ABC says they are "tinkering" with the show

See, ABC, if you stuck to the facts, you wouldn't have to tinker or reshape the "docu-drama":

Under pressure from former President Bill Clinton and the Democratic Party, ABC scrambled on Friday to make 11th-hour changes to a miniseries suggesting he was inattentive to the Islamic militant threat that led to the September 11 attacks.

Officials at the Walt Disney Co.-owned network said they were still tinkering with the five-hour production, titled ``The Path to 9/11,'' which is scheduled to air without commercial interruption in two parts on Sunday and Monday.

But ABC declined to say how the movie was being reshaped or whether any changes would address specific complaints lodged by Clinton, his former aides and congressional Democrats that the film contained numerous inaccuracies and distortions.

Once ABC and Disney decided to let the right wingers re-write the story of 9/11, they were in trouble. It's one thing to play loose with the facts from something that happened 200 years ago. But, ABC and Disney seemed to forget that most of the people in this drama are still alive.

Tinker away. Read the rest of this post...

Democratic party leader Howard Dean calls on Disney/ABC to reveal funders of slanderous 9/11 fictional documentary

A lot more legal terms being thrown around by senior Democrats. Use of the public airwaves is a term mentioned by a lot of Democrats in the past few days. The simple fact is that we do not give companies like Disney/ABC access to the public airwaves so that they can illegally try to influence our elections. When that happens, we step in and take away their rights to broadcast, as any democratic government would do when any entity, private or public, tries to illegally undercut our democracy.

Disney/ABC had better stop kissing up to the current administration and start worrying about the next one.

From an email I just received from the DNC:

Today, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean called on ABC/Disney to reveal who poured $40 million into the slanderous 9/11 propoganda film they plan to start airing starting Sunday, and issued the following statement:

"It's deeply disappointing that ABC would put something on the air that has been proven to have factual inaccuracies about one of the most important events in our nation's history. ABC should not air this distortion of history.

"The fact that the writer/producer of the piece is a well known conservative raises additional concerns and questions. The American people deserve to know who funded this $40 million dollar slanderous propaganda. Use of the public airwaves is a privilege conferred upon broadcasters in the public interest. It comes with a responsibility to the American people and a responsibility to the truth."

Read the rest of this post...

Disney/ABC hired right-wing propaganda network to put together 9/11

Well, here's another shoe dropping, and a rather big one at that.

My friend Max Blumenthal has put together an excellent article detailing just who it was Disney/ABC hired to put together its 9/11 film. They hired a clique of under-the-radar conservatives who have been making it their mission to infiltrate Hollywood and make it more Republican and evangelical Christian. And after all the drubbing the religious right has been giving Disney over the past several years (apparently the Mouse isn't anti-gay enough), isn't it interesting that Disney turned around and hired some religious right guys to make an anti-Democrat propaganda film.

A snippet of Max's piece:

In fact, "The Path to 9/11" is produced and promoted by a well-honed propaganda operation consisting of a network of little-known right-wingers working from within Hollywood to counter its supposedly liberal bias. This is the network within the ABC network. Its godfather is far right activist David Horowitz, who has worked for more than a decade to establish a right-wing presence in Hollywood and to discredit mainstream film and TV production. On this project, he is working with a secretive evangelical religious right group founded by The Path to 9/11's director David Cunningham that proclaims its goal to "transform Hollywood" in line with its messianic vision.

Read the rest of this post...

Brad Pitt: I'll marry when everyone can

I always knew he was waiting for me. Read the rest of this post...

FOX News' Chris Wallace slams Disney/ABC over error-riddled 9/11 film

Wow, you need to see this clip. From FOX, no less. It's unethical, he said, it's just wrong.

I paraphrase:

Viewers look, and when you say something is based on the 9/11 Commission, and that's Madeleine Albright and she said this, and she never did say that, that's slanderous and defamatory and ABC should be held to account. I can understand why these guys are mad, I'd be mad, wouldn't you be?

You can watch the entire thing at C&L;. Read the rest of this post...

Berger, Albright and Clinton send additional letters demanding 9/11 show be canceled

According to CNN, former Clinton National Security Adviser Sandy Berger and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright have written to former Republican co-chair of the 9/11 Commission, and Disney/ABC paid/unpaid consultant to the film, asking Kean to use his influence to cancel the show. President Clinton has sent another letter through his attorney asking Disney/ABC to cancel the show, and has suggested that Kean is endangering the bipartisan work of the September 11 Commission through his partisan actions in this film.

Kean's response to CNN?

"What possible political motivation could I have?"

YOUR SON IS RUNNING FOR THE US SENATE AS A REPUBLICAN FROM NEW JERSEY, RIGHT NEXT TO GROUND ZERO, YOU LIAR. And he's doing it at a time when the Republicans have decided to run on the war on terror and 9/11. Do you think a film blaming Democrats for all of that might help your son's race?

Nice of CNN not to mention that fact. Read the rest of this post...

ABCNews smears Clintons and supporters over 9/11 show controversy

So much for ABCNews claiming they had no role in the entire scandal. Check out ABC's Web site. I guess now we know what ABC means by "reasonably accurate":

Read the rest of this post...

Disney/ABC consultant Tom Kean lie to the media about not being a paid consultant to 9/11 film?

Former Republican co-chair of the 9/11 Commission, and Disney/ABC consultant Tom Kean, appears to be telling contradictory stories to the media about whether he is a paid consultant to the embattled Disney/ABC fictional account of September 1.

In today's New York Times we learn that there is a possibility Kean will be receiving a fee for his work on the film:

Mr. Kean, who called Mr. Clinton a good friend, said it was outrageous to suggest he was being swayed by money or politics, and added that any fee he received would be donated to charity.

Clearly some possibility of Kean receiving payment for his consulting still existed, or Kean wouldn't have had to offer to give the money to charity.

Yet just yesterday afternoon, on a radio interview with Sirius satellite radio, Kean told Michelangelo Signorile categorically that he was not a paid consultant to the film. You can listen to Kean saying this here (you may need to save the file to your computer then open it in order to get it to work).

SIGNORILE: People are very confused then as to why you had signed your name to this ABC docu-drama as a paid consultant...

KEAN: Well, first of all, I'm not paid consultant.

So, is Kean or isn't Kean a paid consultant to this project? Did he or didn't he plan to make money off of September 11 and his role in the Commission? Did Kean lie to the NYT when he implied he might be paid for the work, or did he lie to Michelangelo Signorile when he stated categorically that he wasn't being paid a dime for the work? If Kean "wasn't a paid consultant" then there would be no reason for him to tell the NYT only a few hours later than any consulting fees he received would go to charity - since there wouldn't be any. Or was Kean trying to mislead Signorile by claiming he wasn't a paid consultant because he was going to give the money to charity - which then begs the question of when Kean decided to give the proceeds to charity.

We need to get to the bottom of this. Why is Disney/ABC spokesman Tom Kean waffling on whether he was or wasn't expected to be paid for helping Disney/ABC exploit September 11?

(And just as importantly, with Kean's son running for US Senate in New Jersey, was there a real or apparent conflict of interest with Kean's work on the movie? And could said conflict have had any effect on the final outcome of the film?) Read the rest of this post...

Protest today at Disney lot in Burbank, CA, 4pm

Be there or be square. Read the rest of this post...

Disney/ABC lies about 9/11 tv show in newspaper ads around country today

Well, there you have it. Ads running around the country today claiming that Disney/ABC's fictional account of 9/11 is actually based on the 9/11 Commission Report. Well, uh, yeah, parts of the show are based on the report, and parts of it are just totally made up. But don't bother telling the audience that (or even telling them which parts are fact and which are fantasy). No, Disney/ABC is still telling the public that the show is based on the 9/11 report, giving the impression that it's 100% fact when it most certainly is not.

More from Atrios. Read the rest of this post...

Lead conservative writer says America should appease terrorists

You see, the reason 9/11 happened, according to one of the TOP conservative writers and thinkers, is because America's culture and politics pissed off the Arabs. If we'd only not done things in our culture, our politics, on our TV shows, and our bedrooms that upset Muslims around the world, then maybe they wouldn't attack us.

Did you get that? According to one of the leading voices in the conservative movement - this guy has been on the scene for a good 15 years at least - it's America's fault that we got attacked on September 11, and apparently it's America's job to change our own culture and laws to make Muslims around the world like us better. Not to mention, following this writer's logic, it would seem that most of the Muslim world is to blame for September 11, not just a few crazy extremists.

Which of course also raises the revelation that conservatives want America to live under a culture and laws that represent the mainstream of life in the Middle East. No offense to the millions of Muslims who live in the Middle East, but I'm perfectly happy keeping American culture and laws to our liking, rather than yours. Read the rest of this post...

Senate report proves Bush and Cheney lied to the American people about Saddam having ties to Al Qaeda

Mind you, this report comes out of the Senate Intelligence committee which has a right-wing pro-Bush Republican running it. The man never lets the committee do anything that even vaguely undercuts the president, yet his own report now shows that Bush and Cheney repeatedly lied to the American people when they stated, and continue to state up until very recently, that Saddam had ties to Al Qaeda.

There's no evidence Saddam Hussein had ties with al-Qaida, according to a Senate report on prewar intelligence that Democrats say undercuts President Bush's justification for invading Iraq.

Bush administration officials have insisted on a link between the Iraqi regime and terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Intelligence agencies, however, concluded there was none.

Read the rest of this post...

I've got the whole film - fact-checking appreciated

UPDATE: You can cross-check with the entire 9/11 Commission report, which is searchable, here (heads up, it's a big download).

1. American Airlines had Mohammad Atta at its ticket counter and a warning came up on the screen when he tried to check in. The AA employee called a supervisor who said, just let him through. The first employee said, shouldn't we search him? And the supervisor says, nah, just hold his luggage until he boards the plane. This is clearly intended to make American Airlines look negligent. Is this true?

Did this happen?

FACT: This kind of happened, buy they still got a lot wrong. First, they've got the airport wrong. The warning popped up in Portland, not at Boston Logan as the tv show claims. Second, the rules at the time said nothing about searching him, they only required that the bags be held until he boarded - the tv show clearly tries to imply American Airlines violated their own rules in letting Atta go, which they clearly did not.

Second, Atta didn't fly American from Portland, he flew a US Airways Express affiliate. It was the US Airways Express folks who held his bags but didn't do more, not American. So, when the film tries to pain American Airlines employees in Boston as morons, it's really the US Airways employees in Portland who are the relevant parties. I'm only ten minutes into this film and we're already getting the wrong cities and the wrong players.

2. United Airlines. Asks 3 of the hijackers if they packed their own bags. The three of them look nervously at each other and speak in Arabic back and forth while the United employee keeps asking if they packed their own bags. She asks again, and finally the guy says yes. United employee does nothing. This is clearly intended to make United look negligent. Is this true?

FACT: According to the 9/11 Commission report, this did happen.

3. Well, half an hour into the film we learn that all Arabs, including Arab-Americans, have really really really bad stereotypical accents. They don't speak English well, and they sweat a lot and look shifty. "Ladies, we will dance? You like to dance?"

4. Richard Clarke dyed his hair yellow-green? Who knew? Read the rest of this post...

Action Alert: Tell Steve Jobs and Apple to stop using iTunes to abuse the memory of the 3,000 dead on September 11

MESSAGE: Tell Apple not to distribute "The Path to 9/11" on iTunes. The show is factually-wrong, politically-biased, and they have no right to misuse the memory of the 3,000 people who died on September 11 in some effort to influence the US election on behalf of the Republicans. September 11 belongs to all of us and shouldn't be treated so flippantly by anyone, especially Apple. (Let us know what you hear, post your feedback in the comments to this post.)

• Steve Jobs
  Co-founder, Apple
  leadership@apple.com
  

Corporate Public Relations

• Katie Cotton
  VP Corporate Communications
  katiec@apple.com
  

• Steve Dowling
  Director
  (408) 974-1896
  
  
• Amy Barney
  Retail
  (408) 974-2046
  
  
• Kristin Huguet
  Speakers Bureau & Legal
  (408) 974-2414
  
  
• Todd Wilder
  Education, Government & Design
  (408) 974-8335

iTunes Public Relations

• Natalie Kerris
  Director
  (408) 974-6877
  
  
• Tom Neumayr
  Manager, iPod
  (408) 974-1972
  
  
• Derick Mains
  Manager, iTunes
  (408) 974-6264
  
  
• Simon Pope
  iTunes
  (408) 974-0457

International Public Relations - if you're outside of the US but would like to help:

• Simon Atkins
  Canada
  
  
• Christina Caballero
  Latin America
  
  
• Alan Hely
  Europe, Middle East & Africa
  
  
• Jill Tan
  Asia Pacific
  
  
• Fiona Martin
  Australia
  
  
• Michiko Matsumoto
  Japan
  

Read the rest of this post...

Bush will give another one of his speeches on 9/11 -- during ABC's fictional account

How convenient. ABC won't even have to pre-empt programming -- they can just work Bush's speech in to "The Path to 9/11" -- anything he says will be fiction, too::

The Oval Office address, estimated to last 16 to 18 minutes, will culminate a series of addresses Bush has delivered to insist that five years after the catastrophic hijacked plane attacks that killed almost 3,000 people, America is safer but still faces a threat from al Qaeda.

While Snow insisted the speech does not have a political aim, Bush has been attempting to frame the election-year debate on national security to political and policy advantage. The president's Republican party is fighting to keep control of Congress in November elections.

"It will not be a political speech. It will not be calls to action by Congress, but instead reflect a date that's burned into all our experiences," Snow said. He said the speech "will have a note of optimism and at the same time sobriety about what we've been through."

Remember, it will not be a political speech. Read the rest of this post...

Houston Chronicle Editorial: Fabricating history

And don't forget, this isn't just about one scene where Sandy Berger hangs up the phone. They got the timeline for United Flight 93 wrong. They falsely claim Madeleine Albright thwarted efforts to go after bin Laden. They outright lie about the results of the 9/11 Commission report as it concerns Monica Lewinsky somehow interfering with the hunt for bin Laden. The movie never even shows the My Pet Goat episode where Bush dithered while our country was under attack. The film claims that Bush took the President Daily Briefing, the one that sad Osama was determined to hit the US, seriously - and he most certainly did not.

The film lays the blame for 9/11 on Bill Clinton while treating George Bush favorably. That is rewriting history. This mockery of the deaths of 3,000 Americans need to be pulled, now.

Houston Chronicle

the network is planning to distribute the mini series to thousands of high school students via free downloads. The exposure will leave many young people thinking they are seeing fact rather than fiction.

Nowrasteh has a talent for writing fiction, including the pilot episode of the popular spy series La Femme Nikita, and a little-seen movie, Norma Jean, Jack and Me, in which a shipwrecked man washes up on an Caribbean island and discovers President Jack Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe alive and living out their golden years.

It's unfortunate that ABC would trust the depiction of a still painful and politically volatile subject such as 9/11 to a writer best known for fantastical storytelling.

Read the rest of this post...

Bush is campaigning for GOP candidates like Jim Talent

For some reason, the media seems to have bought the idea coming from GOP candidates that if Bush comes to their states, helps them raise money and rally the GOP faithful, it's not campaigning. That's the very essence of campaigning:

In Michigan, Mike Bouchard, the Republican challenger to Senator Debbie Stabenow, said he was campaigning on economic issues, not security. Although Mr. Bush will visit Michigan on Friday to raise money for Mr. Bouchard at the end of what the White House sees as a successful week, the two men will not campaign together, Mr. Bouchard said.

“I appreciate his support, and he’s going to help me raise valuable resources,” he said. “But the focus of my campaign is Michigan: I’m on the ballot.”

Similarly, Mr. Bush will appear at a fund-raiser on the same day for Senator Jim Talent of Missouri, another endangered Republican. Mr. Talent’s aides said that the president and Mr. Talent would not campaign together, continuing a pattern in which Republican candidates in tough races have distanced themselves from Mr. Bush even as they have taken advantage of his ability to raise money for them.

By showing up in Michigan and Missouri, Bush IS campaigning for the Jim Talents and Mike Bouchards of the Republican party.

It is particularly incredulous for Jim Talent to pretend that he and Bush aren't totally in synch. Fired Up Missouri busts Talent's for trying to rewrite the history of 2002 when Bush campaigned for him five times and appeared in Talent's t.v. ads.

Just because GOP candidates say that Bush isn't campaigning for them, doesn't make it true -- especially when Bush is coming to their states for events. The idea that doing a campaign event that raises money is somehow not a campaign event is a distinction without a difference. Read the rest of this post...

Donna Edwards must win on Tuesday

Donna Edwards will make a great member of Congress. She's smart, savvy and has a commitment to the issues that matter to her constituents. Her very strong challenge to the incumbent, Al Wynn, seems to have caught a lot of the politicos, including Wynn, off guard.

Matt Stoller at MyDD spent some time examining Al Wynn's disclosure statements and is able to expose Wynn's financial shenanigans:

This Congressman has a strange and disturbing pattern of breaking campaign finance laws to hide the identities of the people funneling money into his campaigns. It's not that he makes mistakes, or misreports a donor here or there. Al Wynn simply choose not to follow campaign finance laws. There's obviously sloppiness here, but the pattern of flouting the rules goes so far back and is so extensive that it's hard to conclude that it isn't intentionally done to hide his funding sources.

Read the post and you'll be even more convinced that Wynn has to go. Wynn shows the same contempt and disregard for the campaign finance laws that he showed to his constituents when he voted for the bankruptcy bill:

It's not just that Wynn is awash in contributions from Walmart, right-wing corporate sources, and developers, it's that he systematically hides the workings of his cash machine from the public, violating campaign finance laws consistently over a pattern of many years.

This is fascinating and disturbing stuff, and it's a good argument for why we need lots more primaries. Had Donna Edwards not challenged Al Wynn, we would never know the workings of Wynn's machine. We wouldn't be able to connect Wynn's legislative support of the telecom companies to his contempt for disclosure laws meant to serve the public to his support for Bush's energy policies to his support for local developpers. But because Donna stepped up to the plate, now we know what we're up against.

If there's anyway you can help Donna between now and Tuesday, please do it. Read the rest of this post...

Taliban is "resurgent" in Afghanistan

While Bush is doing his speech tour spinning the great work he thinks he has done on terror, he should probably take a peek at Afghanistan. It's exploding, literally.

Yesterday, NATO's commander asked for reinforcements:

NATO's top commander, Gen. James L. Jones, on Thursday called for allied nations to send reinforcements to southern Afghanistan, saying the coming weeks could be decisive in the fight against the Taliban....Jones acknowledged that NATO had been surprised by the "level of intensity" of Taliban attacks since the alliance moved into the southern region in July and by the fact the insurgents were prepared to stand and fight rather than deploy their usual hit-and-run tactics.

Today, a car bomb exploded in Kabul killing 18 including 2 Americans.

The driver of a car packed with explosives rammed into a U.S. military convoy in downtown Kabul on Friday, killing himself and at least 18 other people, including two American soldiers. Two other American soldiers were among 31 people wounded.

The blast, near the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, came as NATO chiefs appealed for member nations to send reinforcements to combat resurgent Taliban militants. A top British general said the fighting in volatile southern Afghanistan was now more ferocious than in Iraq.

And, our great ally, Pakistan, is cutting deals with Taliban forces which is ok with Bush.

Some success there, W. Read the rest of this post...

Friday Morning Open Thread

Never a dull moment. What's the latest? Read the rest of this post...

The slow recovery

Since John left Paris, the cats just haven't been the same. When eating outside on the terrace, Sushi was sitting where John last sat and the rest of the time the cats were clinging to each other, which does not happen very often. John is the fun uncle who comes from America, bringing fun toys and tasty treats so when he goes, they're always upset for a while. They now also know how to ask for those treats. Read the rest of this post...

Blair announces his resignation, kind of, sort of

No specific date yet, but at least he's gone public on it. What is fascinating for me is to hear the Republicans in the US gushing all over him and talking about what a trusted friend he has been. Maybe that's why Blair sent his son to do an internship with wingnut extremist Congressman Dreier. We should expect to hear a flurry of activity around speaking engagements with right wingers in the US after he finally leaves office. They love the guy because his actions are a carbon copy of Bush. Better yet, he always manages to suck up to his master, thus earning him his deserved reputation as the poodle. All of that education and smarts only to be a boot licker towards the most notable idiot in the world. Hmm.

Speaking tour in America to start next September. Who knows, the Heritage Foundation and AEI probably already have open chairs waiting for him as well. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Tomorrow, Friday morning, we'll explore why Steve Jobs, who is on the board of Disney, is aiding and abetting Disney's partisan effort to steal the election by permitting the free download of the fictitous 9/11 TV show via iTunes. Hard to believe that little deal was struck without board member Jobs - the largest shareholder of Disney, thank you - having a hand in it.

So Steve Jobs isn't just someone who can help fix this problem. He's someone who helped create the problem.

This new Mac user thinks it's time we heard from Steve as to why he's letting Disney use Apple to disgrace the memory of 3,000 dead Americans. Read the rest of this post...