A Movie, a President, and a Mouse

The path to scandal.

By Anna Nimouse
http://www.nationalreview.com
September 21, 2007 5:00 AM

I think I’ve found the next E! True Hollywood Story, and it’s packed with all that you might expect: plenty of deception, outrage, and back-biting politics (and no, this is not about Paris Hilton).

The protagonist in our story is a principled young man named Cyrus, and his story begins with a commission by ABC to write a script about the events surrounding the tragedy of September 11, 2001. ABC, desperately trying to beat out other networks, requires the assurance that Cyrus will beat them to the punch.

Thus, Cyrus began his task: to edit an almost insurmountable collection of information concerning the events and strategies leading up to 9/11, and to put it into a screenplay that was at once compelling and absolutely honest. He combed through not just the 9/11 report, but also books, magazines, newspapers, and court transcripts; he interviewed multiple advisers and people involved in the events. He seemed determined that this story should not be politicized, and that the truth should be publicized. The public deserved, nay, needed desperately to know the series of events making up this life and death tale. In the end, Cyrus delivered a script that ran 300 pages with over 260 speaking parts.

Because ABC insisted that Cyrus accompany each scene with no less than two footnotes and two sources to verify that the assertions were true, the annotation he turned in was 50 pages longer than the script itself. ABC, their lawyers, and fact-checkers approved the script, and it went into production. A rather unique mini-series called A Path to 9/11 emerged, and ABC scheduled it to air.

And then, they showed it to the press.

The mini-series was broken into two main sections: The first of these sections, because it dealt mainly with the events leading up to the terrorist attacks, portrayed former President Clinton in, well, less-than-flattering light. The second part was equally condemning of President Bush, though the press didn’t get quite that far; they were too outraged to bother with the second portion.



Rumors started and fury grew over the allegedly unfair treatment of the Clinton administration. One scene particularly goaded the press: it was a retrospectively tragic scene, in which The U.S. had Bin Laden surrounded and no one, least of all National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, would give the go ahead. Berger objected to the scene claiming “The one time we had good information about bin Laden's whereabouts was in August of 1998. We fired 50 tomahawk missiles into the camp where we believed he was… There was no other occasion while we were in office that we had an opportunity to get bin Laden or eyes on bin Laden.” Then, when asked about the specific incident portrayed in the movie, he answered, “I believe in that situation the CIA itself called off the operation because they didn't believe it was reliable.”

Methinks he doth protest too much. Michael Scheuer, former chief of the OBL unit at the CIA’s counterterrorist center sent ABC News an e-mail, claiming, “the core of the movie is irrefutably true: the Clinton administration had 10 chances to capture or kill Bin Laden.”

Gary Schroen, former CIA field agent who was the first American into Afghanistan after 9/11, said publicly, “…the movie is remarkably accurate.” He also maintains that there were 13 such opportunities to capture Bin Laden. Lt. Col. Robert Patterson, chief White House military aide to President Clinton, said, “In terms of conveying how the Clinton administration handled its opportunities to get bin Laden, it’s 100 percent factually correct… I was there with Clinton and Berger and watched the missed opportunities occur.”

Bill Clinton commented, “I don't want any lies in there parading as truth, that's all.” Now that’s a refreshing change of pace, so major media outlets took up the chorus.

In fact, Wolf Blitzer provided Sandy Berger and William Cohen prime time on CNN in order to disparage the movie and demand that it be pulled off the air. None of them had in fact, viewed the film, which de facto prevented them from “lying” about it. In Berger’s interview, Blitzer even failed to inquire about the 2003 incident, in which Berger stole original documents from the national archives, destroyed them, and then lied about it. It would have been a valuable and highly pertinent part of the interview, since Berger was in fact sent by Clinton, ostensibly to prepare for their testimony at the 9/11 Commission, and since Berger pled guilty to charges in April of 2005. Apparently there wasn’t space to squeeze in a bit of worthwhile information, since interviewer and interviewee were set on discussing a movie both have admittedly not seen. In their own words, “only on CNN.”

After a letter from Harry Reid and five other senators (again to Disney/ABC) threatening revocation of their station licenses if they didn’t pull or re-cut the movie, and the urgings of Congresswoman Louise Slaughter, on the house floor, that we all “consider the backgrounds of the people behind this,” ABC finally caved. It did indeed re-cut the scene in question and some other footage of Clinton testifying about Monica. All in all, about 3 minutes (of ‘lies’) were lost, but, thankfully, the battle was won. The Path to 9/11 had almost 28 million viewers over two nights, winning outright in the ratings on night two.



So the question remains, why has Disney/ABC not yet released the DVD?

They had slated it for a January release. Then they rescheduled it for June. June has come and gone; no release, no future date, and no explanation. Thousands of bootleg copies have been sold on the Internet, such that Disney attorneys threatened eBay, and eBay took down the ads.

Incredibly, the Clinton gang, with Bob Iger, might be the reason there is no scheduled release of the DVD of this fantastically successful show. Is Bill Clinton in bed with a mouse? (Sorry…) More importantly, is the mouse afraid for its broadcast license?

Otherwise, where is the fiscal responsibility of Disney/ABC to their stockholders? With 28 million viewers one might reasonably expect sales of a third of that, or roughly $200 million in proceeds. That’s money that would eventually make its way into dividends in some retirement accounts. I smell a class action lawsuit brewing. By not releasing a highly successful film on DVD, when even Poseidon (an incredible $160 million flop), was released on DVD not even four months after its theatrical release, the Walt Disney Company seems to be purposefully not trying to make money, and that’s a breach of fiduciary responsibility.

One wonders, if Hilary weren’t running for president, would Disney be showing more of a profit? Two hundred million dollars is a lot of money to allow your company to leave behind because of a personal friendship or political partisanship. In fact, it’s downright scandalous.

—Anna Nimouse is a nom de cyber for an actress and mother living in Hollywood.