The Company They Keep

This is a far later night than I was at all prepared for (special thanks to Jim for making it less late than it would otherwise have been). I knew it was going to be late, but I had no expectation that it would be this late. Still, I promised myself that I'd post at least once during any waking day, and I haven't got anything up yet, so here you go. I wanted to touch once more on The Path to 9/11 before it got too far away from us.

Not everyone was upset over ABC's flirtation with truthiness in the 9/11 miniseries. The Reverend Lou Sheldon, head of the Traditional Values Coalition (traditional apparently defined as circa 1812), blasted ABC's decision to "edit" the show in response to complaints by Clinton administration officials. A TVC statement quoted at the ABC News website accused the network of reworking some of the mini-series as a result of caving to a "tantrum by former President Bill Clinton because it portrayed him unfavorably." It accused the "liberal" ABC executives of going "weak in the knees when Mr. Clinton shrieks." Unfortunately, the author of this statement seemed to think that Clinton had a lock on ABC News, which had nothing to do with the mini-series that came out of ABC Entertainment. TVC Executive Director, Andrea Lafferty, claimed "that the docudrama was factual. Lawyers from ABC vetted all of this thoroughly (which makes even more remarkable the fact that it was riddled with inaccuracies). In closing, she said, "ABC's lack of spine is what is 'despicable,' not this factual program."

In other developments concerning this "factual program," (via AMERICAblog) American Airlines is considering pulling its ads from ABC or even undertaking legal action in response to the mini's portrayal of American letting Mohammed Atta get on its flight from Logan Airport in Boston despite having reservations. That incident never happened, although one similar to it occurred with USAir in Portland, Maine. It will be interesting to see what other unexpected ramifications this mini-series will have.