Former Clinton Officials Unwittingly Promoting "The Path to 9/11"

The news that former Clinton officials have their sizeable panties in a wad over the ABC docudrama "The Path to 9/11" is all over the media now. It's the front page item on AOL as every one of their millions of members sign on. The story starts out like this:

A "terribly wrong" miniseries about events leading to the Sept. 11 attacks blame President Clinton's policies, former Clinton administration officials said in letters demanding that ABC correct it or not air it.

But in a statement released Thursday afternoon in apparent response to the growing uproar, ABC said, "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."

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, Clinton Foundation head Bruce Lindsey and Clinton adviser Douglas Band wrote in the past week to Robert Iger, CEO of ABC's parent The Walt Disney Co., to express concern over "The Path to 9/11."

That statement from ABC raises a lot of concerns, because there are a great many folks (maybe as many as 1000) who have seen preview copies of the film and assumed they were viewing the final product. The ABC statement lends credence to the notion that ABC might be caving to the Clintonistas and making last minute edits to soften the damage to the Clinton legacy.

The left probably remembers what happened when CBS came out with "The Reagans" a few years ago, a miniseries that was so full of crap that even CBS finally had to relent to conservative pressure and pull it from airing on the Tiffany network. Instead they shunted it off to cable where it died an ignominious death. You can't blame the left for trying their hand at scaring ABC into pulling their $40 million show.

Be that as it may, thanks to all the publicity coming from the enraged Clintonites, there are now potentially millions of Americans who didn't know anything about this miniseries who are now more likely to watch it. Thank you, Clintonoids, you're the best marketing firm ABC could have hoped for.

Despite all the pressure, I'm not sure how far the Clinton crowd will get with Iger, based on this items from Brent Bozelle's review at the Media Research Center:

ABC chief Bob Iger reportedly has told his staff he believes this is one television show all of America needs to see.

And now, thanks to the left's outrage, more Americans will see it than might otherwise have.

UPDATE: Not so fast - ABC Alters 9/11 show under pressure:

After much discussion, ABC executives and the producers toned down, but did not eliminate entirely, a scene that involved Clinton's national security advisor, Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger, declining to give the order to kill Bin Laden, according to a person involved with the film who declined to be identified because of the sensitivities involved.

"That sequence has been the focus of attention," the source said, adding: "These are very slight alterations."

In addition, the network decided that the credits would say the film is based "in part" on the 9/11 commission report, rather than simply "based on" the bestselling report, as the producers originally intended.

ABC, meanwhile, is tip-toeing away from the film's version of events. In a statement, the network said the miniseries "is a dramatization, not a documentary, drawn from a variety of sources, including the 9/11 commission report, other published materials and from personal interviews."

The statement adds: "The events that lead to 9/11 originally sparked great debate, so it's not surprising that a movie surrounding those events has revived the debate. The attacks were a pivotal moment in our history that should never be forgotten and it's fitting that the discussion continues."

None of ABC's moves is likely to quell the debate, however.

Ain't that the truth. Some of the prominent communicators who received preview copies, such as Rush Limbaugh and Hugh Hewitt, will likely be reporting on the changes that were made and what was in the original version they saw. One way or the other, the original story will get out, and ABC will come off looking like a wholly owned subsidiary of the DNC.