Whilst a good portion of the right-wing ideology dogs are holding to their hopes that the Path to 9/11 will be aired with its historical revisionism intact (cause Freepers and Confederate Yankee believe things are true cause they believe things are true…) it looks like wiser heads are prevailing.
The center of activity on this matter has unquestionably been Think Progress. The facts about what occurred during Clinton’s presidency in the effort to get Osama bin Laden are understood, yet the primary consultant for “Path to 9/11″ seems to have a foggy memory in that regard. Kean and the screenwriter admit that the most contested scene which implies that memebers of the Clinton Administration willfully cancelled a hit on bin Laden for no good reason, was made up.
A number of conservatives, including uber wingnut Brent Bozell and John Podhoretz have stated that if the “docudrama” is indeed incorrect factually (they’ve seen it and know that it is of course) then such a thing would be a problem and such inaccurancies should be corrected or edited out.
I think they are smart enough to recognize that they got their way with the CBS Reagan mini-series and that was a matter of historical interpretation and a personal issue for many on the right. This new brwehaha is about much more than that… and they know it. Thus the capitulation. Facts are hard to ignore. Unless you’re living in a hole where reality is what you make it, yours to fold into any ideological paper airplane you can muster in between sips of “I hate Liberals” Kool-Aid and handfuls of “Go Team Bush” cheesy poofs.
Right wing extremists would love for this to be about Democrats limiting freedom of speech. But, if “Path to 9/11″ professes to be an accurate depiction of the events leading up to 9/11 and is not, and those same inaccuracies are ones that we all know have been wingnut talking points for going on five years now… well, those inaccuracies should be corrected. That is not limiting freedom in any way, in my opinion. Except the freedom to be wrong.
It is the responsiblity of the filmmakers to ensure that everything within their film is accurate. Especially when writing dialogue and scenes about people who are still alive and the historical record contradicts what is presented in the film. That’s a problem.
All filmmakers take a certain amount of creative liberty with a story. That is simply unavoidable when truncating many days or years into a few hours. This should never cross the line into wholesale falsehood.
And, misrepresenting historical facts and what people say, or don’t say, either intentionally or unintentionally is just wrong. It’s really wrong when those errors create a window for partisan ideologues and gives voice to their historical revisionism and gives them something tangible to point to as an example as “proof” of their enemies culpability and blame for causing the tragic events of Septermber 11, 2001.
From my perspective, the blame for 9/11 is so monumental that there is plenty to go around. The “blame game” is just that, a game. Those who play it to such an extreme should sit down and think for a long moment.
It’s sloppy filmmaking as far as I’m concerned. A point often made about Michael Moore’s “Faranheit 9/11″, and I was not alone in that regard.
Finally, lest we forget, the same company that is pushing “Path to 9/11″, Disney, also refused to distribute Moore’s contreversial film back in 2004 for political reasons (It was considered “anti-Bush) in an election year. Yet, they have no problem paying for and airing a television show which appears to fabricate scenes from wholecloth in an effort to cast blame for 9/11. As a filmmaker, I”m well aware of the need to “invent” scenes when there is no information to support what you wish to present. The problem here is: it’s history, and it’s one of the most polarizing issues and events in American history. You’d think that they would have understood that fact.
And, are far as censorship goes, lets not forget that certain GOP flaks calling themselves “Citizens United”, a PR concern led by crook who tried to get the FCC to move against advertising for Moore’s film.
That was censorship. That was dirty tricks.
We’ll see how this all comes out in the wash…
