Bill Clinton’s Path To 9/11

07 Sep, 2006 by John Hawkins

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The Democrats are flipping out over ABC’s movie, The Path to 9/11, that’s set to debut this week-end:

“A furious Bill Clinton is warning ABC that its mini-series “The Path to 9/11” grossly misrepresents his pursuit of Osama bin Laden – and he is demanding the network “pull the drama” if changes aren’t made.

Clinton pointedly refuted several fictionalized scenes that he claims insinuate he was too distracted by the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal to care about bin Laden and that a top adviser pulled the plug on CIA operatives who were just moments away from bagging the terror master, according to a letter to ABC boss Bob Iger obtained by The Post.

The former president also disputed the portrayal of then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright as having tipped off Pakistani officials that a strike was coming, giving bin Laden a chance to flee.

“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,” the four-page letter said.

The movie is set to air on Sunday and Monday nights. Monday is the fifth anniversary of the attacks.

Based on the 9/11 commission’s report, the miniseries is also being provided to high schools as a teaching aid – although ABC admits key scenes are dramatizations.

The letter, written by Bruce Lindsey, head of the Clinton Foundation, and Douglas Bond, a top lawyer in Clinton’s office, accuses the ABC drama of “bias” and a “fictitious rewriting of history that will be misinterpreted by millions of Americans.”

Having the Clinton Administration complain that they look bad in this mini-series is like a football team that lost a game 56-0 griping that the highlight reel on the news that night made them look bad. The truth is that the Clinton Administration didn’t take terrorism as seriously as they should have and did very little of note to prevent it. Since that’s the case, the Clinton Administration can’t possibly come off well in any sort of mini-series that accurately discusses what happened.

Does that mean the mini-series is spot-on accurate? Since it hasn’t been shown yet, it’s hard to say. But let’s hope that ABC didn’t pull a Michael Moore and just stuck to the facts because given the poor performance of the Clinton Administration on terror related issues, there would be no need for even the most vehement critics of the Clintons to exaggerate their record on terrorism to make them look incompetent.