Three From Clinton Administration Urge Disney to Cancel or Revise Sept. 11 Miniseries

From The New York Slimes:

Three members of the Clinton administration have written the chairman of the Walt Disney Company, ABC’s parent, to complain that the network’s coming two-part miniseries “The Path to 9/11” is fraught with factual errors and fabrications.

The letters ask that the five-hour movie, scheduled for broadcast Sunday and Monday, be either edited for accuracy or canceled, and ABC gave a small indication yesterday that some changes might be made.

One of the officials, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, said in her letter to the Disney chairman, Robert A. Iger, that although she had requested a copy of the film, ABC had not given her one. But, Ms. Albright said, she has been told by people who have seen it that it “depicts scenes that never happened, events that never took place, decisions that were never made and conversations that never occurred.”

“It asserts as fact things that are not fact,” she wrote.

The concerns of Ms. Albright, as well as those in letters from Samuel R. Berger, former national security Adviser, and Bruce Lindsey, a Clinton White House aide who is now chief executive of the Clinton Foundation, were echoed yesterday by several Democratic members of Congress.

ABC, meanwhile, continued to explain that the miniseries, though largely drawn from the report of the Sept. 11 commission, was a dramatization, not a documentary.

[Excerpted]

From National Review Online:

Will ABC Cave on "The Path to 9/11" [Andy McCarthy]

I’m hearing all kinds of disturbing, though predictable, stories about a Clintonista offensive against “The Path to 9/11,” an ABC documentary written and produced by Cyrus Nowrasteh ("Into the West"), and directed by David Cunningham ("To End All Wars"). I haven’t seen it yet (although I hope to this weekend), but it is already drawing rave reviews from people who have (the piece is reviewed at FrontPage, here).

Apparently, the documentary recounts the bureaucratic bungling and lack of action against al Qaeda that was pervasive prior to the September 11 atrocities. It is by no means, I understand, pro-Bush. It is, instead, an effort to present history accurately. This evidently has many former Clinton officials and apologists in their default kill-the-messenger mode. Great pressure is being brought to bear on ABC and Disney to reopen the editorial process at this late stage (the documentary is supposed to air on September 10-11) so that the years 1993-2001 may remain forever airbrushed.

Will they succeed? This bears watching.

From NewsMax.com:

ABC's 'Path to 9/11': Bill Clinton's Inconvenient Truth
James Hirsen, NewsMax.com
Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2006

"The Path to 9/11," a six-hour miniseries scheduled to air September 10 and 11 on ABC, has certain former members of the Clinton administration in a panic.

The docudrama is thoroughly sourced and exposes information that former members of the Clinton administration had previously tried to suppress: that there was a failure on the part of the administration to respond to terrorism, inaction that ended up being partly to blame for the tragic events that took place on 9/11.

"Path" is based on the 9/11 Commission Final Report and the 2003 book "The Cell: Inside the 9/11 Plot, and Why the FBI and CIA Failed to Stop It." New Jersey Governor and Commission Co-chairman Thomas H. Kean served as a consultant for the miniseries.

***
Because the program specifically deals with the Clinton administration's failure to act when bin Laden was offered, a left-wing outcry has erupted on the Internet along with attempts to vilify the miniseries before it is even shown.

David Brock's Web site carries an article with a headline that reads "Right wing uses ABC docudrama to push debunked claim blaming Clinton administration for 9-11."

Pressure from the Left and from Clinton allies may account for an unusual posting by director David L. Cunningham titled "Clarification," which was placed on the "Path" Web site.

It stated that the series "is not a documentary," nor is it "a right wing agenda movie."

"The team of filmmakers, actors and executives that are responsible for this movie have very different political views. There was no emphasis given to one party over another. By the way, we are also being accused of being a left wing movie that bashes Bush," it also read.

The posting has since been removed from the ABC Web site.

Clinton colleagues Richard Ben-Veniste and John Podesta reportedly expressed their extreme displeasure about the way the docudrama portrays the Clinton administration. Their frustration likely stems from the extensive efforts that were taken to keep the information from being made public.

UPDATE
From the New York Post:

BUBBA GOES BALLISTIC ON ABC ABOUT ITS DAMNING 9/11 MOVIE - INSISTS NET PULL DRAMA

WASHINGTON - A furious Bill Clinton is warning ABC that its mini-series "The Path to 9/11" grossly misrepresents his pursuit of Osama bin Laden - and he is demanding the network "pull the drama" if changes aren't made.

Clinton pointedly refuted several fictionalized scenes that he claims insinuate he was too distracted by the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal to care about bin Laden and that a top adviser pulled the plug on CIA operatives who were just moments away from bagging the terror master, according to a letter to ABC boss Bob Iger obtained by The Post.

[More]

My Comments:
Apparently, the Democrats weren't farsighted enough to strategically plant Jamie Gorelick in a position of leadership at ABC.