The Liberal Media Strikes Again

A few years ago--in 2003 to be exact--CBS was set to air a made-for-television movie entitled The Reagans. The movie was a docu-drama chronicling the life of former president Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy. It had a big name cast and a relatively high production value for a made-for-television project (it cost $16 million to produce and was ordered up specifically for sweeps week).

But before the scheduled broadcast date, a clamor grew among right-wing circles that the film was not sufficiently hagiographical. Apparently "The 20th Century's Greatest President" was portrayed in a less than flattering light in a few scenes. This led to a media storm of protest by right-leaning bloggers and commentators, none of whom had actually seen the movie, but all of whom denounced it as a left-wing smear job and demanded that CBS cancel it. Even the RNC got involved. Under pressure, CBS caved and cancelled its scheduled broadcast. The rights to the movie were given to CBS's sister station Showtime, which eventually aired it to little fanfare and a much smaller audience.

And keep in mind, this was a relatively flattering portrayal of a president who had been out of office for over 15 years, and it was slated to air during a non-election year.

Fast forward three years. With a pivotal election looming in just under two months--an election which seems likely to hinge on public perceptions of the "War on Terror"--ABC plans to air a political docu-drama entitled "The Path to 9/11". This mini-series, which was written by someone with well-documented conservative leanings, focuses on the missteps which led to the 9/11 attacks. If that alone was not enough to raise some red flags, it turns out that the producers of the movie have been actively pitching it to right-leaning bloggers and commentators, providing them with free copies of the film to screen, while refusing to extend the same courtesy to left-leaning bloggers.

So what about the content of the film? Well here's how Rush Limbaugh described the behind the scenes scuttlebut:

A friend of mine [Cyrus Nowrasteh] out in California has
produced and filmed -- I think it's a two-part mini-series on
9/11 that ABC is going to run in prime-time over two nights,
close to or on 9/11. It's sort of surprising that ABC's picked it
up, to me. I've had a lot of people tell me about it, my friends
told me about it. . . . And from what I have been told, the film
really zeros in on the shortcomings of the Clinton administration
in doing anything about militant Islamofascism or terrorism
during its administration. It cites failures of Bill Clinton and
Madeleine Albright and Sandy Burglar.

And here's conservative blogger Justin Levine (at Patterico):

The Clinton administration will likely go ballistic over this film.
(Perhaps why ABC isn’t pushing it at as much as they should
be??) It does not have a “partisan” feel to it by any means. The
Bush administation comes in for some criticism (Condi Rice in
particular comes off rather poorly), but that is nothing compared
to the depiction of Sandy Berger and former Secretary of State
Madeline Albright. I doubt that they will be able to show their
faces in public after this (and also helps to explain why Berger
was so eager to try to illegally remove classified documents from
the archives before his Senate testimony on the 9/11 events).
If Bill Clinton’s current purpose in life is to solidify a positive
“legacy” for his time in office, this film has the potential to be
his biggest hurdle to overcome yet.

Now, I haven't seen the film, so I can't judge its historical merits, but these reviews and the general marketing strategy for the movie do raise some eyebrows. As does the fact that the film apparently perpetuates a number of demonstrable falsehoods. That's why it's encouraging to know that the producers of the film are already planning a massive free distribution of DVDs to high schools teachers, a move intended to encourage the use of the film for educational purposes.

Now let's imagine, for just a moment, that the facts were reversed, that a major television network had plans to air a mini-series about 9/11 that was written and produced by someone with well-documented liberal leanings and that purportedly pinned most of the blame for the event on the Bush administration, while largely giving Clinton a pass. Let's further suppose that the film was being selectively pitched to left-leaning bloggers and commentators who were all raving about it and celebrating the way the film really sticks it to Bush. And just for the hell of it, let's imagine that the film was scheduled to air just before an incredibly important election that was likely to hinge on voters' perceptions of which party is better able to fight terrorism. Oh, and did I mention that free copies were being sent to every high school in the country for use in history classes?

I think you probably see where I'm going with this. If the situation were reversed, it would result in a right-wing firestorm that would dwarf by many magnitudes the fury of a supernova. Every single conservative commentator, blogger, pundit, and politician would be absolutely apoplectic, and ABC would be lucky if it survived the fallout. If The Reagans was enough to provoke a right-wing media frenzy, God help us all if a network were to pull this 9/11 stunt in reverse.

The responsible thing for ABC to do at this point would be to delay airing the film until after the November elections. The fact that anyone ever considered airing something like this in the heart of an election season is a sign of seriously impaired judgment. But I doubt ABC will do the responsible thing. The same "liberal media" that almost instantly caved to conservative hysteria over The Reagans will likely air this 9/11 movie as planned. Given the choice between incurring the wrath of the Left or the Right, media executives almost always choose the former. That's just the way our liberal media operates.

UPDATE: More fuel on the fire. Apparently President Clinton, Madeleine Albright, and Sandy Berger--who are all reportedly portrayed negatively in the film--have requested and been denied permission to view an advanced screening copy. This despite the fact that all sorts of obscure right-wing bloggers have apparently seen the movie already. Hmmm.

Also, more evidence that the film gets some key parts of the plot wrong.