REMEMBER - DON'T ALL SEND THE SAME LETTER!
1. As of this writing, ABC has distributed advanced
copies of the miniseries only to rightwing blogs and
pundits (Rush Limbaugh and others) while not providing
it to progressive blogs and media sources that
requested access to it. This appears to have been
deliberate.
2. You claim the film to be an accurate reflection of
the 9/11 Commission Report and nonpartisan in nature;
yet it was revealed in news today that at least
one key scene of the work was entirely fabricated.
In the scene, the character representing Sandy Berger
freezes when a CIA agent radios in from Afghanistan to
say that he and his band of local tribesmen have Osama
bin Laden within sight and begs for the green light to
terminate him with extreme prejudice. In the film, the
line goes dead before Berger offers any reply.
THIS EVENT IS SIMPLY MADE UP!
News reports today stated that during a post-screening
question-and-answer session, Richard Ben-Veniste, a
9/11 Commission member, stood up to say that the
Berger-bashing scene didn't square with the research
he and the other commissioners had conducted.
"There was no incident like that that we came across.
I am disturbed by that aspect of it," Ben-Veniste, a
Democrat, told the panel, which included both the
producer and the commission's GOP chairman, former
Gov. Thomas H. Kean of New Jersey. Lee Hamilton, the
Democratic co-chair did not participate in any
capacity with the production of the movie.
Former NSC-head Berger, reached by phone after the
screening, seconded Ben-Veniste's criticism. "It's a
total fabrication," he said tersely. "It did not
happen."
Richard Clarke, who served as head of counterterrorism
under four presidents, also has stated that no such
event took place.
3. In another section of the film, a leak of
classified information regarding OBL's habitual use of
telephone and computer communications is attributed to
the Washington Post. It was, in fact, the rightwing
newspaper the Washington Times that published the
leaked information.
4. The official ABC/Disney defense of the miniseries
is that it has strived for "reasonable accuracy." What
does that mean? It sounds like a slick way of saying that
it isn't really accurate, period. The statement smacks of
PR spin and lawyerly (read, weasely) wording.
5. Notwithstanding the alleged inaccuracies and bias
of its avowedly conservative director and producer,
ABC has undertaken an aggressive marketing program to
distribute the miniseries to the nation's schools
under the guise of the program being historically
valid.
Why?
That ABC and WLS-TV are participating in a highly
controversial portrayal of the events surrounding the
9/11 attack 60 days before the midterm elections is a
misuse of the public airways.
As NYT reporter and bestselling author William Rivers
Pitt wrote in a recent article critical of "The Path
to 9/11″: "At no time should a conservative producer
with an anti-Clinton axe to grind be allowed to use
public airwaves to broadcast a rank distortion of the
truth, especially on the anniversary of the worst day
in our history."
A fairminded person should be able to agree with
that position.
Hope it's ok to borrow -your letter is fantasitc.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/9/6/1219/09670