AP Article Fails To Note Democratic Threat Against ABC's License, Or Any Documented Negligence By Clinton/Berger In Capturing bin Ladin

Read it and laugh.

Amid an election-year debate over who can best defend America, U.S. congressional Democrats urged ABC on Thursday to cancel a TV miniseries about the September 11 attacks that is critical of former Democratic President Bill Clinton and his top aides.

"Urged." That's all. "Urged."

In recent days, former members of the Clinton administration also lodged complaints with Iger, urging ABC and Disney to fix or eliminate what they called errors and fabrications.

ABC issued a statement saying the production, "The Path to 9/11," was still being edited and that criticism of the film's specifics were thus "premature and irresponsible."

'DRAMATIC LICENSE'

Executive Producer Marc Platt acknowledged that "there is dramatic license taken" in the docudrama to "render the program effective and accessible for viewers."

"But we do try within the boundaries of what is fair and reasonable to communicate the essence of what occurred (and) the intentions of those individuals involved," he told Reuters in a telephone interview from London. "We have no intention or desire to be political, to intentionally distort."

Platt also said one scene singled out for criticism by Democrats -- depicting CIA operatives and Afghan fighters coming close to capturing Osama bin Laden in the 1990s, only for then-national security advisor Samuel Berger to refuse authorization of the mission -- was a "conflation of events."

Berger said in a letter to Iger earlier this week that "no such episode ever occurred, nor did anything like it."

The September 11 attacks occurred about eight months after Clinton turned over the presidency in January 2001 to Republican George W. Bush.

For several years, Democrats have complained the Bush administration failed to capture or kill bin Laden when he reportedly was cornered in Afghanistan's Tora Bora region in late 2001. They also argue the war in Iraq later took away resources for tracking down bin Laden.

Note they allow Berger's claim that nothing like the scene depicted ever took place. Despite a rather voluminous record to the contrary.

Indeed, the only accusations of negligence in letting bin Ladin roam free are directed at Republicans by Democrats.

Apparently not a single Republican was available to offer his own criticism of Clinton.

I was earlier going to write something along the lines of, "Now that the Clintonites have made this into a major issue, we'll have an airing of the Clinton Administration's miserable failures on bin Ladin once and for all."

And then I realized how foolish that was.

The media is not ever going to publicize this information, ever. Even when it's directly germane to an enormous controversy (which includes a threat of political censorship), they will sanitize the Clinton record.

posted by Ace at 12:49 PM

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