ThinkingBlue: THE PATH TO 911 ASSAULT BY ABC- a review.

THE PATH TO 911 assault, by ABC

Well, it looks as though the swiftboat assault on "nine-eleven" was carried out by Iger and the money grubbers at ABC. I must admit, I tried to watch it, but after the first few minutes or so, I couldn't take the fear of what brutalization awaited my senses. But I did tape it, maybe after sometime has passed and I witness the fallout from such a bastardly, erroneous, so called, work of art, I will be able to calmly watch and laugh at this piece of corn.

I was glad when I came across the first whiff of truth about it by Tom Shales, the TV critic. Thanks Tom, for putting to words, exactly what we, who
value truth, feel. thinkingblue

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ABC's Twisted 'Path to 9/11'

By Tom Shales
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 9, 2006; Page C01

Factually shaky, politically inflammatory and
photographically a mess, "The Path to 9/11" -- ABC's
two-part, five-hour miniseries tracing events leading up
to the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon -- has something not just to offend everyone
but also to depress them.

The docudrama -- allegedly produced as a warning to the
United States that the attacks, or something like them,
could happen again -- falls clumsily into traps that
await all those who make fictional films claiming to be
factual. Except this time, the event being dramatized is
one of the most tragic and monstrous in the nation's
history, not something to be trifled with.

It is hardly surprising that the movie has been preceded
by cries of outrage from some of those depicted in it,
especially members of the Clinton administration who are
shown as, essentially, incompetent.

Even Harvey Keitel, who plays the nominal hero of the
film -- former FBI agent-turned-World Trade Center
security chief John O'Neill -- when asked in an
interview whether he thought the film contained
distortions, replied, "Yes, I do," and called on the
network to fix them before the film airs.

CNN reported yesterday that former secretary of state
Madeleine Albright and Sandy Berger, national security
adviser to Bill Clinton (Albright and Berger are played
by actors in the movie), wrote to Thomas H. Kean,
co-chairman of the 9/11 commission and a consultant on
the film, and urged him to use his influence to get ABC
to withdraw the film (at press time, it was scheduled to
air tomorrow night and Monday night). Albright and
Berger say the film puts words in their mouths that they
never said and has them doing things they never did.

In a brief news clip yesterday, a smiling Clinton, asked
by reporters to comment on the movie, said simply, "I
think they ought to tell the truth" -- although defining
"the truth" in this case can't be considered a simple
task.

Blunderingly, ABC executives cast doubt on their own
film's veracity when they made advance copies available
to such political conservatives as Rush Limbaugh but not
to Democrats who reportedly requested the same
treatment. If it's any consolation to Democrats,
however, the film at no point suggests that Saddam
Hussein -- whom President Bush has tried to associate
with the 9/11 attacks -- was involved in the planning or
execution of the attacks in any way.

According to the movie, Osama bin Laden -- now the most
wanted man in the world and a terrorist whose role in
the 9/11 atrocity is not in doubt -- was virtually
within the grasp of U.S. intelligence operatives twice
during the '90s, after the 1993 attack on the World
Trade Center. Islamic extremists left a truck bomb in
the center's underground parking garage -- hoping, the
film says, that the blast would knock one tower off its
base and into the other.

Weak-kneed bureaucrats declined to act upon the
opportunities to seize or kill bin Laden, the film also
says. But the docudrama doesn't stop at criticizing
generic bureaucrats -- which would at least have helped
sustain a nonpartisan aura -- and aims arts specifically
and repeatedly at Albright, Berger, then-CIA chief
George Tenet and others in the Clinton administration,
most of them made to seem either shortsighted or
spineless.

Clinton himself is libeled through abusive editing. A
first-class U.S. operative played by Donnie Wahlberg
argues the case for getting bin Laden while the al-Qaeda
leader is openly in view in some sort of compound in
Afghanistan. CIA officials haggle over minor details,
such as the budget for the operation. The film's
director, David L. Cunningham, then cuts abruptly to a
TV image of Clinton making his infamous "I did not have
sexual relations with that woman" remark with regard to
Monica Lewinsky. The impression given is that Clinton
was spending time on his sex life while terrorists were
gaining ground and planning a nightmare.

It would have made as much sense, and perhaps more, to
cut instead to stock footage of a smirking Kenneth
Starr, the reckless Republican prosecutor largely
responsible for distracting not just the president but
the entire nation with the scandal.

Looking even worse than Clinton is then-U.S. Ambassador
to Yemen Barbara K. Bodine. Her name is not prominently
featured but her title is, and she comes across as a
foolishly intransigent official who defends the bin
Laden name and insults FBI agents who visit her office,
with O'Neill heading up the delegation. Patricia Heaton,
who plays the role, makes Bodine seem especially
despicable, a close-minded ignoramus who ironically
tells O'Neill, "You are the epitome of 'the Ugly
American.' "

Meanwhile as the '90s and the film wear on, we see
al-Qaeda faithful training, spewing hatred and, without
much trouble, sneaking into the United States and openly
enrolling in flight schools, where they learn how to
pilot airplanes. One of them, the very portrait of a
wild-eyed terrorist, is captured and his laptop computer
seized by FBI agents. Incredibly, an official rules that
the FBI cannot open the laptop and examine its contents,
and it is presumably returned to the terrorist so he can
continue his work.

In an attempt to layer a coat of visual veracity over
the film, it's shot in the style of some news footage --
the hand-held camera jerking, bouncing, panning wildly.
Faces are framed in absurdly intense close-up, so
intense it's not always easy to tell whom you're looking
at. The gratuitous camera movement and the insistence on
reducing people to eyes or noses or mouths become
oppressive after only two hours, much less five.
This isn't cinematography; it's vivisection. (The act or practice of cutting into or otherwise injuring living animals, especially for the purpose of scientific research.)

But aesthetic objections pale in comparison to the
legitimate complaints of those who resent the film's
being passed off as truth when it apparently is riddled
with errors. These are dismissed in a glib disclaimer
acknowledging "composite and representative characters
and time compression . . . for dramatic purposes." How
much drama needs to be added to 9/11?

The film is prominently billed as being based on the
report of the 9/11 commission, but one must read the
fine print: Also acknowledged, although far less
conspicuously in the credits, are three books on the
subject.

In a report on "NBC Nightly News" on Thursday, unnamed
Clinton administration officials were quoted as saying
that some scenes in the film are "pure fiction." Pure
fiction doesn't mix well with fact. Executive producer
Marc Platt's quoted defense: It was "not our intention
to distort." Whatever the intention -- and Democrats
have a right to be suspicious of any product of the
conservative-minded Walt Disney Co., which produced the
film and owns ABC -- distortion unfortunately seems to
have been the outcome.

"The Path to 9/11" appears intent on meting out
punishment, not only to some of those portrayed in it
but also to viewers who try to make it through the whole
grueling assault -- an assault on the senses that may also be an assault on
the truth.

The Path to 9/11 (five hours) airs tomorrow night and
Monday night at 8 on Channel 7.

TAKE ACTION BY CLICKING THIS LINK

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You are listening to ...Kyrie - In their own Words

CLICK HERE TO HEAR THIS SONG
"We are fully prepared."

GEORGE W. BUSH:

“In Iraq, a dictator is . . .

building and hiding weapons”

“This is a fact . . . it cannot be denied.”

Chorus:

BUSH:
“Building and hiding weapons.”

Kyrie
(Lord)

BUSH:
“Building and hiding weapons.”

Kyrie
(Lord)

BUSH:
“Building and hiding weapons.”

Kyrie eleison
(Lord Have Mercy)

BUSH:
"The Privacy of Ordinary Americans,

is fiercely protected ..."

_________________

CLICK LINK FOR MORE LYRICS huffington blog thinkingblue

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

REVIEWS