Accuracy, or Censorship?

The "-based" community is at it again (where did their "reality" go? I have no idea, and I've been trying to find out for years), as Representatives John Conyers, Jr., John Dingell, Jane Harman, and Louise Slaughter, Democrats all, released an open letter to the Walt Disney Company and ABC, asking for "factual accuracy" in the two-part miniseries, "The Path to 9/11."

Mr. Robert A. Iger
President and CEO
The Walt Disney Company

Dear Mr. Iger:

We are advised that ABC is scheduled to air a two-part mini-series entitled "The Path to 9/11" on September 10 and September 11. While we have not yet seen this program, news reports raise serious questions about its accuracy. Therefore, we request that the inaccuracies described herein be addressed immediately and that the program be thoroughly reviewed and revised for accuracy before it airs.

Among our concerns about the program are the following: first, it reportedly contains a scene in which Sandy Berger, the National Security Adviser to President Bill Clinton, declines to give Central Intelligence Agency operatives the authority to capture or kill Osama Bin Laden, and in which those operatives are outside a house where Bin Laden is located. This account has been expressly contradicted by Richard Clarke, a high-ranking counterterrorism official in both the Clinton and Bush Administrations.

Second, the film reportedly contains a scene in which the Central Intelligence Agency declines to share information about the 9/11 hijackers with the FBI and ascribes that failure to the so-called "wall," limiting information sharing by the Department of Justice in certain circumstances, and established by the Department of Justice in an internal memorandum.

This scene is puzzling at best, and inaccurate at worst. According to a Republican Member of the 9/11 Commission, former Senator Slade Gorton, the "Department of Justice guidelines at issue were internal to the Justice Department and were not even sent to any other agency. The guidelines had no effect on the Department of Defense and certainly did not prohibit it from communicating with the FBI, the CIA or anyone else."

These two examples alone create substantial doubt about the overall accuracy of this program. September 11th is a day of mourning and remembrance for every American. We do not believe that it is appropriate for it to be tainted by false assertions of blame or partisan spin.

To avoid that occurrence, we urge you to review this film and correct these and other inaccuracies. We appreciate your prompt attention and reply to this time sensitive matter.

Sincerely,

Representatives John Conyers, Jr., John Dingell, Jane Harman, Louise Slaughter

Let's address the first inaccuracy brought about by our fine upstanding Democrats, the claim apparently made in the film that, "...it reportedly contains a scene in which Sandy Berger, the National Security Adviser to President Bill Clinton, declines to give Central Intelligence Agency operatives the authority to capture or kill Osama Bin Laden..."

This is demonstrably inaccurate, and I thank the fine Congresspeople for pointing that out. There should not be one scene showing Clinton Administration officials declining chances to kill Osama bin Laden, but four.

The 9/11 Commission Report states unequivocally that on four separate occasions--Spring 1998, June 1999, December 1999, and August 2000--U.S. National Security Advisor Sandy Burger was "an obstacle to action," preventing strikes that would have perhaps killed Osama bin Laden, decapitating al Qaeda well in advance of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks that killed nearly three thousand innocent people. This mini-series, if released with only one incidence of the Clinton Adminstration failing to kill Osama bin Laden when he had the chance instead of the four chances we know that Samuel "Sandy" Berger blocked, is a whitewash of history. Like the good Congresspeople said, we deserve accuracy.

Further, I am against any scene in the film that make's the infamous "Gorelick wall" seem "puzzling at best, and inaccurate at worst."

There should be absolutely no doubt of the effect of the Gorelick wall in hindering terrorist investigations:

As the No. 2 person in the Clinton Justice Department, Ms. Gorelick rejected advice from the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, who warned against placing more limits on communications between law-enforcement officials and prosecutors pursuing counterterrorism cases, according to several internal documents written in summer 1995. (none) "It is hard to be totally comfortable with instructions to the FBI prohibiting contact with the United States Attorney's Offices when such prohibitions are not legally required," U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White wrote Ms. Gorelick six years before the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and at the Pentagon.

As Senator John Cornyn was quoted in the same article:

"These documents show what we've said all along: Commissioner Gorelick has special knowledge of the facts and circumstances leading up to the erection and buttressing of 'that wall' that, before the enactment of the Patriot Act, was the primary obstacle to the sharing of communications between law enforcement and intelligence agencies."

I agree with the four Democratic Representatives that urges Disney/ABC to "review this film and correct these and other inaccuracies."

I do highly suspect, however, that if Disney/ABC squared the film with the historical record that their cries would only become more shrill and bombastic.

As for this and other ham-handed attempts at censorship by liberal Democrats, Giaus astutely notes:

Back when Fahrenheit 911 was the talk of the blogosphere, all the criticism I read was about its accuracy. There were quite a lot of bloggers that were tearing it apart for its twisting of fact. A lot of bloggers wanted to set the record straight, but to my knowledge not one of those people I was reading at that time before I started blogging myself was calling for it to be silenced. They only wanted the record straight.

Now we have a new "docudrama" about 9/11 coming out. And the left side of the blogosphere and mainstream Democratic politicians are calling for it to be radically changed or silenced. Some are gloating that they think they have silenced some voices.

Have you noticed the difference here?

One group decries the accuracy, the other decries the existence. Who is in favor of silencing the opposition again? Who is in favor of curtailing the free speech of others?

I think the answer is obvious.