The Path to 9/11, which tries to shift the blame for 9/11 will be viewed by tens of millions on ABC Sunday and Monday without commercial. It is pure Republican propoganda and packed with lies, aimed at influencing the upcoming November elections. As a friend e-mailed me earlier today:

"Path to 9/11" is a docudrama written by a little know arch-conservative, Cyrus Nowrasteh. The main advisor to the film was former Republican Governor Tom Kean. There were no Democratic advisers. In the run up to the showing, several media personalities and political officials have been sent copies of the film to review. This includes Rush Limbaugh and several rightwing bloggers. Requests from progressive media has been denied. Formal requests from high level Clinton administration officials have been denied.

Bill Clinton is justifiably outraged:

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. ....[Madeline]Albright and former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger also dashed off letters to Iger, accusing the network of lying in the miniseries and demanding changes.

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.

(Guest Post by Big Tent Democrat)

About the "fictionalized" scene where the Clinton Administration refused to kill or apprehend Osama bin Ladin even though The New Kids on the Block had "The Tall One" in their sights, Tom Kean has said:

The incident was a fictionalized composite. It was "representative of a series of events compacted into one," he replied to Ben-Veniste at the time. In a phone interview a few days later, he added, "It's reasonably accurate."

When I write my "dramatizations" of actual events I like to stick to plausible events that I can distort and mislead about. I know President Bush likes to too. Think about the "yellowcake" dramatization. Apparently there is uranium in Niger. Uranium is used to make nuclear weapons. Iraq is a country. Saddam was the brutal leader. See? At least we can be "faithful" to "events."

So the 9/11 Commission has a million page report that takes too long to read and who can really be bothered with actually knowing the facts, so I figured the "spirirt of the essence" of the 9/11Report could be found in the Cliff Notes, um, I mean Execuitive Summary of the Report. I'm sure we can find the spirit of the essence the the New Kids capturing Osama and then having to let him go because Clinton was, um, "distracted." Let's go see.

Via Think Progress:

Over 50,000 ThinkProgress readers have written ABC in the last 48 hours about "The Path to 9/11." We're going to keep the pressure on ABC, but we're also broadening our focus today to the Walt Disney Company, which owns ABC.

Disney's Chairman of the Board is former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell (D-ME). Senator Mitchell has a long and distinguished career both inside and outside government and he knows how important it is to accurately represent historical events.

We need to remind him that 9/11 was a national tragedy, and that politicizing and flagrantly misrepresenting the facts about 9/11 is wrong.

Senator George J. Mitchell
T: (212) 335-4600
T: (212) 335-4500
F: (212) 335-4605

(Remember to be polite, and please copy us so we can keep track your comments.)

ABC is feeling the pressure. Let's keep it up.

ABC is running Path to 9/11 without commercials. But it's also worth contacting the advertisers of Good Morning America and ABC News. Ask them to pull their ads from ABC for 7 days if ABC doesn't cancel plans to air The Path to 9/11. One law firm advertiser, Elk and Elk law Offices, has already agreed to this.

Here's a list of some big corporate ABC advertisers, thanks to Gator at Daily Kos. Contact them and voice your outrage:

(Guest Post by Big Tent Democrat)

The firestorm over ABC's Path to 9/11 is best exemplified by the right wing Accuracy in Media's review of it:

This is the first Hollywood production I've seen that honestly depicts how the Clinton administration repeatedly bungled the capture of Osama Bin Laden. One astonishing sequence in "The Path to 9/11" shows the CIA and the Northern Alliance surrounding Bin Laden's house in Afghanistan. They're on the verge of capturing Bin Laden, but they need final approval from the Clinton administration in order to go ahead. They phone Clinton, but he and his senior staff refuse to give authorization for the capture of Bin Laden, for fear of political fall-out if the mission should go wrong and civilians are harmed.

Of course, the depiction is actually completely and utterly dishonest:

[Guest Post by Big Tent Democrat]

Hugh Hewitt got an e-mail from, I believe the Wingnut producer of ABC's "Paths to Truthiness," (Think Progress says an ABC "insider," but I think they have misread the e-mail, which is clearly written from the perspective of someone who does not work for ABC). The funniest part for me is this:

The story here is the backlash that the Disney/ABC execs experienced was completely unexpected and is what caused them to question themselves and make these changes at all. Had this been the Bush Admin pressuring, they wouldn't have even taken the call. The execs and studio bosses are dyed in the wool liberals and huge supporters of Clinton and the Democratic Party in general. They had no idea any of this could happen. As I understand this, the lawyers and production team spent literally months corroborating every story point down to the sentence.

Down to the sentence? The fictional, dramatization sentence you mean? Let me put it this way - if this is true, and I believe it is completely false, or if you will - a "dramatization" - then ABC needs some new lawyers - as the central scene involving the Clinton Administration is utterly and completely false. Did the ABC lawyers decide that it was "fake but accurate"? How do they know? Apparently , NOT based on the 9/11 report or the first hand accounts of Richard Clarke, Roger Cressy, Bill Clinton, Madeline Albright or Sandy Berger.

Seems like ABC's source material for "Paths to 9/11 Truthiness" was the comments section at Little Green Footballs. The law firm of Moe, Larry, Curly and the GOP (I think Chalabi and Bolton made partner this year) was good to go -"Fake But Accurate."

Speaking of fear-mongering (see post below), check out Huffington Post's new page, Becoming Fearless.

Among the many well-written articles on the page: Arianna's take on Bush: "Why We Need an Epidemic of Fearlessness to Counter the Fearmonger-in-Chief"

President Bush made another stop on his Fall of Fear Tour Monday, delivering a thunderingly obvious speech in which he repeatedly, strenuously, and desperately tried to convince us of something we're already convinced of -- that terrorists are not nice people. Thanks for the heads up, Mr. President. What's next, a compelling argument that fire is hot? That K-Fed can't sing? The question in 2006 isn't whether terrorists are evil; it's what is the most effective way to fight them. A hint: it isn't staying the course in Iraq.

Katie Couric begins her nightly newscast at CBS this evening. I'm going to tivo it as I'll probably be at the jail when it airs and won't get to see it until I return home tomorrow.

For those of you who watch tonight, what did you think?

I hope it's a success. Break a leg, Katie.

by TChris

It's difficult to discern a legitimate federal interest in an investigation of "possible attempted arson to a police car during [a] demonstration" in San Francisco. Nonetheless, because "the San Francisco Police Department receives some federal funds," federal prosecutors claim to have a need to subpoena blogger-journalist Josh Wolf before a federal grand jury. Wolf took some video of the demonstration, and federal prosecutors want to compel him to surrender the tape.

The real reason this prototypical state crime is being investigated in federal court:

While California has a state shield law that generally protects news reporters from disclosing materials, there is no federal shield law.

Wolf was held in contempt on August 1 for refusing to share the tape with a grand jury. On Friday, the Ninth Circuit granted a stay pending Wolf's appeal of the contempt finding, releasing Wolf after a month in custody.

Using a federal grand jury to investigate "possible attempted arson to a police car" is a huge waste of federal resources. Aren't there any serious federal crimes to worry about in the Bay area?

This is so funny....a caller into the Michelangelo Signorile radio show provides his impromptu reaction (mp3) to seeing President Bush's motorcade passing through Little Rock yesterday.

How twisted is this? Jesus' General, Defamer and TBogg have more. New York officials want to ban the show.

More news on Segregation Island and Media Matters has more here.

Can you spell b-o-y-c-o-t-t? It's only seven words and it's only common sense. Whenever it airs in your locale, make sure your tv's are on and tuned to a different channel.

I'm in need of a little lift tonight. This song always does it. Here's a video I made from my VHS tape of Natalie Merchant and 10,000 Maniacs singing These Are the Days at President Clinton's MTV Inugural Ball in 1993. I love the way she starts dancing in the middle. As always with songs from this tape, turn up your computer volume to hear it, the tape is very old.