And more on this issue. Finall Bill Clinton himself weighs on the issue, and he is not happy.

“The content of this drama is factually and incontrovertibly inaccurate and ABC has the duty to fully correct all errors or pull the drama entirely,” the four-page letter said.

…

Although the movie thrust Lewinsky into the mix as a White House distraction, the 9/11 commission’s report found Clinton was “deeply concerned about bin Laden” and that he received daily reports “on bin Laden’s reported location,” Clinton’s letter notes.

…

The 9/11 commission report echoes his denial, and found that Clinton’s Cabinet gave “its blessing” for a CIA plan to capture bin Laden and determined that ex-CIA Director George Tenet squashed the plan.

This thing is full of errors, and they weren’t by accident. You see, this isn’t a “documentary”. ABC’s already admitting that they just made crap up for “dramatic purposes”.

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. - ABC’s disclaimer

This is, forgive my language, SEPTEMBER FUCKING 11th. You don’t get to add extra drama to it, you don’t get to change the story for narrative purposes, you DON’T GET A GODDAMN ARTISTIC LICENSE. This isn’t the sinking of the Titanic, it’s not a tragic accident from 90 years ago. It’s not a distant piece of the past, it’s not small enough that tweaking things won’t make a difference.

More in this podcast. I’m too angry to type it all out.

[tags]9/11, media, terrorism, bush, clinton, abc, disney, movies, politics[/tags]

Frank Caliendo, an awesome comedian, once quipped that Bush has “Truth Tourette’s”. Meaning, he can’t run with a lie like Clinton, and instead truth just pops out now and again, much to his chagrin. It already happened when he let slip that Iraq had “nothing” to do with 9/11, and now this in an interview with Katie Couric.

“I mean that a defeat in Iraq will embolden the enemy, and will provide the enemy more opportunity, to train, plan to attack us, that’s what I mean. One of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror,” Mr. Bush said. “I believe it, but the American people have got to understand that a defeat in Iraq, in other words if this government there fails, the terrorists will be emboldened, the radicals will topple moderate governments.”

The video, if it worked now, would show you the pause he said right after that statement. The “oh no, I didn’t mean to say that out loud” kind of pause we’ve seen a few times before. It would be easy as pie to connect Iraq and the war on terror if there was a connection that the US-waged war didn’t construct.

It’s hard to keep up the lies and the bullshit, Bush is starting to let the truths slip out at a higher rate than normal. I wonder what’s next.

[tags]bush, terrorism, iraq, couric[/tags]

Am I the only one excited about the new Jackass movie? It just makes me feel so much better about myself.

I’ve avoided this one because, frankly, I find it too aggravating. ABC is running a documentary-of-sorts on 9/11, supposedly based on the 9/11 commission report. Unfortunately, it’s riddled with factual errors (even a former Bush official calling it “fantasy land”) and they refuse to provide advance copies of it to any democrats, including the man who is being given the bulk of the blame for the attacks: Bill Clinton. Meanwhile, redcoat bloggers are getting special treatment.

AMERICAblog has been chronicling this for the past few days, with this special treat: an email from a Disney/ABC insider to Hugh Hewitt.

- There are 900 screeners out there. When this airs this weekend, there will be a number of people who will spend their free evenings looking for these changes and will be hard pressed to identify them. They are that minor.
- The average viewer would not be able to tell the difference between the two versions.
- The message of the Clinton Admin failures remains fully intact.

…

The changes are done only to appease the Clinton team - to be able to say they made changes. But the blame on the Clinton team is in the DNA of the project and could not be eradicated without pulling the entire show.

900 screeners, not one for the Clintons or any liberal bloggers. Blaming Clinton is the DNA of the project, while things like Bush’s inexplicable inaction with My Pet Goat in his hands or the famed August 6th briefing go completely forgotten. Sigh.

Write to ABC and tell them to fix this. Politics aside, this kind of inaccuracy and finger-pointing over this tragic and important a historical event is simply sickening.

[tags]9/11, terrorism, abc, disney, movies, news, politics, media, bush[/tags]

Hoo boy. Showing off their massive committment to fighting the War on Terror and calling into serious question Bush’s as well, Pakistan has announced that bin Laden can live there, as long as he lives a “peaceful” life.

Q. ABC News : If bin Laden or Zawahiri were there, they could stay?

A. Gen. Sultan: No one of that kind can stay. If someone is there he will have to surrender, he will have to live like a good citizen, his whereabouts, exit or travel would be known to the authorities.

Q. ABC News : So, he wouldn’t be taken into custody? He would stay there?

A. Gen. Sultan: No, as long as one is staying like a peaceful citizen, one would not be taken into custody. One has to stay like a peaceful citizen and not allowed to participate in any kind of terrorist activity.

There are repeated attempts to claim that he isn’t being offered a haven, that isn’t what this means, but read the words of the man himself. If bin Laden “lives like a good citizen”, he will not be taken into custody, although his location will be known. And then the greater question: with this in mind, can Bush possibly afford NOT to do something about it? If we are to believe that those who harbor terrorists are as bad as terrorists themselves, then no he can’t.

[tags]bin laden, terrorism, al qaeda, pakistan, war, usa[/tags]