Exhausted from the protracted battle with Disney, I’ve decided to just give in, join my colleagues on the right, brew up a big bucket of Kool Aid and enjoy “The Path to 9/11” for what it is — a completely accurate, nonpartisan representation of the facts… Don’t listen to the historians, the star of the film, or the people who were there when the actual events took place — believe the evangelical neo-conservatives that created the film and Disney, the company that has given us great documentaries such as “The Hot Chick,” “Freaky Friday,” and “Winnie the Pooh: Springtime with Roo.” Believe me when I tell you that their “imagineers” get it. They understand reality and truthiness.
So, just forget all the crap you’re hearing in the liberal media about the film being historically inaccurate. Ask yourself, if that were the case, would ABC and Disney be promoting the film as the “official true story.” (The film is being marketed abroad with that tagline.) And, anyway, even if it does veer a bit from the actual facts in order to make Clinton look worse and Bush look better, aren’t they entitled? After all, “the conservatives have had to put up with Michael Moore for years, right?” (Actually, I guess it is a little different in that “Fahrenheit 9/11” was factually correct and this is factually flawed, but you get the point.)
ABC has said that they would edit out the material that has been proven to be false, but it’s not clear that they’re going to. The film aired earlier today in New Zealand and none of the changes had been made. (You can see the scenes, as they aired in New Zealand, here.)
If I haven’t convinced you to drink the Kool Aid and watch the show tonight, at least do me one little favor and don’t contact ABC’s advertisers. I’d hate to see them lose business just because their fellow multinational corporation decided to broadcast propaganda over the public airwaves, in violation of their public trust.
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Instead of the propaganda, I’m recommending that people download and watch the Power of Nightmares. It will provide some insights in what got us where we are today. It is 2004 BBC special. It is available on Google video and the Internet Archive where you can even get a dvd image file that you can burn to a disk and watch on your dvd player. I would also highly recomend The Wire if you have HBO. Season 4 starts tonight and it is by far the best copy show on TV.
Thanks for the advice, Sam, but I can’t help myself. It’s staring right now.
…It begins with a note saying that it’s based on the “bipartisan” 9/11 commission report.
I’m watching this too, and I can’t believe how huge a deal they’re making about the amount of Israeli/Zionist involvement in the attack.
So far, the plot is following this terrorist named Shmuley around in a van, and he has all this high-tech surveilance equipment inside it, and he’s spying on Americans…
Oh, wait. I think I’m actually watching “Shalom in the Home“.
Wrong channel, I guess. Never mind. As you were.
It actually wasn’t all that bad. At least I didn’t find this first installment all that bad. And by saying that I don’t mean to imply that I think it’s alright that it aired tonight. I just mean that, as a film, it wasn’t all that bad.
As I said from the start, I’m not adverse to the idea of assigning some blame to Clinton. My big problem is scrubbing history so that Bush walks away from 9/11 looking like a hero. And, as Bush wasn’t in this episode, there wasn’t anything to really piss me off. (I think they could have played up the fact that when Clinton did call for a missile strike against bin Laden that the Republicans gave him hell for it, saying that he just did it to distract us from “the blowjob that destroyed America.” It was mentioned, but it could have been stressed more.)
And, if I were Madeline Albright, I’d have my shotgun across my lap and be half way to LA by now. Man, that was a terrible portrayal.
I cannot think of a good “Shalom in the Home” joke. Can I have a day or two to think it over?
I’ll give you five years, starting right now.
I’m sure with that much time, you’ll be able to fabricate something.
Don’t feel too bad. Right wing radio callers are complaining that it was shot in such an “arty” hand-held-camera style that they had to trun it off.
And then there’s the reality that the public blames Bush for 9-11 now more than ever:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/09/11/911.poll/index.html?section=cnn_topstories
And no one watched it:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/TV/09/11/abc.miniseries.ap/index.html?section=cnn_topstories
I haven’t seen the numbers for last night, but, yeah, the first installment only got about an 8 share. (About half of what the football game got.) That’s still about 12 million sets though.
One of the things that struck me as odd in the first installment is that they have a scene in which the O’Neil character, the central figure in the film, the guy portrayed by Harvey Keitel, takes his son out to dinner and wishes him a happy birthday. As it didn’t move the plot ahead one bit, I can only assume that it was put in there for the benefit of the son, who must have given the producers permission to base the made for TV movie on his father. I may be wrong, but I couldn’t see any other reason to have that scene included. If they wanted to get the point across that he loved his family, they could have done it in a less obvious way. The fact that they have Keitel stand up and deliver a toast about how much he loves his son, though, smacks of a pay-off. I don’t think it’s necessarily wrong. I just think that it was handled poorly.
One of the things that struck me as odd in the first installment is that they have a scene in which the O’Neil character, the central figure in the film, the guy portrayed by Harvey Keitel, takes his son out to dinner and wishes him a happy birthday. As it didn’t move the plot ahead one bit, I can only assume that it was put in there for the benefit of the son, who must have given the producers permission to base the made for TV movie on his father. I may be wrong, but I couldn’t see any other reason to have that scene included. If they wanted to get the point across that he loved his family, they could have done it in a less obvious way. The fact that they have Keitel stand up and deliver a toast about how much he loves his son, though, smacks of a pay-off. I don’t think it’s necessarily wrong. I just think that it was handled poorly.
It’s all good. If Americans chose to watch shitty 9/11 dramatizations instead of Monday Night Football, the terrorists have won.