From the Ministry of Truth: 9/11: The Movie!

[elucidator]

Today on MSNBC, right-wing commentator Frank Gaffney cited a made-up scene in The Path To 9/11, in which former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger allegedly refuses to give an order to the CIA to take out bin Laden. 9/11 Commission Chairman Thomas Kean was forced to acknowledge the scene was fictionalized and the writer of the film, Cyrus Nowrasteh, said it was “improvised.”

Gaffney said, “I don’t know the facts here.” Nonetheless, he continued, “To the extent there is basis for this kind of reporting, I think it suggests a risk-averse attitude that was characteristic of the Clinton administration.”

From Think Progress
http://thinkprogress.org/
which is staying right on top of this thing.

[John_Mace]

@Otto

As I recall, the biggest gripe with the Reagan movie was that it included a scene in which Reagan said something to the effect of people with AIDS deserve what they get, and the line was pulled following the protests that the president who said nothing about AIDS for the first several years of his administration might not have thought the dirty homos got what was coming to them.

If you see no quantitative and qualitative difference between the supposition that Reagan might have said something bad about PWAs and the flat out falsehoods apparently portrayed in this film then is there really a lot of point in continuing the discussion?

@elucidator

When they're flat out busted, caught red-handed, the standard tighty righty response is to try to present some instance, however flimsy, that will permit them to believe that there is some "debate", that the matter is not settled but somehow controversial. When they've no leg to stand on, they try to stand on ours, and claim that its a matter of perspective, different strokes, doncha know....

Go back and look at who brought up the idea of comparing those two TV shows, and if you want to call him a tighty right be my guest.

[Boyo_Jim]

Oh you people and your politics! Here’s what I want:

• I want Darrell Hammond as Bill Clinton, and Valerie Bertinelli as Monica Lewinski and I want to see a convincing Oval Office blow job and cigar reacharound.

• Conchata Farrell as Linda Tripp having phone sex with both of them.

• Mike Myers as George Stephanopoulos

• Candy Bergen as Hillary. She occasionally provides Bill pity sex.

• Kirsten Dunst as Chelsea, and the Olson twins as the Bush girls. Basically, I see a lot of keggers and raves, and Secret Service men taking X and “Servicing” the First Nymphets.

• Lorenzo Lamas as Osama bin Laden

• Tony Shaloub as Mullah Omar

• with a special appearance by Samuel L Jackson and a thousand snakes, for a VERY special re-enactment of Colin Powell’s UN speech.

It’ll be the biggest thing since Speed 2!!

[Otto]

@John Mace

Go back and look at who brought up the idea of comparing those two TV shows, and if you want to call him a tighty right be my guest.

I really don’t care who brought up comparing the two. Whoever brought it up it’s ridiculous. Whoever continues to make the comparison it’s ridiculous. The two are not comparable.

[John_Mace]

@Otto

The two are not comparable.

In your mind. They are two TV movies about subjects that create lots of partisan wrangling, and that different groups tried to get altered or pulled altogether. If you’ve got a better comparison, let’s see it.

[elucidator]

@John Mace

…If you’ve got a better comparison, let’s see it.

Your record as the supreme craftsman of straight lines is assured. Rest, Maestro!

[Marley23]

@Otto

I really don’t care who brought up comparing the two. Whoever brought it up it’s ridiculous. Whoever continues to make the comparison it’s ridiculous. The two are not comparable.

I was comparing the controversies, Otto, not the accuracy of the films. I think Ronnie probably did feel that way about AIDS patients and I know the scene with Berger is pure fiction. The issue I was raising is that Democrats feel about the Berger scene :: Republicans feel about the AIDS scene. In terms of the reaction to the two movies, I think the comparison is okay. If ABC doesn’t do for the Democrats what CBS did for the Republicans, I think that speaks for itself.

[John_Mace]

You keep saying that, but you never deliver. Give us the goods, 'luc. I have no idea what you’re referring to.

[elucidator]

It is your innocence which renders perfect. It would be an unpardonable sin to change that.

[Terrifel]

@RTFirefly

They’ve seen the whole thing, and they think it’s great.

And, really, why would they not, given how the film is likely to be recieved?

1. ABC shows Part One on 9/10, covering the Clint:mad:n* presidency starting with the first attacks on the WTC (and how much airtime will be devoted to the successful capture and prosecution of those conspirators? We wonders, precious, yes we wonders), and including numerous instances of “dramatic license” underscoring how Clinton repeatedly allowed bin Laden to slip through his fingers.

2. The audience stews over Part One for a day, with full awareness of what is to happen as a result of Clinton’s blunders.

3. ABC shows Part Two on 9/11, which even-handedly acknowledges how the Bush presidency may also HOLY SHIT! THE FIRST TOWER HAS BEEN HIT! have made a few THERE GOES ANOTHER PLANE INTO THE SECOND TOWER! missteps both THE PENTAGON HAS BEEN HIT! AMERICA IS UNDER ATTACK! before and ANOTHER JETLINER IS DOWN IN PENNSYLVANIA! during the **OH JESUS THE TOWERS ARE COLLAPSING! ** attacks.

4. Part Two ends with a scene of President Bush (who may well have taken immediate command of the crisis as far as the film is concerned) solemnly addressing the nation as a prelude to unleashing righteous ass-kicking in Afghanistan (and any other freedom-hating nations that might probably have been responsible at that point or the hypothetical future, who’s to say, nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more). The End. Cue elections.

*P.S. click on the “mad” smiley above for a keen example of “Link Chat,” the awesome new fad invented by the SDMB’s own MrDibble!

[Leaper]

@Boyo Jim

• Conchata Farrell as Linda Tripp having phone sex with both of them.

Not John Goodman?!?

[Terrifel]

@Terrifel

*P.S. click on the “mad” smiley above for a keen example of “Link Chat,” the awesome new fad invented by the SDMB’s own MrDibble!

*P.P.S. Do not attempt “Link Chat” with insufficient previewing, or while drunk.

[elucidator]

@Leaper

Not John Goodman?!?

After years with Roseanne and then King Ralph. he should be permitted whatever shriveled dignity remains.

[elucidator]

@Terrifel

And, really, why would they not, given how the film is likely to be recieved?.. The End. Cue elections…

[golf clap]

[John_Mace]

@elucidator

It is your innocence which renders perfect. It would be an unpardonable sin to change that.

Yeah. You keep thinkin’ there, 'luc. That’s what you’re good at.

@Terrifel

ABC shows Part One on 9/10, covering the Clintn* presidency starting with the first attacks on the WTC (and how much airtime will be devoted to the successful capture and prosecution of those conspirators? We wonders, precious, yes we wonders)…

Dirty, tricksy Clintonses… we hates them, we do!

[elucidator]

What still nags at me is the futility of falsifying events to no purpose. If one really wanted to, one could take actual facts and quotes and fashion an equally mendacious crockumentary, without leaving open any glaring weaknesses. Our very own Douchebag could have taken the same material and constructed a towering cathedral of buttwhistle, complete with ramparts and flying buttresses, simply by slanting and judicious editing.

So why expose themselves by fabricating incidents out of whole cloth? It seems so flat-footed and stupid. I have a theory.

The author, Mr. Unpronounceable, is no stranger to the tighty righty blechosphere. Little Green Footballs, FrontPage, NewsMax, etc. etc. I drop by these pages sometimes (God alone knows why…) and have noted that the stories in the movie that are most glaringly fictitious and malicious have had, for some time, currency on these sites. Stories repeated so often, they’ve become part of the woof and weave, part of the accepted history. We’ve seen it here, denizens of the deranged who present such stories as though they were simple fact, long established.

That’s what I think happened to Mr. Unpronounceable. He wasn’t so much lying as he was relaying bullshit that he accepted as fact. Its like saying “Al Gore claimed to invent the Internet”, he didn’t need to seek out a cite, everybody already knew it was true.

[JohnT]

And this, coming so soon after a British TV channel announced the future televising of a film about Bush being assassinated, shot in true cinema verite fashion ala United 93. Of course people will copy it with the intent of uploading it “if somebody else doesn’t”. As expected by the producers, I’m sure.

It’s enough to make you ask what’s this world coming to?

[EddyTeddyFreddy]

@JohnT

It’s enough to make you ask what’s this world coming to?

Hell, via handbasket, of course.

[Otto]

@John Mace

They are two TV movies about subjects that create lots of partisan wrangling, and that different groups tried to get altered or pulled altogether.

And an apple is a fruit that grows on a tree that many people find very tasty, and so is an orange.

The point remains, “The Reagans” caught a ridiculous amount of fire because of one speculative line that may or may not bear a resemblance to one of Reagan’s actual utterances. This thing makes up entire scenes that are verifiably factually and unapologetically false. If you can’t see the difference between one speculative line and multiple non-historical scenes then you’re not as bright as I gave you credit for.

[Scylla]

I hear there’s this scene where Donnie Wahlberg (from New Kids on The Block, how cool is that?) plays a CIA agent sent to Asassinate Osama Bin Laden. He’d got him in his sights, only Clinton or Albright calls and tells him not to shoot.
I could see why you guys wouldn’t want that fact getting out.

Anyway, since Farenheit 911 you don’t get any sympathy for me.
A long time ago this stopped being about the truth and became all about controlling the frame.