Offering frequent news and analysis from the majestic Evergreen State and beyond, The Cascadia Advocate is the Northwest Progressive Institute's unconventional perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Thursday, September 07, 2006

President Clinton to ABC: Pull this trash

It's just beautiful to see legions of former or retired officials from the Clinton administration stepping forth to harshly condemn ABC's upcoming "mockudrama", the "Path to 9/11" miniseries with a right wing slant.

Those who have denounced or criticized "Path to 9/11" include Cressy, Albright, Berger, and Clarke.

Even an FBI agent who consulted on the "mockudrama" quit halfway through because the producers were just "making things up".

Now President Bill Clinton himself is demanding that ABC not air this trash:
A furious Bill Clinton is warning ABC that its mini-series "The Path to 9/11" grossly misrepresents his pursuit of Osama bin Laden - and he is demanding the network "pull the drama" if changes aren't made.

Clinton pointedly refuted several fictionalized scenes that he claims insinuate he was too distracted by the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal to care about bin Laden and that a top adviser pulled the plug on CIA operatives who were just moments away from bagging the terror master, according to a letter to ABC boss Bob Iger obtained by The Post.

The former president also disputed the portrayal of then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright as having tipped off Pakistani officials that a strike was coming, giving bin Laden a chance to flee.

"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.
Talking Points Memo has the entire text of the letter.

Steve Gilliard has a list of people and companies to contact to apply maximum pressure. And ThinkProgress has a center set up where you can tell ABC to tell the truth. The Disney corporation's behavior in response to these criticisms has been completely unacceptable. They have refused to see the light - so now we must make them feel the heat.

UPDATE: Check out the Open Letter to ABC.

UPDATE II: It's paying off - Scholastic has caved:
Educational media giant Scholastic, Inc. announced it's dropping its original classroom companion guides to a controversial new docudrama, and replacing them with materials stressing critical thinking and media literacy.

"After a thorough review of the original guide that we offered online to about 25,000 high school teachers, we determined that the materials did not meet our high standards for dealing with controversial issues," said Dick Robinson, Chairman, President and CEO of Scholastic, in a press release.
Excellent. We must continue to amplify our voices and force ABC and its affiliates to drop this right wing garbage. Memo to ABC chieftain Bob Iger: the longer you dig in your heels, the bigger the price your company will pay.

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