quote: Do you really fail to understand the difference between a film that one goes to see knowing who made it and why and a network presentation claiming to be a truthful portrayal of events and that uses the public airwaves?
KMB, it is because I do understand the difference that I think this should have been let go and ran however ABC wanted to. Moore's piece is called a documentary. It is not marketed as an opinion piece or anything like that. Moore was given credibility to F911 because his version is a documentary which tends to make people believe it is truthful work. A drama does not fall under the same criteria at all. ABC has said all along what their drama is and never attempted to make it anything it wasn't. They ran disclaimers and promoted it as a drama. Do you see the difference?
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quote:Originally posted by DarkKnight: If I were Clinton... I also would not have responded to this docu-drama either. What would the point be since I would have done the best job I could as President?
Really? If anybody tried to pin something horrendous on me in the public mind, I would react. Even with disclaimers and the standard "everybody knows TV isn't reality", can you really blame him for reacting? The fact is without all the stink raised by Clinton and others about this, how would people have known which parts of this docudrama were "based on real events" and which were simply made up?
I know that politicians have to expect a certain amount of poo flung at them as part of their jobs, but I think a docu-drama using false information to paint Clinton as the reason why one of the greatest national tragedies happened is probably too much poo for him to ignore. They might as well have made a movie where he was a child molester and then said, in fine print "oh yeah, but there's no evidence he molested a child".
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quote: but I think a docu-drama using false information to paint Clinton as the reason why one of the greatest national tragedies happened is probably too much poo for him to ignore.
Except that the docu-drama does not paint Clinton as the reason, the docu-drama correctly blames many many people in many many different organizations over a lengthy period of time. Clinton is the one who cried about how he was portrayed.
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quote: Do we know how anyone else in the docu-drama is portrayed?
To know for sure you would have to watch tonight and see. But for a quote... "Both Clinton and Bush officials come under fire, and if it seems more anti-Clinton, that's only because they were in office a lot longer than Team Bush before 9/11," said L. Brent Bozell, president of the conservative Media Research Center, who saw a preview of the miniseries. "The film doesn't play favorites and the Bush administration takes its lumps as well." From eonline...Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:Originally posted by DarkKnight: Do you honestly believe Clinton was very concerned about terrorism? Do you believe he did everything he could to stop terrorism?
Read the 9/11 Commission Report.
Feel stupid for saying that.
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quote:Do you honestly believe Clinton was very concerned about terrorism? Do you believe he did everything he could to stop terrorism? Do you believe that Monica Lewinsky did not distract Clinton?
Nice try. The Bush administration spent quite a bit of the first 9 months of their term criticizing Clinton for being too focused on terrorism.
And Clinton probably would have done a much better job of fighting terrorism if Newt Gingrich and friends hadn't spent so much of his time on Monica Lewinsky.
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quote: And Clinton probably would have done a much better job of fighting terrorism if Newt Gingrich and friends hadn't spent so much of his time on Monica Lewinsky.
Don't you mean if Clinton hadn't spent so much of his time on Monica Lewinsky?
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Yes, I'm sure he blocked off whole days that should have been spent doing other things just screwing away.
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Well he did have to prepare that speech where he looked the American people right in the eye and lied to all of us. Or was it several speeches? and several press conferences?
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No, he didn't. He did lie to the American people, no question.
Doesn't mean it's right for people to lie about his actions and the actions of the people under him regarding Bin Laden, though. It's unjust to heap more blame on someone just because you don't like them. If the commission did not flatly contradict the issues mentioned, I'd let it run. If the docudrama made up new, fictional characters to use as composites and did not have living people saying things they did not say, I'd let it run. If they hadn't made such a big deal about this series being taught to schoolkids, I'd think about it. As it is, this was a huge mistake on the part of ABC.
When the Reagan miniseries was pressured off the main channels, one of the disputed lines had him saying, in effect, that AIDS patients deserved what they got. One could look at the Reagan adminstration's remarkable lack of response to the AIDS epidemic and infer that he held such a belief, and if you didn't like Reagan (I didn't) it might seem like plausible dialogue for him. But to assign it to him without proof was unjust, and the movie was wrong to do so.
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You made the claim first, Darkknight. Not that I expect you to back it up with anything except, "Everyone knows it's true," but why don't you provide some evidence aside from your word that 'all' the 'liberal media' supported Moore's work as fact.
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"The upside: Clinton signed four executive orders aimed at assassinating Osama bin Laden, raised counterterrorism spending over several years from $5.7 billion to $11.1 billion, gave major speeches on the terrorist threat, sought (unsuccessfully) to create a Domestic Terrorist Team and to ratchet up the FBI's domestic surveillance tools. Also, according to the best available evidence, at least a dozen terrorist plots were apparently foiled on his watch. Paul Pillar, a career CIA man, has said that 'many American lives' were saved during that period. And Richard Clarke, the Clinton national security man who was demoted by the Bush administration, has repeatedly said that the Clintonites were more focused on al Qaeda than their successors were during the first nine months of 2001.
"But here's the downside: Clinton never even bothered to meet with his first CIA chief, James Woolsey; the Lewinsky scandal was a major distraction at the time when bin Laden was gaining strength; he didn't oppose the Taliban's efforts to seize power in Afghanistan; he may have muffed a major opportunity in 1996, when Sudan offered to hand over bin Laden to U.S. authorities. (Five years ago, a Clinton friend who tried to broker that deal wrote: 'Clinton's failure to grasp the opportunity . . . represents one of the most serious policy failures in American history.') . . .
"Even though Clinton looked weak in 1998 after firing a missile at bin Laden and missing, there wasn't exactly a major clamor from the Republicans for a more hawkish military response. In fact, the evidence shows, the congressional GOP was no more focused on al Qaeda than Clinton was -- and maybe less, given their suspicion of all Clintonian actions."
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quote: You made the claim first, Darkknight. Not that I expect you to back it up with anything except, "Everyone knows it's true," but why don't you provide some evidence aside from your word that 'all' the 'liberal media' supported Moore's work as fact.
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OK, you said 'the', not 'all' if I'm not mistaken. The spirit of the statement remains the same.
The fact is, you've provided what...five samples os how 'the liberal media' lauded Moore's work. Which is hardly the whole of liberal media, for one thing.
And for another, it is hardly justification for lying about 9-11, something you as a conservative should be against and not so blindly partisan about.
Exactly whose favor do you think that works in, anyway? Here's a hint: it's not the GOP.
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quote: The fact is, you've provided what...five samples os how 'the liberal media' lauded Moore's work. Which is hardly the whole of liberal media, for one thing.
I think five is enough to show the trend. Although I am sure if I provided 25 that would be not be enough for you.
quote: And for another, it is hardly justification for lying about 9-11, something you as a conservative should be against and not so blindly partisan about.
Where did I say lying is justified? You are very quick to label me as blind partisan but I do expect that to happen. All I said is that ABC should be able to run their drama as they see fit, just like Moore was. I do think Clinton should not have called and written letters. Democrats who had talks about pulling Igers license is really wrong, in my opinion. Clinton can go on talk shows to defend himself, but trying to supress someone else's work is wrong. See what I mean? I don't think I am the one being blinded by anything.
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quote:I do think Clinton should not have called and written letters.
*blink* Why? Are you familiar with defamation? It doesn't usually involve going on talk shows to defend oneself.
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I still see a difference between a privately funded, privately distributed, PERSONAL film being made, regardless of what its purpose is, and a film made by a national news organization.
If I want to go on the air and make false claims about someone, I am easily ignored, and have no trust to live up to, or obligations to anyone. Michael Moore fits that profile. ABC is a respected news organization, and has trust with the community of this nation. When they lie, it might be believed just based on that trust, and I call that a worse crime than an inflammatory partisan out to score party hack points. I'd be just as angry if I saw a movie made by NBC that called Bush an occultist baby eater.
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quote:On Friday, September 8, just forty-eight hours before ABC planned to air its so-called "docudrama," The Path to 9/11, Robert Iger, CEO of ABC's corporate parent, the Walt Disney Company, was presented with incontrovertible evidence outlining the involvement of that film's screenwriter and director in a concerted right-wing effort to blame former President Bill Clinton for allowing the 9/11 attacks to take place. Iger told a source close to ABC that he was "deeply troubled" by the information and claimed he had no previous knowledge of the institutional right-wing ties of The Path to 9/11's creators. He reportedly said that he has commenced an internal investigation to verify the role of the film's creators in deliberately advancing disinformation through ABC.
quote:Iger conceded in a September 5 press release that key scenes in The Path to 9/11 were indeed fabricated, calling the film "a dramatization, not a documentary." Behind the scenes, Iger reportedly made personal assurances to some of the film's most prominent critics that those scenes would be edited out. But even though some deceptive footage was cut from the original, much of its falsified version of events leading up to 9/11 remains.
So let's get this right. ABC has admitted that the story they are telling was fabricated by a right wing interest with a political agenda to shift the blame for 911 to the Clinton administration.
Given that, how could anyone criticize Clinton for objecting to the film.
What if the ABC "docudrama" had included scenes with the Bush administration capriciously dismissing warnings about the attack? What if it had included scenes with Bush call off the air force?
I'm quite certain that republicans would be crying about "conspiracy theories" if ABC had fabricated scenes based on anyone of the accusations that have been made against Bush. How can they then criticize Clinton without being total hypocrits?
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quote: I'm quite certain that republicans would be crying about "conspiracy theories" if ABC had fabricated scenes based on anyone of the accusations that have been made against Bush. How can they then criticize Clinton without being total hypocrits?
Did Republicans threaten to pull CBS executives broadcast licenses when they knowingly ran a story using false documents? Could you imagine the press headlines had Republicans done the same thing? Think about it.
quote: Are you familiar with defamation? It doesn't usually involve going on talk shows to defend oneself.
*blink* another one liner from TD. How typical.... So Clinton has no recourse? Clinton is a typical American? Do you seriously think that Clinton could not hold a press conference about this and have most, if not all, major news outlets cover it? Clinton speaks, the press reports what he says. He can call a press conference and get his side of the story out. He does not need to try and stop other people's work from being produced. Did Bush call Dan Rather about the forged documents? Did Bush send letters to Moore? If Bush had done the same thing Clinton did he would be blasted for 'pressuing' others to keep quiet and supress the truth that he is evil and this is really a Karl Rove (evil madman who is evil 50% of the time even when sleeping) plot to make sure no one knows the truth! See the difference? Remember the forged CBS documents? Remember the CBS statements? "CBS News President Andrew Heyward staunchly defended the piece. "I have full confidence in our reporting on this story and in every reporter on both sides of the camera," he said last night. "This is going to hold up. This was thoroughly vetted." How about the Dan Rather defense of why didn't Burkett come forward sooner? "The question is, why didn't you do it sooner? The story is true. I believed in the story. . . . What kind of reporter would I be -- what kind of person would I be -- if I put something on the air that I believed and then didn't stand behind it? At the first sign of pressure, you run, you cave, you fold? I don't do that."
quote: Given that, how could anyone criticize Clinton for objecting to the film.
I have not criticized Clinton for objecting to the film, but I do object to him trying to pressure people to not produce what they want to. I object to Democrats having discussions about pulling Iger's broadcast license.
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quote:Do you seriously think that Clinton could not hold a press conference about this and have most, if not all, major news outlets cover it?
Um. Just to clarify: you think a more proportionate response to factual errors in a docu-drama is to call a presidential press conference, rather than ask that specific scenes be changed or the documentary not be aired (or erred, as the case may be)?
I don't quite understand why.
quote:I have not criticized Clinton for objecting to the film, but I do object to him trying to pressure people to not produce what they want to.
This is specifically why I mentioned defamation. Are you familiar with defamation law? People are not free to produce anything they want to.
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quote: Just to clarify: you think a more proportionate response to factual errors in a docu-drama is to call a presidential press conference, rather than ask that specific scenes be changed or the documentary not be aired (or erred, as the case may be)?
From Clinton, yes I do.
quote: This is specifically why I mentioned defamation. Are you familiar with defamation law? People are not free to produce anything they want to.
To an extent that is true, just like you can't yell "fire" in a crowded theater. Although I am sure if they simply called it a documentary it would be OK, right? Or if they called Rove evil then it is OK?
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Calling Karl Rove evil is a matter of opinion. The statements the piece made about Clinton are quite different, portraying many things which literally did not happen.
It's not 'an interpretation', it's not an amalgamation, it's not some kind of semi-history. The scenes he (Clinton) objected to either simply didn't happen, or happened very differently than they are portrayed.
Man, it is so annoying sticking up for that schmuck.
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Actually, saying you thought Rove was evil would be a matter of opinion. Saying he was, in fact, evil, could be libelous. Making a docudrama that displayed him committing evil acts, without basis in fact, would be defamation and he'd have a case.
Clinton could have waited till after the shows aired and then sued for defamation -- and still could, with justification, I think -- but I'm guessing he and other people falsely represented preferred it not show at all, since people's opinions will be formed from the show and not the news stories afterwards. I agree that threatening the network's license was the wrong move, and heavyhanded. Threats of lawsuits would have been just as good and possibly more effective.
Edited to add: for the record, I have not seen the shows in question. Nor have I seen the Reagan biopic, or anything at all by Michael Moore, or any of Oliver Stone's political movies. Spin bores me, when it doesn't piss me off.
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Defamation law is also different as applied to public figures as well. Clinton, Rove, Bush are all public figures so that figures in it as well.
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quote:Defamation law is also different as applied to public figures as well. Clinton, Rove, Bush are all public figures so that figures in it as well.
From my understanding, publishing something defamatory that one knows to be false constitutes actual malice. Since nobody is disputing that the director and screenwriter knew the scenes in question are false, the difference in the law for public figures is moot.
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