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I think we have to give ABC/Disney and their assorted minions some credit today. This afternoon, on Dan Patrick's show on ESPN Radio (which as you all know is part of ABC/Disney), Keith Olbermann, during his usual hour's time slot with Patrick on the show, spoke up against the "Path to 9/11" movie.
This is a very condensed version of what he said about it (sighing as he began). Mind you: there was no evidence that he had to fight anyone in order to even express this opinion--in fact, Patrick himself even promoted it before a commercial break ("Coming up..."). There was no attempt to censor or stifle his opinion, either. And there would have been every perfectly justifiable reason to do so; after all, the program is supposed to be about sports, not politics or ABC's programming choices. But Olbermann spoke his piece, and spoke it as freely as he did his opinions throughout the rest of the time he was on the air.
First, he said he understood that there was buzz in Variety that the movie might be yanked, in part because of Bush asking for the 9-10 pm ET slot on 9/11 for his speech. Then he explained the controversy, saying that in the movie, Clinton was portrayed "in the words of the guy who wrote it" as not having had the "will" to stop Osama bin Laden. He said that the movie is being presented as being based on the 9/11 Commission Report, but the Commission Report actually says nothing about Clinton to imply this. He said it has "a lot of invented scenes" and that he, personally, thinks it's too soon to be making all these 9/11 movies anyway--especially one that's on your TV that you might happen to land on while searching for something to watch.
He added that he also felt there was "a lot wrong" with Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911, "but at least it was in theaters" (as opposed to being on TV). He made a comparison to the TV movie about the Reagans, which he called "pretty much crap," and how Republicans complained about it so much--"with some justification"--that it got booted to Showtime. He mentioned the people who have participated in "Path to 9/11," including Harvey Keitel, who have already spoken up about its flaws and said it shouldn't run--and that even some conservative commentators agree.
Dan Patrick asked if there was any portrayal of Monica Lewinsky in the movie, and Keith said no, but the movie portrays Clinton as being too distracted by the Lewinsky situation to deal with Al Qaeda, yet there was a time Clinton was actually accused of "wagging the dog" when he ordered military strikes--accused of doing it just to distract attention from his own scandal. Keith said "It's rewriting history" to assign a president who was not a sitting president with responsibility for a terrorist attack that happened on another president's watch--that it would be as bad as blaming Bush alone, and no one else, for 9/11.
In short, he said "the truth would be served" if "Path to 9/11" did not air. He added that for a 9/11 movie to come out while so many people are still suffering the aftereffects of that day, "it has to be meticulous and fair--and this isn't it."
All this he said on ESPN Radio...part of the ABC/Disney empire.
No one tried to shout him down. No one tried to cut him off. No opposing opinion supporting the movie was presented. And Dan Patrick didn't come back afterward and announce that Keith had been fired.
Unless Keith doesn't show up for his own program tonight, and is eventually found tied to a bag of cement at the bottom of the East River, I think it's safe to say that ABC/Disney allowed him to speak his piece to a whole lot of sports fans this afternoon--many of whom are conservatives and don't really want to hear anything but sports on their sports radio, much less the rantings of some "liberal." But they let him do it anyway.
For that, I thank them.
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