A "mind-numbingly boring" propaganda film (must read!)

[Emboldened Chimp]

A 9/11 widow reviews last night's Showtime film about President Bush's actions on and after that fateful morning.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Kristen Breitweiser

Sept. 8, 2003 | The film "DC 9/11: Time of Crisis," which premiered Sunday night on Showtime, is a mind-numbingly boring, revisionist, two-hour-long wish list of how 9/11 might have gone if we had real leaders in the current administration. This film is rated half of a fighter jet -- since that is about what we got for our nation's defense on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.

Despite the title, the film only budgets approximately 10 minutes to the actual morning of 9/11. Most of the movie is spent cataloging the myriad cabinet-level debates as to whether to declare "war" against terrorism and how to effectively sell that to the American people.

It is understandable that so little time is actually devoted to the president's true actions on the morning of 9/11. Because to show the entire 23 minutes from 9:03 to 9:25 a.m., when President Bush, in reality, remained seated and listening to "second grade story-hour" while people like my husband were burning alive inside the World Trade Center towers, would run counter to Karl Rove's art direction and grand vision.

http://www.salon.com/ent/tv/feature/2003/09/08/dc911/index.html

[vi5]

1. Great article! I was hoping someone would post it....

I had just read it and was hoping someone would post it here. So scathing and so on the mark.

[Beetwasher]

2. Wow!

SCATHING!!!

[ewagner]

3. Wow!

Tough review.

Not too kind to Rummy? Wonder why? I thought he would be cannonized just like Dubya.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

4. It's a scorcher!

Some more excerpts:

And why so much time spent on this war plan anyway? I thought there was a copy of it on the President's desk the day before 9/11? So what's all the fuss about?

---

Just as an aside, I especially liked the tender moments shared between the president and First Lady, particularly when she mentioned the atrocities the Afghan women faced under the rule of the Taliban. We -- the 9/11 widows -- have requested meetings with the First Lady to discuss our goals for the 9/11 Independent Commission. She never answers.

---

Miscellaneous things that surprised me included the fact that the film perpetuates the big fat lie that Air Force One was a target. Forgive me, but I thought the White House admitted at the end of September 2001 that Air Force One was never a target, that no code words were spoken and that it was all a lie.

[Emboldened Chimp]

5. This paragraph is a killer

It is understandable that so little time is actually devoted to the president's true actions on the morning of 9/11. Because to show the entire 23 minutes from 9:03 to 9:25 a.m., when President Bush, in reality, remained seated and listening to "second grade story-hour" while people like my husband were burning alive inside the World Trade Center towers, would run counter to Karl Rove's art direction and grand vision.

Ouch!

[ComerPerro]

6. Thank you for posting this

I can't belive the blatent propaganda they tried to pass off on the Americna people.

[Capn Sunshine]

7. Kick

:kick:

[maha]

8. kick n/t

[robbedvoter]

9. Wow! Captures my feelings exactly! (and I didn't lose anyone)

The signing of that picture....if you thought autigraphing the flag was gross...

[nostamj]

10. that really pissed me off too...

and THAT I can believe really happened.

[robbedvoter]

15. I remember the picture people! They were walking like ghosts

from one display to another and looking at everyone desperately. I felt really crushed that I did not know their loved ones and couldn't help. Time after time, day after day. Reading this made me cry again - this ought to be the most revealing story on the MF.

[nostamj]

17. those posters were one of the hardest things

about living/working in NYC post-9/11.

I once (just once) walked past the Armory... every inch of space for blocks around were covered with those flyers. your heart just broke and broke and broke and broke again...

[Hamlette]

11. my favorite part

"The worst part comes when the president meets a young mother and child who are desperately searching for their missing father and husband. President Bush takes the picture of the child's father and signs his name across it, telling the young girl, "When your daddy comes back, tell him you met me." For a child and wife facing the devastating loss of a loved one who very likely has just been burned, crushed and buried in rubble, meeting the president doesn't rightly matter. Nor does it matter having his signature scrawled across a photo that you wanted to display on a wall of missing victims -- something that would have offered at least a glimmer of hope."

Bush in a nutshell.

[Q]

16. The image reminds me of 'Execution George' in Texas...

...and his signature on the beloved photo a death warrant.

- I've scoured the internet and news sources...and you just can't find much about George's actions on 9-11. Of course 'leftist' websites have been reporting on this issue since it happened. But there's literally nothing in the mainstream media about GWB* sitting among school children in stunned silence while thousands burned alive.

[bobthedrummer]

12. Paul Thompson's work has more real meaning to me on 9/11 events

than anything else.
http://www.wanttoknow.info/911timeline2pg

[Starpass]

13. Just a note----something I picked up in a paper before this aired

It said that this film was made by a guy who is a big Bush supporter and that they deliberately made it to look like Cheney, Rummy, Powell, etc. were little nothings while the Big Man made great decisions and lead the country to magnificiently. Here's my beef---we have had movies of recent presidents but AFTER they are out of office. Showtime should be flooded with e-mails that this is misuse of the public airwaves and just blatant, re-written history, shit propaganda. You know what I fear??---I fear that about this time next year we are going to have a "Clinton" movie......I feel it coming.

[qb]

21. I think the first Clinton movie out will be "The Hunting of the President"

It must be about done by now. I wonder if they're timing the release for maximum impact.

[John_H]

25. I sure hope so

If we've got all these "friends" in Hollywood, it's high time they help us tell the truth.

I vote for Shelly DuVall as Ann Coulter, Phyllis Diller as Goldberg, Paul Rubens and Fineman, and Tweety as himself. After all, he plays a journalist on TV every night.

[RamboLiberal]

24. TV Guide said of the producer of this film

as "a self-described Bush 'acolyte and worshipper'".

[Q]

14. And amazingly...most Americans never caught on...

...that the Bushies had no right to 'declare' any kind of war under the Constitution...and that they were 'declaring' an impossible war against 'terrorism' instead of a country.

[Emboldened Chimp]

18. kick

[proud patriot]

19. Kristen Breitweiser is PISSED

I'm pissed ... At least she got a chance to voice her
review .

[0007]

20. btt

* * * * *

[qb]

22. I heard the writer/producer interviewed on WNYC's "On the Media"

They played a clip of "Bush" & "Condi" discussing the world situation & using really big words. The interviewer (clearly disbelieving) asked Lionel Chetwynd if it was his opinion that this is how Bush dicusses things with his advisors. Chetwynd said testily that it wasn't his opinion, it was his EXPERIENCE that this WAS how Bush talked to his advisors!!! I think the interviewer had to take a moment to compose herself before proceeding.

Link for audio (no transcript yet): http://www.wnyc.org/onthemedia/

[John_H]

23. She's doing her husband's memory proud.

God be with her and keep giving her strength and the eloquence to fight those that do the work of the Devil.

[RamboLiberal]

26. Figure it wouldn't hurt to mention again - Kristen's story

and questions about 9-11 including AWOL sitting on his ass in the classroom while her husband died is included in Gail Sheehey's new book Middletown, America: One Town's Passage from Grief to Recovery
which I think is going to be read by a lot of women - Rove's so called "Security Moms". They tell how the WH has stonewalled and underfunded the 9-11 investigation. Also how Bush and Laura have refused to meet with them.

This book has it's own front and center full rack display in B&N. It's 41st on B&N charts, 128th on Amazon.

[Plaid Adder]

27. "While people like my husband were burning alive..."

Wow! SO harsh, and SO well-deserved!

Why is Bush not just a smoking pile of ash after reading this review? Oh, that's right, he doesn't read...unless it's about goats...

C ya,

The Plaid Adder