This morning I ran some hardcore TS Eliot smack at the NYT for “balancing” its coverage of the many failings of the new ABC 9/11 miniseries with empty retorts from the network and puff commentary on its cast.
Turns out the farcical “historic broadcast” they claim to be based primarily on the 9/11 commission report was quote the hot blogtopic today.
ThinkProgress links to Townhaller Hugh Hewitt, who received an email from an ABC Insider promising that, despite a few recent edits, “The message of the Clinton Admin failures remains fully intact.”
Pam Spaulding has the best quote about the series:
This tripe will be aired without commercials so that continuous pole-stroking can occur in Freeperland.
Crooks and Liars notes that ABC also re-opened their blog on the mini-series today. Naturally, they are “moderating” all comments (I left them a gem just to make someone read it), but many of their own quotes from the posts are priceless:
And the consensus that emerged over and over during development, production and post production is that we tried, as best we can, based on 9/11 Commission Report and numerous other sources and advisors, to present an accurate and honest account of the events leading to 9/11.
The redundant statement about Clinton and the emphasis to protect his legacy instead of trying to learn from the failures of BOTH administrations smells of “agenda”.
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This is not a right wing agenda movie. The team of filmmakers, actors and executives that are responsible for this movie have very different political views. There was no emphasis given to one party over another. By the way, we are also being accused of being a left wing movie that bashes Bush.
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We have worked hard to make this not a political movie. We show both administrations with an unvarnished truth.
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9/ll is sacred and we must learn from the mistakes made so that it doesn’t happen again.
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A quote that I really pushed to have included as the opening to the show is from the 9/11 Commission Report that states that there is recognition that with an event of this scale and complexity that we may have missed something.
Indeed. Like honesty, integrity, and basic fact.