John J. Miller: Blacklisting ABC

A 9/11 miniseries that Clinton and the Left hate.

By John J. Miller
http://www.nationalreview.com/

The liberal blacklisting of an ABC miniseries on 9/11 has begun in earnest.

On Thursday, the New York Post reported that former President Clinton has written to ABC’s brass: “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.” In the Washington Post, former secretary of state Madeleine Albright described one scene as “false and defamatory” and former national-security adviser Sandy Berger — last seen trying to sneak classified documents out of the National Archives — said the show “flagrantly misrepresents my personal actions.”

The Path to 9/11 is scheduled to air on Sunday and Monday nights. More than anything else, its enemies seem to hate the fact that it directs most of the blame for the disaster of five years ago on someone other than President Bush. The anti-ABC drumbeats began about a week before Clinton’s involvement. Here’s what one lefty blogger had to say: “Back in 2003, CBS was forced to pull its miniseries ‘The Reagans,’ after conservative groups lambasted the network for crossing the line into advocacy against the Reagan administration. A similar effort should perhaps be undertaken to compel ABC to pull ‘The Path to 9/11.’”

Aren’t these guys supposed to be against preemptive strikes? They’ve certainly announced their opposition to pressuring networks over such matters, or at least former senator Tom Daschle has: When CBS axed The Reagans, he said that it “smells of intimidation to me.”

Unlike recent movies such as Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center and United 93, the ABC miniseries doesn’t concentrate solely on the events of 9/11. It does dramatize that day, but the bulk of the show focuses on what led up to the catastrophe: the failed attempt to destroy the Twin Towers in 1993, the embassy bombings in 1998, the attack on the U.S.S. Cole in 2000, and so on. The main character is FBI agent John O’Neill (played by Harvey Keitel), who leads a counterterrorism operation aimed at nabbing Yousef, Osama bin Laden, and their ilk. He is a diligent G-man, but the miniseries is, for the most part, a chronicle of massive failure.

The show is based on the work of the 9/11 Commission; chairman Thomas Kean, a Republican, played a role in its development. ABC spent $40 million to produce it. Even in Hollywood, that’s not chump change — especially for a television program.

If nothing else, The Path to 9/11 makes one thing abundantly clear: Hard-working law-enforcement officials had multiple opportunities to stop the terrorists before they wreaked their havoc, but inept leadership, mainly by political appointees of the Clinton administration, got in the way. Secretary of state Madeleine Albright comes off as a shrill obstructionist, CIA director George Tenet appears wimpy, and ambassador to Yemen Barbara Bodine (played by Patricia Heaton of Everybody Loves Raymond) is a word that rhymes with witch.

Worst of all is former national-security adviser Sandy Berger. He is the closest thing in the film to a villain who isn’t an actual terrorist. In one scene, a group of military operatives surrounds bin Laden in his remote Afghan compound. “Do we have clearance to load the package?” asks an American who is leading them. Berger refuses to give it — he simply flicks off his video-conferencing camera — and a remarkable opportunity to snatch or kill bin Laden slips away.

President Clinton’s appearances are confined to images from news conferences and his deposition: There he is denying his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, then explaining it away, and finally announcing his determination to battle terrorism. He comes off as fatally detached from America’s greatest challenges. In fairness, though, the miniseries does allow for a different interpretation: Although Clinton brought the Lewinsky mess upon himself, Republicans are to blame for letting it become a national distraction — and one that had bad consequences for O’Neill and his fellow terror hunters. Also, it’s worth mentioning that in Monday’s installment, when the miniseries turns to the early days of the Bush administration, then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice (played very effectively by 24 veteran Penny Johnson Jerald) comes off as an ignoramus, especially in a scene when she downsizes the responsibilities of counterterror official Richard Clarke (an unsung if earnest hero, by the film’s lights, and played by Stephen Root of Office Space). To call this a pro-Bush miniseries, as its critics surely will do, is a bit too simple.

Directed by David Cunningham, The Path to 9/11 is an exercise in gritty realism. During stretches of it, viewers will feel like they’re watching actual events unfold as they really did — with the addition of handheld cameras being placed just so. The script, written by Cyrus Nowrasteh, moves along at a brisk pace.

At a question-and-answer session following a screening last month in Washington, D.C., Richard Ben-Veniste, a Democratic member of the 9/11 Commission, challenged the film’s authenticity. “There was no incident like the one portrayed,” he said of the scene in which Berger vetoes the bin Laden operation. He also objected to the negative portrayal of Albright: “I was disturbed by that aspect of it.”

Kean, for his part, described the miniseries as “pretty accurate.” He also added: “It’s dramatized in a couple of areas, but it’s a dramatization that’s true to the story.”

Adds Nowrasteh, in an interview with NRO: “The Berger scene is a fusing and melding of at least a dozen capture opportunities. The sequence is true, but it’s a conflation. This is a docu-drama. We collapse, condense, and create composite characters. But within the rules of docu-drama, we’re well documented.”

Viewers, of course, will mostly connect with the drama and the characters. There is some fine acting in this miniseries — I especially liked Prasanna Puwanarajah as a vexed Pakistani who works with the CIA to capture Yousef. The most memorable character may be Ahmed Massoud, the Northern Alliance commander who fought against the Taliban in Afghanistan and was assassinated hours before 9/11. Played skillfully by actor Mido Hamada, who bears more than a passing resemblance to the most romantic images of Che Guevara, he’s a real scene-stealer. He speaks the best line in the whole miniseries, shortly after Berger’s refusal to authorize that bin Laden job: “Are there any men left in Washington, or are they all cowards?”

I have a question of my own: Where can I get an Ahmed Massoud t-shirt?

— John J. Miller is national political reporter for National Review and the author, most recently, of A Gift of Freedom: How the John M. Olin Foundation Changed America.