"Wicked" Producer Marc Platt behind the inaccurate 9/11 ABC Mini-Series- Page 4

Posted: 9/8/06 at 11:49am

I guess it's time to leave this board. Bye.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/8/06 at 11:50am

Interesting article from today's NY Times. The editing is going on in LA, and Marc Platt is "monitoring" it from London, while the director is "being consulted" in Hawaii.

Which means, in Holywood spin, that ABC is doing it WITHOUT them.

===

ABC Said to Re-Edit Key Parts of 9/11 Show
By PATRICK HEALY and JESSE McKINLEY

Under growing pressure from Democrats and aides to former President Bill Clinton, ABC is re-evaluating and in some cases re-editing crucial scenes in its new mini-series “The Path to 9/11” to soften its portrait of the Clinton administration’s pursuit of Osama bin Laden, according to people involved in the project.

Among the changes, ABC is altering one scene in which an actor playing Samuel R. Berger, the former national security adviser, abruptly hangs up on a C.I.A. officer during a critical moment in a military operation, according to Thomas H. Kean, a consultant on the ABC project and co-chairman of the federal Sept. 11 commission.

Mr. Berger has said that the scene is a fiction, and Mr. Kean, in an interview, said that he believed Mr. Berger was correct and that ABC was making appropriate changes.

The reassessment came as two Clinton aides mounted an unusual attack last night on the motives of Mr. Kean, a Republican and a former governor of New Jersey. In a letter to Mr. Kean, the two aides, Bruce R. Lindsey and Douglas Band, wrote that his defense of the mini-series “is destroying the bipartisan aura of the 9/11 Commission,” on whose findings the project is partly based. They asserted that Mr. Kean was driven by payments from ABC or his own partisan politics.

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. He said he stood by the film because he believed it would draw attention to the commission’s security recommendations, many of which have not been put into effect, and because the film did not pretend to be a documentary.

Yet Mr. Kean, as well as other members of the commission, did say they were concerned that their widely praised investigation of the Sept. 11 attacks might be diminished in some way by the mini-series.

“Mini-series often make things more dramatic by fictionalizing,” Mr. Kean said. “I don’t think the fictional moments reflect on the work of the commission, but I do hope that the controversy doesn’t tarnish it. ABC is trying to be as accurate as possible.”

Democrats and allies of Mr. Clinton unleashed full-throated appeals to ABC yesterday to cancel the broadcast, which is scheduled for Sunday and Monday nights. The Senate Democratic leadership sent a letter to Robert A. Iger, the chief executive of the Walt Disney Company, ABC’s parent, saying that broadcasting the film “would be a gross miscarriage of your corporate and civic responsibility.”

The national Democratic Party drew more than 100,000 signatures in 24 hours to a petition of complaint that it plans to give to ABC today.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, one of 10 senators at a news conference yesterday where the mini-series came up, left before she could be asked about it. A small throng of reporters who followed her out of the building toward her office were kept at bay by her aides.

The changes to the mini-series are still being made inside an editing suite in Los Angeles, with a variety of creative staff members and executives, including Marc Platt, the executive producer, who has been monitoring the editing from London, and David L. Cunningham, the director, who is being consulted at his home in Hawaii.

Mr. Kean said that two other parts of the film are also under review. One is a scene where an actress playing former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright is apparently obstructing efforts to capture Mr. bin Laden. The other part suggests that Mr. Clinton was too distracted by impeachment and his marital problems to fully focus on Mr. bin Laden.

Mr. Platt said that he could not offer specifics about what scenes were being examined, but that editing was going on and “will continue to, if needed until we broadcast.”

“From Day 1, we’ve examined any issue or question that’s arisen,” he said. “And we’ll continue to do so until the last possible moment.”

Mr. Kean said he was surprised by the outcry, since most of the critics have not seen the film. He said Mr. Clinton had spoken directly to Mr. Iger last Friday; Clinton aides declined to comment.

Several 9/11 commission members said yesterday that they respected Mr. Kean immensely but that they were concerned about the ABC project and his role in it. One of them, Timothy J. Roemer, a Democrat, said he called Mr. Kean yesterday to urge ABC to make changes. Another, Jamie S. Gorelick, a former Clinton administration official, wrote Mr. Iger yesterday that the nation and schoolchildren would be poorly served if they drew lessons from the mini-series that were inaccurate.

Scholastic, the children’s publishing company, which had been working with ABC to use “The Path to 9/11” as a teaching tool, said yesterday that it was removing materials related to the film from its Web site. A spokeswoman said a new study guide was being prepared that would explain the difference between a docudrama and a documentary.

Anne E. Kornblut contributed reporting from Washington.
ABC Said to Re-Edit Key Parts of 9/11 Show

[jimnysf]

Posted: 9/8/06 at 12:14pm

Now, Harvey Keitel says the film should be corrected:



Harvey says

Updated On: 9/8/06 at 12:14 PM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/8/06 at 1:36pm

Fascinating analysis of how this happened and what's at stake for Bob Iger and Disney by Matt Stoller of MyDD.com

===

Matt Stoller
09.08.2006
Time to Take Away Disney's Political Candy

I looked through the FEC filings this morning, and found some interesting and expected information about Disney's chief, Robert Iger. Though he gives generously to both parties, Robert Iger isn't a wingnut. He's a neoliberal businessman who believes that pro-business moderates from both parties should run the country.
I imagine he's probably pro-choice, and he thinks of himself as sympathetic to the Democratic Party, though not what he perceives as the crazy part of the party. This is true of most of the big media moguls, like Sumner Redstone of Viacom. They are Democrats, but they want political favors from Republicans. Of course, these guys need to realize that Iger's going to ruin their nice big media business if he doesn't step up, and step up soon.

I imagine that Iger's in a tough spot. He doesn't hate Clinton, in fact he probably likes him. Iger's probably superangry that Bill Clinton is speaking out against this movie, as Iger thought this movie was mostly accurate. I mean he's the President of Disney, he's busy, he didn't read the 9/11 Commission report (who did?), and both Clinton and Bush made mistakes, right? That's what the movie says, so he was told (if he was told anything at all). Iger probably wasn't paying attention to ABC entertainment, thinking that they had this under control, especially the sensitive details. His subordinates promised a really cool new marketing campaign using the internet and bloggers instead of the traditional expensive Hollywood marketing junkets. This movie was edgy, hip, but serious, a real examination of a somber moment in American history. Right, Mr. Iger?

Given what I know about how big corporations think, I bet the political slant to the movie wasn't strictly intentional on Disney's part. I bet that Disney's ABC division used a set of PR firms and flacks that decided that 9/11 belonged to conservatives, and so hired conservative movement players to produce, market, and distribute this film. They got Tom Kean, so there was adult supervision. What a perfect event setup, to make ABC the place for the country to turn on 9/11. In this fragmented universe, wouldn't it be great to have a time when the country came together, on one place, to really understand this event through the medium of television. And how wonderful if this were on ABC. It would be AN EVENT.

Ha ha ha.

Of course, Mr. Iger was pitched a total fraud by his subordinates, who probably had it pitched to them in turn, with pitches upon pitches until you get to a nest of right-wing marketing people who think of themselves as internet savants, but are actually just kind of stupid and tied in to the dregs of the right-wing blogs. And now Iger probably feels tricked by his subordinates, who have allowed Disney to aid and abet a right-wing propaganda campaign. The higher-ups just didn't notice what was happening because their corporate controls are awful - ABC Entertainment made this piece of **** instead of ABC News.

The fallout from this is bad, but it's going to get worse. Disney has a full-on PR and political disaster on their hands, and they've handled it horribly. With real but oblique threats to their very broadcast licensing schema, ABC has clammed up and gone into full 'counterproductive big company cluster**** mode', obviously lying to the public about the film still not being completed, and insulting its critics to boot.

That's not smart. Remember, the people doing the lying to the public on Disney/ABC's behalf are the same people who thought that this film would be AN EVENT, or at least ok'd it.

There is a window of time now for Mr. Iger to step up, an 'apologize for Tylenol tampering' moment. He needs to cancel this miniseries, and take personal responsibility for inadequate oversight. He should privately fire the people responsible for this total disaster of a project, and apologize. That's the only way to restore Disney's brand among a large group of very angry people. Be brave, be public, and be honorable. It'll work.

And what will happen if he doesn't? Well, it's not just boycotts. Those are probably going to happen, but that's not what Iger has to worry about, or his corporate brethren. You see, Disney has a number of political objectives, as is obvious from the donor patterns of their corporate executives and their lobbying behavior.

One of them is the egregiously awful broadcast flag. Disney is leading the effort to give Hollywood control over how your TV and TiVo are built and what you can do with programs you watch. This is in the Stevens bill before the Senate. Democrats didn't really have any reason to deny Disney its political candy, since Disney was thought to be responsible with its content, or at least not overtly insane. Their credibility on this front is going quickly, and donations to Chuck Schumer aren't the palliative they once were.

Another is copyright extensions, which Disney has used to keep its perpetual license on characters like Mickey Mouse, who should by now have fallen into the public domain. Democrats didn't really have any reason to think that this was anything but a dispute over intellectual property, with corporations like Disney having motives that are only as pure as Snow White, versus pirates bent on stealing songs and movies by hardworking artists. Now that Disney's credibility is going, lobbyists for Disney are going to find it tougher on Capitol Hill, and lobbyists for the Creative Commons movement are going to find a much easier reception. Iger knows there's a movement bent on routing around his unreasonable and political control of free speech through copyright extremism. He's got a choice on whether he gives that movement a whole lot of real political power.

And thing Disney wants is media consolidation. Disney wants to buy everything, since media is seen as a scale business. It's pretty obvious to Democrats if this movie airs that Disney is not a responsible public steward of the airwaves it controls right now. Why should they be allowed to engulf even more assets? Like Creative Commons, the free media movement is growing rapidly, and it is a real movement that could receive a dollop of political power thanks to Disney's exceptionally and impressively poor judgment.

Mr. Iger has a choice about what to do here. I don't imagine he'll make the right choice, but he might.


Matt Stoller is a blogger at MyDD.

Time to Take Away Disney's Political Candy

[DottieD'Luscia]

Posted: 9/8/06 at 1:52pm

Heads should roll over this. I look forward to seeing the fallout.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/8/06 at 4:08pm

An Open Letter from Historians to Robert Iger:

===

Dear Robert Iger:

We write as professional historians, who are deeply concerned by the continuing reports about ABC's scheduled broadcast of "The Path to 9/11." These reports document that this drama contains numerous flagrant falsehoods about critical events in recent American history. The key participants and eyewitnesses to these events state that the script distorts and even fabricates evidence into order to mislead viewers about the responsibility of numerous American officials for allegedly ignoring the terrorist threat before 2000.

The claim by the show's producers, broadcaster, and defenders, that these falsehoods are permissible because the show is merely a dramatization, is disingenuous and dangerous given their assertions that the show is also based on authoritative historical evidence. Whatever ABC's motivations might be, broadcasting these falsehoods, connected to the most traumatic historical event of our times, would be a gross disservice to the public. A responsible broadcast network should have nothing to do with the falsification of history, except to expose it. We strongly urge you to halt the show's broadcast and prevent misinforming Americans about their history.

Sincerely,

Arthur Schlesinger
Sean Wilentz, Princeton University
Michael Kazin, Georgetown University
Lizbeth Cohen, Harvard University,
Nicholas Salvatore, Cornell University;
Ted Widmer, Brown University;
Rick Perlstein, Independent Scholar;
David Blight, Yale University;
Eric Alterman, City University of New York.
Maurice Isserman, Hamilton College
(List in formation)

[South Fl Marc]

Posted: 9/8/06 at 5:45pm

Wow, I never knew the Democrats were capable of mounting this kind of action so quickly. It gives me hope for the upcoming election.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/8/06 at 6:03pm

Glad you brought that up, Marc. It's been making me happy all day. This has been an extraordinary collaboration among liberal bloggers, the Democratic party and the mainstream media, the likes of which we've only seen mobilized for Republicans.

It means that the ability of the right-wing to swiftboat is ended.

I'm very excited.

Updated On: 9/8/06 at 06:03 PM

[jimnysf]

Posted: 9/8/06 at 6:14pm

Me, too!

[neddyfrank2]

Posted: 9/8/06 at 7:16pm

I am leaving this board. Goodbye

[SweetQintheLights]

Posted: 9/8/06 at 7:32pm

Why Neddy?

[South Fl Marc]

Posted: 9/8/06 at 9:50pm

Bye .... Who are you?

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/8/06 at 10:12pm

Marc Platt is quoted again in this Associated Press article, speaking from London.

===

Sep 8, 7:31 PM EDT

ABC Gets More Pressure to Toss 9/11 Film

By DAVID BAUDER
AP Television Writer


AP Photo/PETER STRANKS
Entertainment Video
Advertisement


NEW YORK (AP) -- ABC faced growing pressure Friday about its planned miniseries on the buildup to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Former Clinton administration officials, historians and a Democratic petition with nearly 200,000 signatures urged the network to scrap the five-hour drama.

The network said the movie, scheduled to air commercial-free on Sunday and Monday, is being edited to deal with concerns that it distorts history. ABC had no response to the calls to abandon it.

A group of historians, including Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and Princeton University's Sean Wilentz, wrote to ABC parent Walt Disney Co. CEO Robert Iger, urging him to scrap the series. They said that permitting inaccuracies to heighten drama is "disingenuous and dangerous."

"A responsible broadcast network should have nothing to do with the falsification of history, except to expose it," they wrote.



The Democratic National Committee said it delivered a petition with nearly 200,000 signatures to ABC's Washington office urging the network drop its "right-wing factually inaccurate mocudrama."

Former national security adviser Samuel R. Berger and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, whose depictions are at the center of the controversy, asked Thomas Kean, the Republican ex-governor of New Jersey who led the commission looking into the attacks, to use his influence with filmmakers to pull it.

"You can't fix it," Berger said on CNN. "You gotta yank it."

The film's executive producer, Marc Platt, responded that many of the film's most vocal critics haven't yet seen it.

"I'm not sure that what they think is there, is there," he said Friday by phone from London.

Platt called the growing uproar "a distraction in some ways from the bigger intentions (of the film), which is a shame. And that's quite frankly what the whole 9/11 story is about."

Stressing that the miniseries is a docudrama, Platt said "elements and issues that are outside the boundaries of what we believe to be fair and reasonable will be addressed" until airtime. "I hope people will watch the film and draw their own conclusions."

In a statement Thursday, ABC said the editing process for the $40 million film was ongoing.

"No one has seen the final version of the film, because the editing process is not yet complete, so criticisms of film specifics are premature and irresponsible," the network said.

In another complication, President Bush has asked broadcast networks to clear time for an address to the nation Monday night at 9:01 p.m., just at the start of the last hour of "The Path to 9/11" on the East Coast. ABC announced plans Friday night to cover what is expected to be a 20-minute speech before resuming the film.

Former President Clinton, speaking with news reporters after a Democratic fundraiser in Arkansas on Thursday, said he hadn't seen the ABC film.

"But I think they ought to tell the truth, particularly if they are going to claim it is based on the 9/11 commission report," he said. "They shouldn't have scenes that are directly contradicted by the findings of the 9/11 report."

In a statement Friday, former Vice President Al Gore said, "I am deeply concerned that ABC is considering going forward with their plans to broadcast this so-called docudrama."

Several Democratic senators have also urged that the movie be canceled.

Harvey Keitel, one of the actors in "The Path to 9/11," also said he had questions about whether some of the material was accurate.

"When I received the script, it said ABC history project," Keitel said in an interview with CNN Headline News' "Showbiz Tonight." "I took it to be exactly what they presented to me, history. And that the facts were correct. It turned out not all the facts were correct, and ABC set out trying to heal that problem. In some instances it was too late because we had begun."

A cut of the film distributed to TV critics depicts a team poised in darkness outside bin Laden's cave fortress in Afghanistan, while an actor portraying Berger in Washington stalls on giving the final go-ahead to carry out the seizure. He confers via video phone to CIA chief George Tenet.

"Look, George," Berger says, "if you feel confident, you can present your recommendation to the president yourself."

Tenet responds angrily, then Berger's screen goes blank. He has hung up.

Having waited on the phone for clearance, the mission's lead CIA agent must give the rest of the team the bad news: the mission is aborted.

The next scene shows archival footage of Clinton's video testimony about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky.

Another scene in the movie depicts counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke explaining to FBI agent John O'Neill that he doesn't believe Clinton will take chances to kill bin Laden at a time Republicans were pressing for impeachment.

"It's pathetic," O'Neill said.

Democratic senators protesting the movie suggested it "could be construed as right-wing political propaganda."

Albright objected to a scene that reportedly shows her warning the Pakistani government before an airstrike on Afghanistan, which resulted in bin Laden's escape. She said the scene was false and defamatory.

The film quotes the actor playing Tenet responding to the notification by saying: "The end result being that we've enhanced bin Laden's stature in the Islamic world. He's thumbing his nose at us."

Director David Cunningham, in an earlier interview with The Associated Press, said people putting the film together would hear conflicting reports all the time. "These might be from experts who were there in the same room, and they're telling us completely opposite things." He said he would use the 9/11 commission report to try to resolve those disputes.

"There was no agenda for this movie to go after a particular party or person," Cunningham said. "We were showing what happened, and the people who were involved along the way. This is not a blue-state/red-state movie."

Kean defended the miniseries.

"It's something the American people should see," he said in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America" Friday. "Because you understand how these people wanted to do us harm, developed this plot, and how the machinations of the American government under two administrations not only failed to stop them, but even failed to slow them down."

Kean said he hoped people would watch the miniseries to "understand better what went on, and hopefully understand what still needs to be done."

The controversy is reminiscent of the one that erupted over a 2003 CBS miniseries about President Ronald Reagan. In the face of political pressure over that film's accuracy, CBS canceled it, and it later aired on the Showtime cable network.

---

AP Television Writer Frazier Moore in New York and AP writers Devlin Barrett in Washington and Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Ark., contributed to this report.
ABC Gets More Pressure to Toss 9/11 Film

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/8/06 at 10:19pm

And Max Blumenthal at the Huffington Post details the right-wing plot to get the miniseries produced. Mark Platt is not mentioned in this column. Apparently he was just a pawn in Cyrus Nowrasteh's propaganda plan.

===

Max Blumenthal
09.08.2006

Discover the Secret Right-Wing Network Behind ABC's 9/11 Deception

Less than 72 hours before ABC's "The Path to 9/11" is scheduled to air, the network is suddenly under siege. On Tuesday, ABC was forced to concede that "The Path to 9/11" is "a dramatization, not a documentary." The film deceptively invents scenes to depict former President Bill Clinton's handling of the Al Qaeda threat.

Now, ABC claims to be is editing those false sequences to satisfy critics so the show can go on -- even if it still remains a gross distortion of history. And as it does so, ABC advances the illusion that the deceptive nature of "The Path to 9/11" is an honest mistake committed by a hardworking but admittedly fumbling team of well-intentioned Hollywood professionals who wanted nothing less than to entertain America. But this is another Big Lie.

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.

Before The Path to 9/11 entered the production stage, Disney/ABC contracted David Cunningham as the film's director. Cunningham is no ordinary Hollywood journeyman. He is in fact the son of Loren Cunningham, founder of the right-wing evangelical group Youth With A Mission (YWAM). The young Cunningham helped found an auxiliary of his father's group called The Film Institute (TFI), which, according to its mission statement, is "dedicated to a Godly transformation and revolution TO and THROUGH the Film and Televisionindustry." As part of TFI's long-term strategy, Cunningham helped place interns from Youth With A Mission's in film industry jobs "so that they can begin to impact and transform Hollywood from the inside out," according to a YWAM report.

Last June, Cunningham's TFI announced it was producing its first film, mysteriously titled "Untitled History Project." "TFI's first project is a doozy," a newsletter to YWAM members read. "Simply being referred to as: The Untitled History Project, it is already being called the television event of the decade and not one second has been put to film yet. Talk about great expectations!" (A web edition of the newsletter was mysteriously deleted yesterday but has been cached on Google at the link above).

The following month, on July 28, the New York Post reported that ABC was filming a mini-series "under a shroud of secrecy" about the 9/11 attacks. "At the moment, ABC officials are calling the miniseries 'Untitled Commission Report' and producers refer to it as the 'Untitled History Project,'" the Post noted.

Early on, Cunningham had recruited a young Iranian-American screenwriter named Cyrus Nowrasteh to write the script of his secretive "Untitled" film. Not only is Nowrasteh an outspoken conservative, he is also a fervent member of the emerging network of right-wing people burrowing into the film industry with ulterior sectarian political and religious agendas, like Cunningham.

Nowrasteh's conservatism was on display when he appeared as a featured speaker at the Liberty Film Festival (LFF), an annual event founded in 2004 to premier and promote conservative-themed films supposedly too "politically incorrect" to gain acceptance at mainstream film festivals. This June, while The Path to 9/11 was being filmed, LFF founders Govindini Murty and Jason Apuzzo -- both friends of Nowrasteh -- announced they were "partnering" with right-wing activist David Horowitz. Indeed, the 2006 LFF is listed as "A Program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center."

Since the inauguration of Bill Clinton in 1992, Horowitz has labored to create a network of politically active conservatives in Hollywood. His Hollywood nest centers around his Wednesday Morning Club, a weekly meet-and-greet session for Left Coast conservatives that has been graced with speeches by the likes of Newt Gingrich, Victor Davis Hanson and Christopher Hitchens. The group's headquarters are at the offices of Horowitz's Center for the Study of Popular Culture, a "think tank" bankrolled for years with millions by right-wing sugardaddies like eccentric far right billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife. (Scaife financed the Arkansas Project, a $2.3 million dirty tricks operation that included paying sources for negative stories about Bill Clinton that turned out to be false.)

With the LFF now under Horowitz's control, his political machine began drumming up support for Cunningham and Nowrasteh's "Untitled" project, which finally was revealed in late summer as "The Path to 9/11." Horowitz's PR blitz began with an August 16 interview with Nowrasteh on his FrontPageMag webzine. In the interview, Nowrasteh foreshadowed the film's assault on Clinton's record on fighting terror. "The 9/11 report details the Clinton's administration's response -- or lack of response -- to Al Qaeda and how this emboldened Bin Laden to keep attacking American interests," Nowrasteh told FrontPageMag's Jamie Glazov. "There simply was no response. Nothing."

A week later, ABC hosted LFF co-founder Murty and several other conservative operatives at an advance
screening of The Path to 9/11. (While ABC provided 900 DVDs of the film to conservatives, Clinton administration officials and objective reviewers from mainstream outlets were denied them.) Murty returned with a glowing review for FrontPageMag that emphasized the film's partisan nature. "'The Path to 9/11' is one of the best, most intelligent, most pro-American miniseries I've ever seen on TV, and conservatives should support it and promote it as vigorously as possible," Murty wrote. As a result of the special access granted by ABC, Murty's article was the first published review of The Path to 9/11, preceding those by the New York Times and LA Times by more than a week.

Murty followed her review with a blast email to conservative websites such as Liberty Post and Free Republic on September 1 urging their readers to throw their weight behind ABC's mini-series. "Please do everything you can to spread the word about this excellent miniseries," Murty wrote, "so that 'The Path to 9/11' gets the highest ratings possible when it airs on September 10 & 11! If this show gets huge ratings, then ABC will be more likely to produce pro-American movies and TV shows in the future!"

Murty's efforts were supported by Appuzo, who handles LFF's heavily-trafficked blog, Libertas. Appuzo was instrumental in marketing The Path to 9/11 to conservatives, writing in a blog post on September 2, "Make no mistake about what this film does, among other things: it places the question of the Clinton Administration's culpability for the 9/11 attacks front and center... Bravo to Cyrus Nowrasteh and David Cunningham for creating this gritty, stylish and gripping piece of entertainment."

When a group of leading Senate Democrats sent a letter to ABC CEO Robert Iger urging him to cancel The Path to 9/11 because of its glaring factual errors and distortions, Apuzzo launched a retaliatory campaign to paint the Democrats as foes of free speech. "Here at LIBERTAS we urge the public to make noise over this, and to demand that Democrats back down," he wrote on September 7th. "What is at stake is nothing short of the 1st Amendment."

At FrontPageMag, Horowitz singled out Nowrasteh as the victim. "The attacks by former president Bill Clinton, former Clinton Administration officials and Democratic US senators on Cyrus Nowrasteh's ABC mini-series "The Path to 9/11" are easily the gravest and most brazen and damaging governmental attacks on the civil liberties of ordinary Americans since 9/11," Horowitz declared.

Now, as discussion grows over the false character of The Path to 9/11, the right-wing network that brought it to fruition is ratcheting up its PR efforts. Murty will appear tonight on CNN's Glenn Beck show and The Situation Room, according to Libertas in order to respond to "the major disinformation campaign now being run by Democrats to block the truth about what actually happened during the Clinton years."

While this network claims its success and postures as the true victims, the ABC network suffers a PR catastrophe. It's almost as though it was complacent about an attack on its reputation by a band of political terrorists.

Discover the Secret Right-Wing Network Behind ABC's 9/11 Deception

Updated On: 9/8/06 at 10:19 PM

[jimnysf]

Posted: 9/8/06 at 10:52pm

I wrote to the ABC owned station in San Francisco and this is the response I received:

-------------------

Thank you for your email. Below is a response from our President and
General Manager, Valari Staab:

I appreciate you taking the time to email me with your concerns, ABC is
reviewing the criticism and taking it seriously. Below is ABC's
statement regarding the show and a copy of the disclaimer that will air
during the show. Again, thank you for your email and know that I am
letting ABC know how many of these we are receiving.

Valari Staab
President and General Manager, KGO-TV/DT

Statement from ABC Entertainment on The Path to 9/11
"The Path to 9/11" is not a documentary of the events leading to 9/11.
It is a dramatization, drawn from a variety of sources including the
9/11 Commission Report, other published materials, and personal
interviews. As such, for dramatic and narrative purposes, the movie
contains fictionalized scenes, composite and representative characters
and dialogue, and time compression. No one has seen the final version
of the film, because the editing process is not yet complete, so
criticisms of film specifics are premature and irresponsible. The
attacks of 9/11 were a pivotal moment in our history, and it is fitting
that the debate about the events related to the attacks continue.
However, we hope viewers will watch the entire broadcast of the finished
film before forming an opinion about it.
The following disclaimer will air throughout the movie:
"The following movie is a dramatization that is drawn from a variety of
sources including the 9/11 Commission Report and other published
materials, and from personal interviews. The movie is not a
documentary. For dramatic and narrative purposes, the movie contains
fictionalized scenes, composite and representative characters and
dialogue, as well as time compression."

To make further comments by email: Go to www.abc.com At the bottom of
the page you will need to click "Contact ABC". By phone: [phone]

[StageManager2]

Posted: 9/8/06 at 10:59pm

Are you guys just going to keep cutting and pasting on this thread?

[South Fl Marc]

Posted: 9/9/06 at 5:58pm

Is anyone planning on watching this fiasco?
As for Marc Platt - I agree - boycott Wicked.

[jimnysf]

Posted: 9/10/06 at 4:12am

Watch "The Wire" instead. More from Marc Platt. I want to know why these issues were not examined earlier. They should just cancel it already!

---------
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=entertainment&id=4541921

Executive producer Marc Platt said editing of the miniseries was going on and "will continue to, if needed until we broadcast," but declined to discuss the specific scenes that were being changed, The New York Times reported Friday.

"From Day 1, we've examined any issue or question that's arisen," Platt said. "And we'll continue to do so until the last possible moment."

[South Fl Marc]

Posted: 9/10/06 at 10:49pm

Marc Platt - Loser!

[jimnysf]

Posted: 9/11/06 at 11:30am

Don't forget to boycott "Wicked", "Edward Scissorhands", Disneyland, Disney World, Disney and Touchstone movies and ABC!