The Path to Agitprop

The lefty blogs (go check out AmericaBlog – they are all over this) are going nuts over ABC’s new mini-series, The Path to 9/11. By most accounts, the film is a piece of serious propaganda that blames Bill Clinton for that most infamous terror attack while absolving, or just ignoring, President Bush’s actions. In fact, the movie contains a fictionalized scene in which CIA operatives have the opportunity to kill Bin Laden but the White House refuses to allow an attack. This is, of course, utter bullshit. Editor and Publisher has a quick summary of the story and there should be no doubt that this is a film with an agenda, namely covering Bush’s ass. And that agenda is driven by the director, David L. Cunningham, and the producer, Cyrus Nowrasteh; both are right-wing hacks. Even more disturbing, Tom Keane, Republican co-chair of the 9/11 Commission, has sanctioned the film as “reasonably accurate”, whatever the hell that means. BTW – I think Mr. Keane’s credibility just took a hit. Furthermore, advance copies have been sent to any number of conservative media outlets while requests from several liberal sources (and reportedly, Pres. Clinton himself) have been denied. The folks responsible for the travesty really don’t want to answer any questions about their docudrama until after release.

What are they so scared of? Well, Roger Cressey, a counterterrorism guy for Clinton and Bush II, just lays into the movie as being wrong all over the place(thanks to ThinkProgress).

Cressy said “it’s amazing…how much they’ve gotten wrong. They got the small stuff wrong” and “then they got the big stuff wrong.” He added that a scene where the Clinton administration passes on a surefire opportunity to take out bin Laden is “something straight out of Disney and fantasyland. It’s factually wrong. And that’s shameful.”

Just what the hell is going on here? Why is Disney going to air something that exploits our national tragedy in such blatantly false and slanted manner? And finally, does anyone still believe that there exists a liberal media? Imagine the uproar from the wingnuts if ABC played Fahrenheit 9/11 during primetime.

Benito Mussolini once said fascism should really be called corporatism because the guiding principle for the political philosophy was the merger of corporate and government power. We appear to be creeping towards that outcome, no? If corporate giant Disney is willing to be a mouthpiece for the Administration in such a shameful, undignified way, is it safe to say the ABC has been co-opted by conservatives? Is ABC the new Fox?