortcomings of the Clinton administration.
Reached Tuesday, Cyrus Nowrasteh, the films screenwriter and one of its producers, said he had met Mr. Limbaugh on the set of 24, the serialized thriller on Fox.
I met him briefly, Mr. Nowrasteh said, declining to say if the two men were close. And thats it.
As for criticism that his movie was soft on the Bush administration, Mr. Nowrasteh said, Let the movie speak for itself.
ABC said it planned to run a disclaimer with the broadcast, reminding viewers that the movie was not a documentary.
But Richard Ben-Veniste, a member of the Sept. 11 commission, said genre confusion would not be a problem for commission members, several of whom saw part of the miniseries last week.
As we were watching, we were trying to think how they could have misinterpreted the 9/11 commissions finding the way that they had, Mr. Ben-Veniste said. They gave the impression that Clinton had not given the green light to an operation that had been cleared by the C.I.A. to kill bin Laden, when, in fact, the Sept. 11 commission concluded that Mr. Clinton had.
Mr. Ben-Veniste said he did, however, approve of the casting. I like Harvey Keitel, he said of the actor who plays John ONeil, the onetime F.B.I. counterterrorism expert who died in the attacks. I liked him in Mean Streets. Im a fan.
And excerpts from the San Francisco Chronicle:
Quote, originally posted by San Francisco Chronicle »
- Airing commercial-free on ABC Sunday and Monday at 8 p.m. EDT (with a 9/11-related followup from ABC News at 10 p.m. Monday), the miniseries claims to draw from a number of sources, including the 2004 report of the 9/11 Commission, which was established to investigate government missteps that led to the attacks.
-Perhaps another guest, Thomas Kean (the former Republican governor of New Jersey, who was chairman of the 9/11 Commission and served as senior consultant for "The Path to 9/11") will defend the film's evenhandedness. Never mind how talk-show host Rush Limbaugh has interpreted the film for his listeners as demonstrating that, in the Clinton era, "we didn't do diddly-squat," while the Bush administration was subsequently "caught up and sort of hamstrung by the existing procedures" and "hasn't had a chance to change them."
-ABC responded to the brewing controversy Tuesday only by saying that its miniseries is "a dramatization, not a documentary, drawn from a variety of sources, including the 9/11 Commission report, other published materials and from personal interviews."
BTW, if you think Fahrenheit 9/11 is the same thing, think again.
-Fahrenheit 9/11 was NEVER shown on network television (Only on cable I believe)
-Fahrenheit 9/11 was pretty much only shown in theaters and on DVD, meaning that one would have to go out of their way to see it.
-Michael Moore never sent out letters to high school teachers saying that teachers could have a copy of the movie for free to show it in their classrooms.
And one final thing

:
http://thinkprogress.org/tellabc
http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBI....html

08-10-2006, 02:08 AM	#1
Essefsbyday Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 477 Senior Member	Tell ABC the truth about 9/11 Well, in case you don't know, ABC will air a 6 hour long miniseries this Sunday and Monday called the "Path to 9/11". It is directed by a friend of Rush Limbaugh, who even makes Rush seem liberal. The worst part about this film though it how ABC is treating it. For example, ABC sent free copies of the film to conservative elected government officials if they requested, yet when Clinton and other liberals requested a copy, they were denied. Not only that, but ABC is sending out letters to 100,000 high school teachers, saying that ABC will send them free copies of the film to show in the classrooms. In addition, ABC is planning to have people be able to download it for FREE off of the iTunes music store. And believe or not, when it shows this Sunday and Monday, it will be completely commercial free. IMHO, the movie shows how there is truly no such thing as a free media... at least in the U.S Anyway, here's an article off of the New York Times: Quote, originally posted by New York Times* »9/11 Miniseries Is Criticized as Inaccurate and Biased SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 5 Days before its scheduled debut, the first major television miniseries about the Sept. 11 attacks was being criticized on Tuesday as biased and inaccurate by bloggers, terrorism experts and a member of the Sept. 11 commission, whose report makes up much of the films source material. The six-hour miniseries, The Path to 9/11, is to be shown on ABC on Sunday and Monday. The network has been advertising the program as a historic broadcast that uses the commissions report on the 2001 attacks as its primary foundation. On Tuesday, several liberal blogs were questioning whether ABCs version was overly critical of the Clinton administration while letting the Bush administration off easy. In particular, some critics including Richard A. Clarke, the former counterterrorism czar questioned a scene that depicts several American military officers on the ground in Afghanistan. In it, the officers, working with leaders of the Northern Alliance, the Afghan rebel group, move in to capture Osama bin Laden, only to allow him to escape after the mission is canceled by Clinton officials in Washington. In a posting on ThinkProgress.org, and in a phone interview, Mr. Clarke said no military personnel or C.I.A. agents were ever in position to capture Mr. bin Laden in Afghanistan, nor did the leader of the Northern Alliance get that near to his camp. It didnt happen, Mr. Clarke said. There were no troops in Afghanistan about to snatch bin Laden. There were no C.I.A. personnel about to snatch bin Laden. Its utterly invented.* Mr. Clarke, an on-air consultant to ABC News, said he was particularly shocked by a scene in which it seemed Clinton officials simply hung up the phone on an agent awaiting orders in the field. Its 180 degrees from what happened, he said. So, yeah, I think you would have to describe that as deeply flawed. ABC responded Tuesday with a statement saying that the miniseries was a dramatization, not a documentary, drawn from a variety of sources, including the 9/11 commission report, other published materials and from personal interviews. The events that lead to 9/11 originally sparked great debate, the statement continued, so its not surprising that a movie surrounding those events has revived the debate. Former Gov. Thomas H. Kean of New Jersey, the chairman of the Sept. 11 commission and a consultant on the miniseries, defended the program, saying he thought the disputed scene was an honest representation of a number of failed efforts to capture Mr. bin Laden. I pointed out the fact that the scene involving Afghanistan and the attempt to get bin Laden is a composite, Mr. Kean said, adding that the miniseries format required some conflation of events. But, he said, The basic fact is that on a number of occasions, they thought they might have been able to get bin Laden, and on those occasions, the plug was pulled for various reasons. Mr. Kean conceded that some points might have been more drama than documentary. Some of the people shown there probably werent there, he said. Online commentators seized on remarks made last week by Rush Limbaugh, the conservative radio host, who said The Path to 9/11 had been written and produced by a friend of mine out in California named Cyrus. From what Ive been told, Mr. Limbaugh said, according to a transcript on rushlimbaugh.com, the film really zeros in on the shortcomings of the Clinton administration. Reached Tuesday, Cyrus Nowrasteh, the films screenwriter and one of its producers, said he had met Mr. Limbaugh on the set of 24, the serialized thriller on Fox. I met him briefly, Mr. Nowrasteh said, declining to say if the two men were close. And thats it. As for criticism that his movie was soft on the Bush administration, Mr. Nowrasteh said, Let the movie speak for itself. ABC said it planned to run a disclaimer with the broadcast, reminding viewers that the movie was not a documentary. But Richard Ben-Veniste, a member of the Sept. 11 commission, said genre confusion would not be a problem for commission members, several of whom saw part of the miniseries last week. As we were watching, we were trying to think how they could have misinterpreted the 9/11 commissions finding the way that they had, Mr. Ben-Veniste said. They gave the impression that Clinton had not given the green light to an operation that had been cleared by the C.I.A. to kill bin Laden, when, in fact, the Sept. 11 commission concluded that Mr. Clinton had. Mr. Ben-Veniste said he did, however, approve of the casting. I like Harvey Keitel, he said of the actor who plays John ONeil, the onetime F.B.I. counterterrorism expert who died in the attacks. I liked him in Mean Streets. Im a fan. And excerpts from the San Francisco Chronicle: Quote, originally posted by San Francisco Chronicle* »* - Airing commercial-free on ABC Sunday and Monday at 8 p.m. EDT (with a 9/11-related followup from ABC News at 10 p.m. Monday), the miniseries claims to draw from a number of sources, including the 2004 report of the 9/11 Commission, which was established to investigate government missteps that led to the attacks. -Perhaps another guest, Thomas Kean (the former Republican governor of New Jersey, who was chairman of the 9/11 Commission and served as senior consultant for "The Path to 9/11") will defend the film's evenhandedness. Never mind how talk-show host Rush Limbaugh has interpreted the film for his listeners as demonstrating that, in the Clinton era, "we didn't do diddly-squat," while the Bush administration was subsequently "caught up and sort of hamstrung by the existing procedures" and "hasn't had a chance to change them." -ABC responded to the brewing controversy Tuesday only by saying that its miniseries is "a dramatization, not a documentary, drawn from a variety of sources, including the 9/11 Commission report, other published materials and from personal interviews." BTW, if you think Fahrenheit 9/11 is the same thing, think again. -Fahrenheit 9/11 was NEVER shown on network television (Only on cable I believe) -Fahrenheit 9/11 was pretty much only shown in theaters and on DVD, meaning that one would have to go out of their way to see it. -Michael Moore never sent out letters to high school teachers saying that teachers could have a copy of the movie for free to show it in their classrooms. And one final thing : http://thinkprogress.org/tellabc http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBI....html
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