Read it and laugh.

Amid an election-year debate over who can best defend America, U.S. congressional Democrats urged ABC on Thursday to cancel a TV miniseries about the September 11 attacks that is critical of former Democratic President Bill Clinton and his top aides.

"Urged." That's all. "Urged."

In recent days, former members of the Clinton administration also lodged complaints with Iger, urging ABC and Disney to fix or eliminate what they called errors and fabrications.

ABC issued a statement saying the production, "The Path to 9/11," was still being edited and that criticism of the film's specifics were thus "premature and irresponsible."

'DRAMATIC LICENSE'

Executive Producer Marc Platt acknowledged that "there is dramatic license taken" in the docudrama to "render the program effective and accessible for viewers."

"But we do try within the boundaries of what is fair and reasonable to communicate the essence of what occurred (and) the intentions of those individuals involved," he told Reuters in a telephone interview from London. "We have no intention or desire to be political, to intentionally distort."

Platt also said one scene singled out for criticism by Democrats -- depicting CIA operatives and Afghan fighters coming close to capturing Osama bin Laden in the 1990s, only for then-national security advisor Samuel Berger to refuse authorization of the mission -- was a "conflation of events."

Berger said in a letter to Iger earlier this week that "no such episode ever occurred, nor did anything like it."

The September 11 attacks occurred about eight months after Clinton turned over the presidency in January 2001 to Republican George W. Bush.

For several years, Democrats have complained the Bush administration failed to capture or kill bin Laden when he reportedly was cornered in Afghanistan's Tora Bora region in late 2001. They also argue the war in Iraq later took away resources for tracking down bin Laden.

Note they allow Berger's claim that nothing like the scene depicted ever took place. Despite a rather voluminous record to the contrary.

Indeed, the only accusations of negligence in letting bin Ladin roam free are directed at Republicans by Democrats.

Apparently not a single Republican was available to offer his own criticism of Clinton.

I was earlier going to write something along the lines of, "Now that the Clintonites have made this into a major issue, we'll have an airing of the Clinton Administration's miserable failures on bin Ladin once and for all."

And then I realized how foolish that was.

The media is not ever going to publicize this information, ever. Even when it's directly germane to an enormous controversy (which includes a threat of political censorship), they will sanitize the Clinton record.

Posted by: Ace at 08:49 AM | Comments (11)
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Let's take a quick tally on Democrats and the First Amendment:

1. Campaign Finance Reform - Yes, McCain was a sponsor of the bill, but this is clearly a Democrat meme at this point: money corrupts the political process.
2. Sinclair Broadcasting and the Switboat Veteran's participation in the documentary Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal. The documentary was aired in a much reduced format.
3. The ACLU and any nativity scene
4. The Ninth Circuit and the Pledge of Allegiance
5. ABC and "The Path to 9-11."
...
98. Clinton's faux legislation efforts after the Oklahoma City bombing against Talk Radio
99. The Farness Doctrine and Talk Radio

Has anyone really talked about Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth"? How about the inconvenient truth that Gore's political enemies disagree with most of his wacko rhetoric, but defend his right to say it? What about CBS's portrayal of Reagan - there were a lot of Fake But Accurate comments in there (see my definition of FBA in the post below). "Fahrenheit 9-11"?

Just out of curiosity, did CBS get threatened by Bush's administration when a sitting president was exposed as a fraud and a derelict ultimately vindicated in his National Guard duty? What about NBC with David Gregory's consistent vindictiveness towards the administration? What about MSNBC when Chris Matthews opens his mouth?

So to the question. How do you stop the Democrats? You defeat them. Politically, of course, but you defeat them. They will never play nice. They will never play by the rules. They will never play fair.

As they continue their march towards uber-authoritarianism citing Leftist memes and kook theories along the way, it is no longer a question of where they are going or what they will do when they get there. The question is, "How do we stop them?"

Defeat them.

Posted by: Ace at 08:42 AM | Comments (20)
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Matthew Sheffield of NewsBusters cornered Matthews at an industry party and wanted to know why, precisely, Matthews had mentioned or devoted a segment to Plamegate 27 times in the five months preceedint the Armitage revelation, but had mentioned it zero times since then. Not even mentioning the huge scoop the days after it broke.

He claimed the story was now "too complicated" for viewers to follow (i.e., he has no idea how to spin his conspiracy theory with this large fact now widely known), and then offered this as well:

It could be but the problem is that Dick Cheney has so many apologists it's ridiculous. So many journalists like Bob Woodward will say or do anything just to get access to him. And then all the people in the administration too.

Apparently Novak, Woodward, Armitage, Colin Powell. and many people in the Justice Department (who were informed in vague terms about the Armitage leak) conspired together in early 2003, before this story broke wide or a special prosecutor was appointed, to concoct a cover story they would unveil in 2006, just to embarrass Chris Matthews.

Bush Derangement Syndrome. Catch the swamp-fever!

Posted by: Ace at 08:37 AM | Comments (25)
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Two things:

1, when I made my picks, the spread for the Pittsburg game was five or six points. I knew Roethlisberger wouldn't be ready. The bettors didn't. When they figured it our or it was announced, the spread plunged to 1 1/2.

2, damnit, Miami almost managed it, so shut up.

Here are the standings, with the top filled up with dopes who picked Pittsburgh just because they won the Superbowl last year.

Here's the blogger one. More dopes. Only me, Slublog, and yaron were smart enough to pick Miami.

I'm just posting this because someone requested it. I won't post standings until Tuesday morning in the future. I just thought this being the first one, I'd mention it.

For anyone who wasn't able to get in--

you can still sign up for the pool. Join ID is a singer beloved by me, password is how one should take a dude, if one must. Not in a gay way, but....

If you missed the first week, you're at a small disadvantage to win the season, as you won't get any points from week 1. But a lot of people will get very few points from week 1. (I may be one of them, as my 9-point pick went out the window in the last five minutes of the game.)

And you can still compete week by week, regardless.

Honestly, a lame game. The beginning was just offensive ineptness. There were a few big exciting plays later, but a lot of those just seemed to be the result of defensive mistakes.

Posted by: Ace at 08:30 AM | Comments (15)
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I'm just doing Ace's dirty work for him by putting this trailer up here for all to see.

My opinion? Still mixed. Judging just by the trailer, it *looks* good, like it's the Bond movie a lot of us have been waiting a long time to see.

Alas, it's still a Broccoli production, so we all know what we're likely to get: more of the same, only with Daniel Craig instead of Pierce Brosnan.

I still don't get why Judi Dench is in the film. It's a "reboot," it features James Bond before he became a 007, so why the hell are they using the same M? It makes no sense. Unless, of course, they're doing the worst of all possible things, and telling us that *anybody* who becomes 007 becomes "James Bond." If they pull that lame stunt, I'll drop a toaster in my next bath.

As for Daniel Craig, I'll give him a chance. I still consider Layer Cake to be a fantastic film mostly because of his cool, laid-back nature. Still, as Bond, I'll just have to wait and see if he can pull it off.

Oh, and Eva Green? Painfully hot. Just FYI.

Posted by: Dave From Garfield Ridge at 08:07 AM | Comments (9)
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I posted this yesterday, but I didn't get the overtness of the threat. Spureill here bolds the threats to yank ABC's license.

Allah has a lot of updates on this. Bryan Preston notes in an update that a similar threat was made against Sinclair Broadcasting's planned airing of Stolen Honor, about John Kerry's slandering of Vietnam veterans. And yes, they caved.

Why is it the media never seems to mind a bit of intimidation and "chilling" when it comes from the left side of the aisle?

This is a precedent, as Allah notes. If an entire political party can threaten to pull a station's license when it likes, well then, that precedent applies equally to the GOP. Why should we play by the rules if they won't? Why shouldn't we use our power in such a thuggish manner, too?

The silence on this is astounding perfectly predictable. That, too, is precedent. If the media doesn't mind having such threats directed at them, well, something to keep in mind, isn't it?

The left found CBS' caving into threats of citizen boycotts over its Reagan hatchet job odious. But this is pretty shocking. The left is now so drunk with power dreams of power that it's actually celebrating this intimidation, unapologetically.

The Senate Democratic leadership just threatened Disney's broadcast license. Not the use of the word "trustee" at the beginning of the letter and "trust" at the end. This is nothing less than an implicit threat that if Disney tries to meddle in the US elections on behalf of the Republicans, they will pay a very serious price when the Democrats get back in power, or even before.

Mary Katherine Ham expected, as I did, that AmericaBlog would condemn the action based on that unapologetic, no-spin description of the letter. Wrong. AmericaBlog is jerking himself off over the power-play.

Or, if you were going to defend the letter, you'd have expected AmericaBlog to spin it as non-threatening, just "reminding ABC of its duties." Nope. He says it's a direct threat. He sees a "very serious price" to be paid after the election.

He's ecstatic about the strong, tough Democrats.

We can be strong, tough like this too, douchebag.

The scene in question is, well, not accurate. I wrote Justin Levine to clarify if the troops were depicted as part of a targeting/recon mission for a cruise missile strike on bin Ladin (which would be close enough to the truth) or actually poised to kill or capture bin Ladin himself. Levine reports it's clearly the latter -- which means yes, the scene is inaccurate.

As far as actual troops being in position to kill bin Ladin. But we had plenty of opportunities to kill him through airstrikes. The Clinton Administration was a miserable failure in passing up "8 to 10" good chances to kill bin Ladin, with its lawyers fretting more about bin Ladin's comfort than the urgent need to kill him:

When we were going to capture Osama bin Laden, for example, the lawyers were more concerned with bin Laden‘s safety and his comfort than they were with the officers charged with capturing him. We had to build an ergonomically designed chair to put him in, special comfort in terms of how he was shackled into the chair. They even worried about what kind of tape to gag him with so it wouldn‘t irritate his beard. The lawyers are the bane of the intelligence community.

It should be noted that the scene drawing the most controversy can be edited, I think, to better reflect the actual facts. They don't need to show troops in position -- they can show a man at a cruise missile targeting computer speaking with Berger instead. They don't have time to shoot this? Ah, don't be silly. There is plenty of footage from a million movies that can be used for a brief depiction of the man on the other end of the line, and dialogue can be dubbed/rerecorded to make it clear a Tomahawk cruise missile strike is contemplated, not a boots-on-the-ground covert operative raid.

That would be perfectly accurate.

But I suspect that's not what ABC will do.

The film will as a Whitewash of Clinton, with its only criticism directed at Bush.

Because that's how the left wants it, and in this country, despite their status as small political minority, the left always gets what it wants when it comes to the media.

More... A press release--

Former Presidential Aide and Carrier of “the football” Buzz Patterson’s Watched First Hand as Clinton Missed His Opportunity to Kill Bin Laden

I have seen the ABC mini-series. It is right on the money. I was there with Clinton and Berger and watched the missed opportunities occur. Anything to the contrary is political spin. – Lt. Col. Robert “Buzz” Patterson

Washington, DC - As the controversy rages over the airing of the much anticipated ABC miniseries The Path to 9/11 – and Democratic Leaders desperately contend that the mini-series is inaccurate, Lt. Col Buzz Patterson knows the truth. In fact, the Former Presidential Aide and carrier of the “Football” – containing the codes to launch nuclear war – watched not only an early screening of the movie – but WITNESSED first hand the indifference of President Clinton to launch a strike against Bin Laden.

The ABC mini-series is scheduled to air uninterrupted Sunday night, September 10 and Monday night, September 11.

As Patterson reveals in his New York Times bestseller Dereliction of Duty- the first missed opportunity occurred when Clinton was engaged in watching a golf tournament and became irritated when Patterson approached him. After PattersonÂ’s third attempt to get Clinton to return Sandy BergerÂ’s urgent phone calls, Clinton gave Patterson a cool response he would phone Berger on his way back to the White House. The defeated Berger knew that the opportunity was gone.

In another shocking account in the situation room of the White House, Berger was told by a military watch officer “Sir, we’ve located bin Laden. We have a two-hour window to strike.” After Clinton did not return phone calls from Berger for over an hour, Clinton then wanted more time to study the situation. Dereliction of Duty reveals “We ‘studied’ the issues until it was too late-the window of opportunity closed.”

Posted by: Ace at 08:04 AM | Comments (59)
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And Stephen Hadley, too.

This guy used to be in the CIA, remember. How unnerving is that?

He writes:

A story in today's New York Times by David Johnston is the latest salvo in what looks like a coordinated assault on the steely-eyed prosecutor.

Seixon answers:

Coordinated assault? The New York Times, the LA Times, the Washington Post, etc, etc are all coordinating to get Fitzgerald? Oh Larry, you really need to leave those left-wing conspiracy thoughts at home where they belong. You just end up looking silly.

Let us just say that the NYT, LAT, and WaPo "coordinating" an "assault" in order to help Bush, Cheney, and Rove is a far less unlikely team-up than the Saddam-Osama alignment we were all told was flat-out impossible.

(Despite the fact that Saddam invited bin Ladin to Iraq to have a new sanctuary, etc.)

Posted by: Ace at 07:27 AM | Comments (12)
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You know, fake but accurate was used when the Left was calling for Bush's impeachment the first time. In other words, the specifics may be wrong, the charge baseless, but Bush deserves to be targeted, so this charge will work as well as the next one. That always reeks of Kangaroo courts and fascist manhunts.

That is exactly the opposite of what is happening with this movie. This is a drama that portrays real life events based on a commission's report on the chronology of events leading up to 9/11. If there are innaccuracies in the telling, there is #1, no criminal charges at stake (only legacies for ex-Presidents), and #2, no substantive (I hope) misrepresentation of the failures that got us where we were on 9/11.

Look, this movie talks about a lot of things, including the Khobar Towers (Clinton's Watch), the Cole (Clinton's Watch), the first WTC Bombing (Clinton's Watch). From what I understand, it also does a pretty good number on Bush, who deserves his share of the blame. I'll be interested to see if there is reference to the Beirut Murders on Reagan's watch, which was his biggest failure..

Do you on the Left actually want to portray that this movie seeks to cast blame rather than to portray a chronology? My sense is that it will not - there is plenty of blame to go around. Do you actually think that somehow it is false to portray, say, the first WTC bombing as not related to the rise of IslamoFascism and the empowerment of Bin Laden, leading to his commissioning the events on 9/11?

I get the very real feeling that Clinton's blather about innaccuracies is being used to dismiss the whole movie and the whole thrust of the argument. To wit, the leadership of this country was asleep at the switch for a number of years, and the resulting portrayal of ineptitude and weakness caused our enemies to exploit us on September 11th. That is a reality that cannot be refuted, unless you live in the reality-based community.

But if you want to focus on whether John O'Neil is prtrayed as left handed when he was right handed, then go to it. You're missing the bigger picture that the 9/11 commission painted, no matter the politics and distortions that characterized that committee (remember Jamie Gorelick, the "Wall", not recusing herself?). Hopefully this movie is accurate in that portrayal, be damned who it offends.

Posted by: Ace at 06:37 AM | Comments (72)
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By now, some of you are opening this page on Friday morning with a sense of dread. You are thinking: "Did Michael get drunk and spam this site again with another horrible music video?"

No. I can't do it any more. I have spammed this site with Spanky & Our Gang, Tommy James and the Shondells, Procul Harum dressed up in Sgt. Pepper costumes, and the infamous "Apache" video. Plus, I've made a point of insulting Ace for his laziness in the process.

I've done my worst, and Ace has still not kicked me off. Bad taste and bad manners just don't work here.

The only things that I know will work for sure are porn, racial slurs, blatant copyright infringement, and the like. I'm not up to that. If I can't get booted for bad music videos, I give up.

*Michael thinks it over*

Well, actually, there is one way to escalate.

GRAND FUNK RAILROAD!!!

Actually, there are two ways to escalate. I've got Three Dog Night in my hip pocket. Ace, don't make me do it.

Posted by: Ace at 10:39 PM | Comments (32)
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Clinton didn't say that "damnably serious" bit. But he would have if this was a Jane Austen Novel.

He also didn't say, "Get Bin Laden now, dammit - we have a country to protect." But he would have if this was a scene on The West Wing.

And I am well informed that Madeleine Albright didn't appear in a camasole and fuzzy slippers with a nightcap for her Pakistani lover in order to tell him that Hellfire missiles were targeting Bin Laden in Afghanistan. But she would have if this had been a scene of Dangerous Housewives.

Isn't it interesting how many times we've heard that Hollywood is all about dramatizations and entertainment when the lesson conveyed is pro-left, pro-Democrat, pro-liberal? "Don't take that seriously," we are admonished, "It's poetic license, darling."

Now we have the 9/11 movie that will air this Sunday. It certainly appears that ABC's head Iger is caving to pressure brought by the Clinton Foundation's Bruce Lindsay. Why? Because the dramatization paints the Clinton Administration accurately. Of course, efforts at "It's just a dramatization" somehow fall on deaf ears when you're trying to tell it to someone who really understands the power of memes and mass communication.

Look, I'm not saying that the portrayal is letter perfect. I'm not saying that in its smallest, parsable details, it is accurate to the nth degree. And I'm not saying that I've seen the movie. But I'm listening to the discussion, and I'm listening to people who have seen the movie (Rush, Patterico's co-blogger). And the portrayal is very likely as accurate as TV can be.

Why do I say this? First, because of the reaction by Clinton's camp. If this wasn't damning and true, then it would be damnably (and provably) false. Second, because all three of the "questionable" scenes in the above article are certainly believable given what we learned over the years about the Clinton Administration. Does it matter whether Berger slammed the phone down or laid it gently upon its cradle? Does it matter if Albright met the head of Pakistan's State Security apparatus in a dark alley or whether she sent a message by a messenger? Does it matter that Clinton didn't exercise leadership on a habitually self-serving, liberal, and disjointed foreign policy?

Yes. Yes it does. And from what I understand, this movie accurately portrays the lack of leadership and the lack of focus that was part and parcel of that foreign policy.

This is like the flame in an acetylene torch - it doesn't matter that it's a dry heat. At some point, it will simply burn.

We deserve a faithful portryal of the events leading up to 9/11, and of the Clinton Administration's failure with respect to Terrorism. Parse it 276 ways, and it's still a failure. I've read enough of the 9/11 Commission's report to get that out of it. And in its structure and in its specifics, this film seems to be accurate. The trouble is not the dramatization - it's what is being dramatized. The truth hurts.

PostScript: The Spin is beginning: from this article,

"No one has seen the final version of the film because the editing process is not yet complete, so criticisms of film specifics are premature and irresponsible," ABC said.

Really, darling? Of course not. That's why the media kit went out and the DVD's got burned and distributed.

It's Friday morning EDT, for cryin' out loud. How stupid do you think we are?

Posted by: Ace at 10:13 PM | Comments (256)
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