Sep 07 2006
Senate Dems Demand Elimination Of Free Speech
While emotional liberals always miscast any conservative outcries to erroneous claims from the left as censorship, the true meaning of the word is applied when government threatens or punishes speech it doesn’t like or want to hear. So while calls for boycotts, etc are one person’s free speech colliding with another, the calls of censorship have been basically over the top. Until now that is. In an emotional and angry response to a TV Movie the Senate Dems are trying to repeal the First Amendment and destroy our Right to Free Speech by a real true act of censorship:
We write with serious concerns about the planned upcoming broadcast of The Path to 9/11 mini-series on September 10 and 11.
…
We therefore urge you to cancel this broadcast to cease Disney’s plans to use it as a teaching tool in schools across America through Scholastic. Presenting such deeply flawed and factually inaccurate misinformation to the American public and to children would be a gross miscarriage of your corporate and civic responsibility to the law, to your shareholders, and to the nation.
…
We urge you, after full consideration of the facts, to uphold your responsibilities as a respected member of American society and as a beneficiary of the free use of the public airwaves to cancel this factually inaccurate and deeply misguided program.
The letter notes ABC’s free access to broadcast is a civic privilege. One that can be taken away of course. While not said specifically, the allusion to the privilege and responsibility and trust is clearly meant to intimidate. For those on the far left, this is what it really looks like when government officials intimidate someone and expose them to ridicule. You thought Plame got roughed up? You know how many families exist on Disney and ABC salaries? More here at Blue Crab Boulevard. H/T reader Larwyn
I wonder which is going to cost the Dems the most votes in November; the movie or their reaction to it.
Hopefully both, Spook. Hopefully both.
Carol
I saw this at LGF. This really burns me up. It is just getting worse and worse. I have really been looking forward to this docudrama as a realistic, accurate, alternative to the leftist garbage out there claiming to be truthful but based on fiction.
Is there anything these people cite as being untruthful in this? No. Of course not. They don’t want the truth to be known. The basic truth that their left leaning ideaology is bad for defense.
Change your ideaology, not the history books.
This isn’t Soviet Russia or Palestine.
I never would have dreamed to say such things about absolutely fictional “documentaries” or “docudramas” like “Syriana” or “Farenheit 9/11”. It is their right to lie.
Why can’t we have a right to tell the truth?
Dems threaten government censorship if they don’t get their own way ……
I have tried to stay out of the fray regarding the upcoming miniseries, The Path to 9/11 which is due to air over two nights on 10 and 11 September. It is impossible not to know that former President Bill Clinton is ballistic, that Madeline Albright an…
Addendum to what I said: they do, of course, make citations, but these citations are all bunk.
For instance, the Clarke statement, debunked earlier on this site. Recorded almost exactly from the 9/11 commission report.
This statement: “Reports suggest that an FBI agent who worked on 9/11 and served as a consultant to ABC on this program quit halfway through because, “he thought they were making things up.†[MSNBC, September 7, 2006] ”
Reports… suggest… that he quit because “he thought they were making things up”? Did he say that and do that, or did “reports suggest” he said and did that?
And, this:
“Even Thomas Kean, who serves as a paid consultant to the miniseries, has admitted that scenes in the film are fictionalized. [“9/11 Miniseries Is Criticized as Inaccurate and Biased,†New York Times, September 6, 2006] ”
Of course scenes in a docudrama will be “fictionalized”. How can you have the terrorists walk from their car to the airport without “fictionalizing” it, as we have no video footage of this event?
The films of the Left, on the other hand, are lies straight through and through… on 9/11 and the Middle East, anyway.
You guys are angry. I’m positively gleeful. The Democrats are the gift that keeps on giving.
I read somewhere that Shirley Temple is still alive. You think we can get Harry Reid to run her over with his limo before the November elections?
He’d probably go for it.
I appreciate the optimism, but…
A lot of people are angry. This isn’t some partisan bickering point. These guys are rabid. They have already instituted a new level of extreme Left propaganda to mainstream America. Now, they are introducing extreme Left censorship tactics.
Maybe this will score some Republican points?
If we win in the short time and this kind of thing continues… we will lose in the long run.
Personally, I am unaware of precedents here… maybe mainstream propaganda like Farenheit 9/11 and Syriana is not without precedent… the movie “Hair”? maybe… maybe, what, “Easy Rider”?… maybe mainstream calls of censorship – of this magnitude – are not without precedent?
I have kids and quite a number of years left, hopefully, and I would like to be able to stay here. With 34% of the population answering “Yes” to ‘do you think the government had something to do with 9/11’ – to paraphrase – I am concerned.
Not much anyone can do about it, though.
Maybe some opinion polls will show me wrong and you guys right on this. Maybe it only serves to hurt the Left.
Just doesn’t make sense to me, though.
This is stupid as hell. It really is. I don’t doubt that the film is not gospel, but the the truth is the facts are probably worse. Perhaps they would prefer a series, going into greater and more specific detail.
For years we have seen people like Michael Moore do their b.s. bushitler films and now Spike Lee has come up with some crappy film about Katrina, but that’s ok. Why they can even kill Bush in a “docudrama” and somehow act as if that is acceptable or normal or whatever.
But hey, someone points out the obvious, Bill Clinton did not get Osama any of the times he had the oppurtunity to do it and the Democrats forget we have a Constitution.
They worry about the right of some freaking terrorists to place phone calls, but Disney’s right to run a movie? Screw that.
And, this:
“Even Thomas Kean, who serves as a paid consultant to the miniseries, has admitted that scenes in the film are fictionalized. [“9/11 Miniseries Is Criticized as Inaccurate and Biased,†New York Times, September 6, 2006] â€
Kean is being interviewed on Fox and Friends as I write this. He just said that many of the people who are criticizing this have not yet seen it, and that “it is very well done”. So much for using his name to slam the movie.
Talk about parallel universe logic. From the Left we have criticism of “fictionalized scenes” in a docu-“DRAMA” and praise of totally untruthful and fabricated scenes in MM’s “documentary”. Strange world in which we live.
One more thing: (if I sound angry, it’s because I am) I can’t seem to work up any sympathy for one of the people who seems to be most offended by this movie — Sandy Burgler; a guy who got a slap on the wrist for stealing and destroying classified material when he should have ended up in a Federal Prison for a very long time. OK, rant over.
Sounds like this is not the role of the party that is supposed to take over Hollywood, oops Washington in the midterms.
Could they be realizing the polls have been smoked for the last recent history and they are finally waking up to the fact they have a problem?
Lamont has not achieved sainthood and old joe didn’t head for the bomb shelter. What’s a dem to do?
GW admits to CIA overseas facilities and the NYT circulation doesn’t double, what a concept.
I know it was lost in the Katie Couric kerfuffle. And the dems say GW ain’t shrewd.
Nancy Pelosi eat yer heart out, assuming you have one!
I most likely will not watch the “New Agenda Revised Edition” of this documentary, because of the fact I was never very fond of the Muffets!
Hey JFK supposedly did the wiggle with Marylin Monroe and had a wife that sure didn’t appear to be Hillary’s twin, and Mr. Clinton had a long and storied expose of involvement with Ms. Piggy!
Sorry Monica , get real and get over it.
Merlin, are you, by any chance, Carol Herman’s evil twin?
Another cool link on this:
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/015216.php
(I remain a skeptic this will do more good then harm. And I remain angry and disgusted at these people. But, as they say again and again in their jingo speak, “business as usual” — sic.)
Retired Spook
OOOh Carol’s gonna slap you sooooo soooo sillly
Snark off/
OOOh Carol’s gonna slap you sooooo soooo sillly
Aha! Then you don’t deny that you’re at least related? You both sound like interesting people to know.
Another Contrived Clinton Controversy…
All of the contrived hysteria in the last two days regarding the ABC made for television movie, The Path to 9-11 has itsÂ’ generations in the political philosophy of Bill Clinton. The highly orchestrated response of the Clinton spin machine wafted ove….