42 Comments

1. mrbones:

Roger, how you can be so eager for accuracy in media — with so much time spent savaging, for example, The New York Times and CBS (justifiably so) — but act as if this ABC special, which defames an administration, were no big deal?

It’s hard not to draw the conclusion that, for you, anything that makes Clinton look bad must be worthwhile. Is this the spoils of leaving the Democratic Party?

Sep 7, 2006 - 1:08 pm 2. Roger:

But the blame game for 9/11 is one of the biggest wastes of time imaginable. Nearly everyone on both sides of the aisle was asleep.

Habla ingles, mrbones?

Sep 7, 2006 - 1:17 pm 3. Terrye:

mrbones:

I left the Democratic party myself. I think the reason I will be watching is the memory of all those Democratic Senators pandering to Michael Moore, the “documumentary” film maker. The truth is the movie does not make either administration look good, but it seems the people who made the thing actually put some things in there Clinton did not like. What a hoot.

Sep 7, 2006 - 1:17 pm 4. Captain Hate:

mrbones, It’s hard not to draw the conclusion that you misunderstood everything Roger posted.

Sep 7, 2006 - 1:20 pm 5. Plainslow:

“But the blame game for 9/11 is one of the biggest wastes of time imaginable. Nearly everyone on both sides of the aisle was asleep. Or clearly not awake enough.”
This is so true. I don’t blame Clinton for how he acted. That’s the way the world was at that time. It was believed that lobing a missle at the enemy once in a while would keep them down. How wrong we now know that was. I just want to know what we did wrong during that period so we don’t lose another 3000 Americans.
I’d have more respect for Sandy Berger if he just told us what he took and why. And if the Path to 9/11 just say, yes or no to the movie’s story’s.

Sep 7, 2006 - 1:49 pm 6. Bruce Wechsler:

I believe Mr. Bones is engaged in a little reverse projection. Look at his second sentence: “It’s hard not to draw the conclusion that, for you, anything that makes Clinton look bad must be worthwhile.”

Switch the words “you” with “me” and “Clinton” with “Bush” and I his true message may be evident.

P.S. Oh yeah, and one additional “nuance”:this ABC special has…uh…NOT AIRED YET!! How can bones possibly declare it a defamation already? Talk about knee jerk responses…

Sep 7, 2006 - 1:58 pm 7. Lem:

For someone who was supposedly obsessed about his legacy, Bill Clinton’s seems utterly confident his actions (calling for a rehash of his pre 9/11 hand) will not be judged harshly by future historians.

If I was a historian, 50 years from now, not having ever meet the Clintons, this snippet would be a signal on the way to gaining some insight into what kind of a president Bill Clinton was.

I supposed the kindest thing I would say would be – Bill Clinton was intensely interested on what people said and thought about him. Shallow, lacked depth of character.

Could he?.. would he call from the grave?

Sep 7, 2006 - 2:35 pm 8. gumshoe:

Re: your update,Roger…

i just posted at YARGB:

“this 5-part ABC 9/11 series
is due to air starting Sunday,10Sept06,no??

has the DNC voiced objections after getting a pre-screening from ABC?

talk about a bought & sold,
two-tier media system.

no thanks.
i’ll stick with the chore of having
to filter a gazillion blogs.”

Sep 7, 2006 - 2:48 pm 9. David Thomson:

Who should I believe, Sandy Berger? No, I think I’ll go with the CIA operatives. This is the same man who sneaked classified documents out of the Library of Congress. Also, Clinton’s administration revolved around the principle that “It’s the economy, Stupid!” Fighting a war on terror would supposedly distract the American voters from matters of real importance. Bill Clinton is minimally guilty of treating the first Twin Towers attack as merely a criminal matter. The 527 media let him get away with this nonsense. These leftist journalists instinctively knew that it would destroy Clinton’s reelection hopes in 1996.

Sep 7, 2006 - 4:25 pm 10. jedrury:

Lawrence Wright’s highly touted book “The Looming Tower,” paints Sandy Berger as an equivocator/a milk toast in going after Bin Laden.

This book is praised by the Times, so maybe the Dems have not read the part 3/4 of the way through it which is highly critical of Berger and the Clinton White House’s response to the looming threat pre 9/11. The shocker in this book is the actions by the CIA refusing to confirm to the FBI when asked in July 2001 the presence in the US of two known al Qaeda operatives. Wright names the FBI analyst attached to the CIA and the FBI agents asking for the information but does not identify the obstructing CIA supervisor who sat across from the FBI agents in NYC asking for this information. But of course, this whole point overlooks the Gorelick memo which effectively partitioned intelligence information from the FBI. Maybe Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton should address that major issue as they fly round the country marketing their new book on the 9/11 report.

“Hey, Tom and Lee, you want openness well start at home and tell us why you protected Jamie Gorelick and her memo after John Ashcroft revealed it in open session of the 9/11 hearings?”

Sep 7, 2006 - 5:59 pm 11. mrp:

Didn’t I read somewhere that ABC is going to air this thing commercial-free on both nights?

Sep 7, 2006 - 6:06 pm 12. ricpic:

Well, I’m convinced. If the ex-Rapist-In-Chief says ABC lies, ABC lies.

Sep 7, 2006 - 6:24 pm 13. mrp:

Thanks to the A-man at Hot Air for reminding me that former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell (a very partisan Dem) is the Walt Disney Co.’s Chairman of the Board.

George Mitchell

Sep 7, 2006 - 7:34 pm 14. heather:

This ABC censorship (ooops… ‘editing’) is so depressing Maybe the company should do the decent thing and just cancel the whole show.

But then, the MSM is not decent is it? We’ve been watching the big ones (Reuters, AP) fake photos to help out Hezbollah; and BBC openly attack Israel for war crimes; and then the NYT wants to ‘clear up” the Plame thing (!!!).

So why on earth should I even THINK the word “decent” at the same time as I think “ABC”.

Sep 7, 2006 - 7:51 pm 15. JSF:

In the end, the democratic party of today is INGSOC seen by Owell in 1984. They purge their party members (Liebermen), re-create history (the Path to 9/11), and have an inner and outer party that demands obedience. The modern democrats live in a state of permenent war against their own countrymen rather then against the enemy who struck on 9/11. (Iraq, by the way, is a battlefront on the War on Terror — if we don’t fight them there, where would you have the suicide bombers go? Universal Citywalk?) If the Dems get back into power, then America will see a real fascist state emerge (first propagated by Huey Long [D-LA])

Sep 7, 2006 - 8:01 pm 16. HA:

The Congressional Democrat goons threaten Disney’s broadcast license:

http://media.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NzMyNjE1N2UwZjk4ODY3MjYzYTdhNzgwMTkwZjYwMDE=

Sep 7, 2006 - 8:21 pm 17. Lem:

Roger’s question bears some scrutiny.

For people who are not in power (save a wife whom I shall not name) and may not come back, the Clintons preemptively got on the phone, wrote letters and made things happen.

What is the nature of the Clinton ABC relationship? Did Clinton call George Mitchel?
Where promises made? In the event of another Clinton presidency, a White House cabinet in exchange for a movie laundering perhaps?

Mrs. Reagan was not happy with the former president’s biographer. I recall the MSM circumspectly asking Edmund Morris over and over if any pressure had been put on him to change the book. The answer was no, but it didn’t matter, the presumption was against Mrs. Reagan.

Sep 7, 2006 - 8:50 pm 18. Lem:

BTW – the way these revelations have surfaced resemble a page out of the old Clinton play book. Leak your own news, take the sting out of it. It’s perception remember?

That’s how Ken Starr was handled.

Sep 7, 2006 - 9:09 pm 19. Cap'n Billy:

I read somewhere that about 900 preview copies of this program were distributed to various columnists, pundits, etc. If ABC and/or Disney is foolish enough to cancel or modify it in the face of those thinly-veiled threats from Democrat Senators, Clinton and others, odds are that pirated versions will eventually surface, regardless of copy protection. If you want to encourage ABC to broadcast this program uncut, here’s their address:
http://abc.go.com/site/contactus.html

Sep 8, 2006 - 9:26 am 20. onecent:

Hey, these sniveling MSM slobs capitulated during the Cartoon War, surrendering next to the DNC isn’t that hard for them.

Outsourcing most of the MSM here to Paris isn’t that whimsical a thought. Most of us have departed the MSM a long time ago.

Sep 8, 2006 - 10:23 am 21. gumshoe:

I read somewhere that about 900 preview copies of this program were distributed to various columnists, pundits, etc. If ABC and/or Disney is foolish enough to cancel or modify it in the face of those thinly-veiled threats from Democrat Senators, Clinton and others, odds are that pirated versions will eventually surface, regardless of copy protection. If you want to encourage ABC to broadcast this program uncut, here’s their address:
http://abc.go.com/site/contactus.html

Posted by: Cap’n Billy
at September 8, 2006 09:26 AM

_________________________

Cap’n Billy -

thanks for that info and the heads up…

any possibility of a link to verify
the pre-release copies story??

the observation that the uneditted version will be available online for viewing and comparison
is timely and useful.

OTOH,one can’t help feeling
this is all about “engineering perception”,
as the MsM has done for years.

the whole controversy over DNC pre-viewing,etc
is a ploy to generate controversy which generates eyeballs.

seems to me the most logical understanding of it.
most made-for-TV-movies are awful.

why has ABC decided
on a two-tier release for this series??

first to the DNC for comments,
and then to the public?

one can’t help feeling it’s
nothing more than the media (ABC in this case)
riding a tabloid-mentality,rake in the eyeballs,
bear-baiting,public-hanging,
popcorn concession.

in the end it’s not about news or history,
it’s about entertainment.

“fix the problem,not the blame”.

to call it “broadcasting in the public interest”
let alone “broadcasting as a public trust”
is a stretch i’m unwilling to grant them.

how is pre-screening for the DNC
“independent journalism”??

Sep 8, 2006 - 1:16 pm 22. Cap'n Billy:

Gumshoe,

Hugh Hewitt mentioned that he had one, along with about 900 others, in this interview with an ABC executive:
Hewitt interview
Here is the relevant paragraph:
HH: Cyrus Nowrasteh, there’s controversy surrounding this film which will be showing in Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, as well as the British Broadcast System, and all around the world. The controversy concerns whether or not edits were made. I have a preview copy, as do 900 other people. It’s not like I’m special. Is what I have what others will see on Sunday night?

Sep 8, 2006 - 1:28 pm 23. Harley:

Okay, a couple points.

First? Heh.

Second? No one will be watching anyway. They will, like all good Americans, be watching Football.

Third? ABC has no one but themselves to blame. They could have easily promoted this as a docudrama that was tough on both sides — and according to some, it is — and acted accordingly. For example, they could’ve sent preview copies to opinion makers on both sides of the ideological spectrum. Heck, they could’ve sent one to Bubba. But by refusing to do so, by hitching their already creaky wagon to thinwits like Rush and Hewitt, they practically guaranteed the mess they are in. (I’m guessing the latter errors were made not by the network but by the nitwit writer/producer — but hey, he worked on Falcon Crest, so I’m moderately sympathetic.)

Fourth? I’m glad that conservatives are now concerned about freedom of speech. Less so when the Reagan TV movie was knocked off network air. But’s it’s nice to see you coming around. However, let’s not forget something of equal import. The right to protest and organize.

Last? The Berger scene was a bone stupid idea. There are many ways to dramatize the Clinton admin.’s engagement (or lack of it) with terror. Same goes for the Bush admin. Making crap up, and loading it all onto a single character is inexcusable, lazy, and what you get when you hire screenwriters with axes to grind and little else to offer.

Okay, one more? Framing this as merely the concern/protest of a lot of evil Democrats is incorrect and delusional. Cripes, J Pod is now on the record complaining about this thing. William Bennett, too.

Sep 8, 2006 - 2:11 pm 24. Fausta:

about 900 preview copies of this program were distributed
YouTube, and Hot Air will get whatever is there to see.

Sep 8, 2006 - 2:15 pm 25. Steven Mitchell:

I think Sandy “Burglar” is the poster child for what is wrong with the Dems on foreign policy–especially from an honesty standpoint. I carry no water for former president Clinton. I’d believe either of them over ABC. Which tells you what I think of that network.

Sep 8, 2006 - 2:39 pm 26. Walter Guest:

Like them or not, Harley makes some good points.

Some of the criticism of this epic seem fair.

Conservatives suddenly find themselves defending “fake but accurate.”

Sep 8, 2006 - 3:03 pm 27. gumshoe:

“fake but accurate” is a crock,Walter.

and you’d be wise to qualify it
you comment with

’some Conservatives suddenly find themselves defending “fake but accurate.”‘

but the polarization is a lot more fun isn’t it?

“fix the problem,not the blame”.

Sep 8, 2006 - 3:40 pm 28. PeterUK:

Walter,
You might notice the difference here ,this hasn’t been broadcast yet,the Rather fakes,Farenheit 911 both aired publicly,the Democrats are trying to get the progammes pulled,not refute the contents.
There have even been threats to ABC’s licence should the Democrats get re-elected.
Looks like a party in a banana state does it not?

Sep 8, 2006 - 4:22 pm 29. Joseph (formerly Samuel):

Roger,

You finally left the Democrats? I thought you were staying on so I could claim there were still some sane ones left. Clintons desperation for a legacy is pathetic, I will only predict that Clinton’s legacy will diminish even more with time and there is very little he can do to stop this. He and his supporters can continue to live in a pre-911 spin world, I have little patience for such as it makes me ill. It is like 9/11 is simply some inconvenient freak event that comes between a man and his legacy.

What is more egregious to me as I listen to people banter about that so many people act as if the WOT is some controllable flame set out of control AFTER 911 by a rogue President. While we all bear some responsibility for the occurrence of 9/11, we must remember it is those that perpetrated the act who are guilty. I don’t care what political party a person is a member of, I only care if they understand the WOT is not an optional act of vengeance or police action that should have stopped with Afghanistan. To me it is only serious to argue whether we should have gone to Iran FIRST, but this is with hindsight and I think history may still prove Iraq a worthy place to move to from.

People who say “We are bogged down in Iraq while Osama Bin Laden still lives” don’t understand the WOT and until we are attacked at home I doubt there is any worthwhile argument to make. Those who claim George Bush is to fault for increased recruits among terrorists by taking action in Iraq remind me of those who accused civil rights warriors of creating unnecessary problems by going down and antagonizing racists in their own states. Would limiting such antagonizing to one state have made it all better?

Concerning Afghanistan, Iraq and where we should we have started or stopped I only ask… With civil right’s should we have started in Alabama or Georgia? In the long term how much did it really matter? Where and when should we have finished? Should there be a “time table”? My answer to all this is fight from state to state until the we are all free. I will add our civil right’s struggle pales in comparison to what our nation and this world will go through if we shy away from our duties at this time.

Say what you want about Joe Lieberman, say what you want about George Bush, they have made mistakes, but they both get the nature of the War we are in. As for this docudrama… WHO GIVES A SHIT!

Sep 8, 2006 - 5:14 pm 30. onecent:

Joseph (formerly Samuel) – Amen to that.

My God, we are back in the 1930’s where the silly, narcissistic and frivolous vs the serious can be identified by the wise. I hope.

You are right about this chickenshit docu-drama by the frivolous MSM being another insipid non-event.

Sadly, the only thing that is ever going to wake people up to the real horror enveloping the world, like the 1930’s, is another Big One delivered by the Beasts. It’s coming.

The Democrats are marooned in the pre-9/11 world. Five years past 9/11, please name one thing they have proposed that wouldn’t get us all killed? The slugs in the MSM are no better. I could give a damn if I’m wiretapped. I could give a damn if we pulled every fingernail off these Islamofascist thug’s hands if it gets them to cough up useful information. Five years after 9/11, survival may be in having a 1940’s mindframe. Don’t look to the Democratic Party.

Sep 8, 2006 - 5:43 pm 31. Barry Dauphin:

When Rumsfeld spoke with Clinton administration officials while Clinton was in office (including Sandy “that bulge in my pants just means I’m happy to see you” Berger, if memory serves me), he said to the other Republicans after the meeting something to the effect of: did you notice how they only spoke of “appearances” throughout the meeting not whether anything they were doing could actually make America safer.

Sep 8, 2006 - 7:10 pm 32. Harley:

Barry, couple points.

I wouldn’t put too much stock in anything Rummy sez.

Also? Playing gotcha with either admin. is a moderately easy game. For example, how about the Cheney task force on terror that NEVER met. Not once. Not a single time. And then came Sept. 11.

In other words, it’s probably best to most on from those accusations and arguments — we’ve learned about all we’re going to learn from them at this juncture — and consider the best way to fight terror now and in the future.

Sep 8, 2006 - 7:57 pm 33. Harley:

Onecent..

I understand your desire for a 1940s mindframe. But the odd thing is, given your comment?

I’m not exactly sure which country’s mindframe you’re interesting in adopting.

Sep 8, 2006 - 8:30 pm 34. Steven Mitchell:

Harley, whose remarks would you put stock in?

Joseph,

I’ve been thinking lately about this whole, “don’t look cross-eyed at a terrorist, you’ll only make more of them,” so called argument. I have a hard time accepting that people are so stupid that they can’t see the logical fallacy therein. We’ve had plenty of evidence that some people have trouble with it, but my mind rebels.

I know people dispute supply-side economics, but no serious economist disputes the basic idea of the Laffer Curve. (If taxes are at 0%, the government takes in no money. If taxes are at 100%, the government takes in no money. The rate at which the government will take in the most money is somewhere between those extremes.)

I think it works the same way with terrorists. Killing zero terrorists will cause the total number of terrorists to rise. 100% Indiscriminate killing of the people that come into contact with terrorists will quickly produce many more terrorists, causing the total number of terrorists to rise. Clearly, there is an optimum “aggression level” at which terrorists are killed as rapidly as possible without producing more than the kills. As with economics, all the serious discussion is about where and why the optimum point resides.

Sep 8, 2006 - 8:40 pm 35. Barry Dauphin:

Harley,

That was from an old Frontline program, and Rummy said that pre 9/11. This is not some ex post facto comment. As for not putting much stock in anything he says, well I suppose that would spare somebody the trouble of thinking, analyzing, and evaluating–exactly the kind of mindset that caused members of both parties to not do a good enough job pre 9/11. My point was about the Clinton fetish for appearances, which continues to rear its head.

Sep 8, 2006 - 9:15 pm 36. Harley:

Barry…

Calling it ‘thinking’ or ‘analyzing’ is a stretch. Every Prez admin. concerns itself with appearances — and none more than the current admin. (Mission Accomplished!) That’s an inevitable part of the process, and yes, that’s too bad. But the notion that Clinton, famously wonkish when it came to policy discussions etc. of every variety, was more concerned with appearances?

Winger pablum of little value. And, heh, as for ‘continuing to rear its head’?

Where exactly, other than in your own?

Sep 8, 2006 - 10:15 pm 37. Walter Guest:

Now you got my hackles up. Donít say bad stuff about Rumsfeld. It ticks me off that heís not in contention for the presidential nomination. Why canít people see what a great candidate he would be? Can you imagine what he would do in a debate with any Democrat contender?

Okay, heís impatient with phonies. Thatís awful.

Heís sometimes brusque with people. Thatís terrible.

But he can be charming as hell in front of a camera.

Sounds a lot like Harry Truman.

Sep 9, 2006 - 3:47 am 38. Barry Dauphin:

Harley,

And the “famously” wonkish stuff had nothing to do with appearances. Moonbat poop. By the way, I was implying that simply disregarding whatever Rumsfeld says would spare you from thinking (and that is the purpose of disregarding it).

Of course Administrations worry about appearances, but the conventional knock on this Administration is that it doesn’t pay enough attention to public relations and framing its message.

And it isn’t in “my head” that a former president of the US is trying to squash the broadcast of a program. Nor is it my imagination that Dems are sounding preciously inconsistent about Free Speech. (and spare us the crap about the Reagan docu-drama after CBS looked at its somewhat elderly viewer demographics and decided that turkey wasn’t going to fly).

Sep 9, 2006 - 4:30 am 39. Harley:

Sorry, Barry. Can’t spare you. The Reagan doc is a valid point of reference, if only to better enable us/me to sniff out hypocrisy and cant.

Walter. I’m going to assume and in fact hope that you’re kidding about Rummy. Today’s Rummy fun fact? Three months before the invasion, he vowed to fire anyone who talked about the need for a post-war plan.

This, from one of the generals who was there.

By all means. Let him run for Prez. Please. The Bush admin. is full of clowns — Scooter, Bolton, Hadley etc. — but Rummy? Heck. He’s the first one out of the Clown Car.

Sep 9, 2006 - 8:24 am 40. Barry Dauphin:

Apparently hypocrisy is like body odor, one cant sniff out one’s own.

ABC won’t pull it. They have now increased viewer interest and hope to take some of the air out of John Madden’s Sunday regular season debut. There’s even bigger things in network TV than complaints from politico’s–such as free advertisement from politico’s.

Sep 9, 2006 - 9:10 am 41. Harley:

Well, you’re right about one thing. ABC won’t pull it — tho’ the hits just keep on coming — but I’m not to sure all this publicity helps much, except to insure a dittohead turnout. As a couple recent movie releases suggest, folks aren’t all that interested in relieving this tragedy, no matter how artfully it’s packaged. The stink attached to this one should make it even more difficult to attract a substantial number of eyeballs.

And don’t forget. There’s football BOTH nights.

Sep 9, 2006 - 1:13 pm 42. Steven Mitchell:

I didn’t think my question would get answered.

Sep 9, 2006 - 5:29 pm

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