Taylor Marsh – TaylorMarsh.com – News, Opinion and Weblog on Progressive Politics

Reach out and Touch ABC –updated–

Watch Terror Guy's 2006 hail Mary.

…with a lawsuit.

So let me get this straight. President
Bill Clinton doesn't get a copy of “Path to 9/11″, but right-wingers do?

Maybe that's why Tom
Kean, Sr. is backing away from ABC's fiction. It
would seem so. Now the wingnuts
are even getting restless.

ABC
is getting nervous too.

But refusing a copy to Bubba is beyond insulting and should clarify to everyone
what's going on here, especially since we're getting treated to a simultaneous
White House push to put the
bullhorn back in George W. Bush's hand.

It's straight out of the wingnut radio playbook: damn the facts, open the emotional
floodgates now. Don't you know there's an election coming up?

But I'm beginning to wonder if ABC is actually committing “malice”.
I received this via email earlier today, which confirmed something I'd been
pondering.

… knowledge that [a statement] was false or … reckless disregard of whether it was false or not. – New York Times v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 280 (1964)

Sandy
Berger and Madeleine
Albright have both written letters to ABC.

Today, leading Democrats weighed in:

Mr. Robert A. Iger President and CEO The Walt Disney Company Dear Mr. Iger: We are advised that ABC is scheduled to air a two-part mini-series entitled “The Path to 9/11″ on September 10 and September 11. While we have not yet seen this program, news reports raise serious questions about its accuracy. Therefore, we request that the inaccuracies described herein be addressed immediately and that the program be thoroughly reviewed and revised for accuracy before it airs. Among our concerns about the program are the following: first, it reportedly contains a scene in which Sandy Berger, the National Security Adviser to President Bill Clinton, declines to give Central Intelligence Agency operatives the authority to capture or kill Osama Bin Laden, and in which those operatives are outside a house where Bin Laden is located. This account has been expressly contradicted by Richard Clarke, a high-ranking counterterrorism official in both the Clinton and Bush Administrations. Second, the film reportedly contains a scene in which the Central Intelligence Agency declines to share information about the 9/11 hijackers with the FBI and ascribes that failure to the so-called “wall,” limiting information sharing by the Department of Justice in certain circumstances, and established by the Department of Justice in an internal memorandum. This scene is puzzling at best, and inaccurate at worst. According to a Republican Member of the 9/11 Commission, former Senator Slade Gorton, the “Department of Justice guidelines at issue were internal to the Justice Department and were not even sent to any other agency. The guidelines had no effect on the Department of Defense and certainly did not prohibit it from communicating with the FBI, the CIA or anyone else.” These two examples alone create substantial doubt about the overall accuracy of this program. September 11th is a day of mourning and remembrance for every American. We do not believe that it is appropriate for it to be tainted by false assertions of blame or partisan spin. To avoid that occurrence, we urge you to review this film and correct these and other inaccuracies. We appreciate your prompt attention and reply to this time sensitive matter. Sincerely, Representatives John Conyers, Jr., John Dingell, Jane Harman, Louise Slaughter

To make matters worse, journalists
are getting duped by the ABC's fiction. Detroit
News and the Boston
Globe were suckered. Only the New
York Times gets it right (h/t
Stoller).

To reach the Detroit News: the journalist is Mekeisha Toby and can be reached
at (313) 222-2501 or mmadden@detnews.com. (But please don't be rude.)

To reach the Boston Globe: the journalist is Suzanne Ryan can be reached at
sryan@globe.com. (But please don't be rude.)

It's commercial
free, so we can't go after the advertisers (h/t).

But the real rub is that ABC won't even give a copy to former President Clinton.
What have they got to hide? Considering all the facts ABC got wrong I'd say
a lot.

Considering the 9/11 Commission Report is out for all to read, it seems to
me that my question at the top still stands. Is this a case of malice? If so,
the Clinton administration principals should push back at ABC and the producers of the
fictional smear, and not be shy about doing so either.

Hello ABC, time to contact your lawyers. You may need them.

What's this all about? ABC/Disney plans to memorialize the fifth anniversary of 9/11 with a fictional docudrama called “The Path to 9/11″. Written by an avowed right-wing activist, this work of fiction directly contradicts the accepted record of the 9/11 Commission Report. President Clinton and former administration officials were denied an advance copy; Rush Limbaugh and obscure right-wing bloggers saw it last week. ABC plans to distribute this docudrama to 100,000 educators across the country. We've set up this site to encourage ABC to change its strategy. … Open Letter to ABC

UPDATE (4:22 p.m.): I haven't talked about this, but I've got a new feature on this blog called “Spotlight”. It allows you to send important blog posts of mine to corporate media outlets like AP, the New York Times and many others. You can pick 10 total. We need to push back hard on “Path to 9/11″, so I want to suggest you all “Spotlight” this post and blast it to 10 outlets that you think simply must cover the topic at hand. Just click on the “Spotlight” link below and follow the directions. Let's get this story around and make the press cover it.

UPDATE II (4:40 p.m.): I've been slammed preparing for my radio show today, so I hadn't seen a couple of posts on what I saw last night on “Scarborough Country”. C&L has the whole segment with Roger Cressey, who slams the fabricators behind “Path to 9/11″. It's a must see, believe me.