September 11 and the Clintonistas

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Executives at ABC began wimping out as soon as Bill Clinton and some other Democrats said, "dare you."

The partisan-driven effort to kill ABC's "The Path to 9/11," a two-part miniseries that was scheduled to air tonight, elicited this reaction from the Senate Democratic leader: "It smells of intimidation. I think anytime accusations arise when the essence of the judgment made by television producers is influenced by outside forces we have to call into question whether that level of intimidation is appropriate." The New York Times, meanwhile, lamented in an editorial about the "Soviet-style chill embedded in the idea that we, as a nation, will not allow critical portrayals of one of our own recent leaders."

OK, here's the truth: It was actually former Sen. Tom Daschle, minority leader in 2003, who said that in response to conservative criticism of CBS's "The Reagans." Ditto for the NYT editorial, which appeared on Nov. 5, 2003. How things change. This time around the Senate minority leader, Harry Reid, is leading the "Soviet-style" intimidation of television producers to squelch a miniseries unflattering to the Clinton administration.

In a letter to Disney President and CEO Robert Iger, Mr. Reid and four other Democratic senators "urge [him] to cancel this broadcast," suggesting it constitutes "right-wing political propaganda." The chief culprit, the letter points out, is writer/producer Cyrus Nowrasteh, whose "political leaning" and "public statements," as well as his "promoting this miniseries across conservative blogs and talk shows," raise "serious questions about the motivations of [the movie's] creators and those who approved the deeply flawed program." Talk about Big Brother.

But the most egregious portion of the letter is in Mr. Reid's implied threat to seek to revoke Disney's broadcast license. "The Communications Act of 1934," the letter states, "provides [Disney] with a free broadcast license predicated on the fundamental understanding of [Disney's] principle obligation to act as a trustee of the public airwaves in serving the public interest." We'll cite an even older precedent, Mr. Reid. It's called the First Amendment, which still states that "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press."

We haven't seen the miniseries. But from reviews we've read it's apparent that both the Clinton administration and the Bush administration come in for some serious criticism for failing to prevent September 11. For instance, the miniseries portrays a scene where then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice demotes the National Security Council's Richard Clarke, who had been trying to alert the administration to the threat Osama bin Laden posed. The miniseries also doesn't glide over the failure of the White House to take seriously an August 2001 memo titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike U.S."

It's no secret that former Clinton administration officials, including the former president himself, are quite sensitive to questions about their response, or lack thereof, to al Qaeda's attacks on America. It's also indisputable that the Clinton White House had at least three chances to capture bin Laden, but didn't do anything. That's not "right-wing propaganda." It's called history, and one thing that Clintonistas have never been very good at is coming to terms with history.