long years ago I worked with a woman who would start every sentence about the Kennedy assassination with the phrase, "well, when Lee Harvey Oswald was on trial..." she had seen a 'docudrama' on the Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald. you could not convince her that Oswald had never been brought to trial. of course he had. she saw it on TV.

The point of that little story is not to elicit a rueful chuckle, but to state an obvious fact...most folks get their news from TV. it should be incumbent upon any news entity that wishes to tell a story based on an actual event, particularly a recent one, to tell the truth. okay, telling the truth seems to have gone out of fashion. perhaps you can produce a better story if you "combine characters" and "compress time". perhaps by doing so you can better serve your agenda. but people see "Docu-" and they think "Documentary". what the devil is a "Docu-drama", anyway, and how does it relate to fact?

most of what I remember about Edward R Murrow is my father's respect for him. I remember Walter Cronkite...if he said something was true, then you could take it to the bank. where can busy people turn for their news today?

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To be fair, this is only a microscopic blight on an otherwise scrupulously honest media.

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Already, I'm told, Rush Limbaugh is passing off the scene in question as fact. But of course, he covers his fat ass by claiming his radio propaganda show is "entertainment," not news or even legitimate opinion-editorializing.

The real problem is that a great many average Americans cannot, or have not learned how, to discriminate and distinguish fiction from reality. I learned this at an early age
upon learning of "Superman" actor George Reeves' suicide; classmates opined that he must have used a "Krytonite" bullet and they fervently believed what they said. Of course we were children then, but look how many adults now belive in the fiction of "creationism."

Lately an e-mail has been making the rounds titled "All My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys" featuring about a dozen or so movie and television "cowboy" actors, Ronald Reagan among them--Significantly neglecting the only real cowboy actor hero and decorated World War II vet Audie Murphy--and upholding John Wayne as the greatest American hero of all time.

The entertainment industry has deliberately blurred the line between reality and fiction to the point that the average incurious American will accept withever bullshit spews from the TV screen as gospel. This endangers our democracy, while making the republic susceptible to authoritarian tyranny.

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"The real problem is that a great many average Americans cannot, or have not learned how, to discriminate and distinguish fiction from reality."
Absolutely correct. A work of historical fiction is still fiction. The problem is our culture that believes in everything the media says, whether its a journalist or a hollywood director. Some people on the left want to say Clinton did nothing wrong, but the fact is that he did not get bin Laden, people on the right want to absolve Bush of any responsibility for bin Laden, and now we have this mini-series, with Harvey freakin' Keitel, and people want to use it to ascribe blame. It's a freakin' mini-series. You think Michael Moore didn't take liberties? I loved his movie, and I think all Americans should see it. It isn't fiction, but it isn't entirely accurate. This mini-series is fiction, and won't be accurate. And if what Rx Limbaugh says bothers you, stop listening to him and stop hanging out with 70 year-old grumpy sons of bitches.

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I'd like to see a site put up that asks people to tell ABC and their affliated stations that they will turn away from watching and then send this pledge sheet to ABC and Disney so they know we believe truth is important and it's what we expect to see on programs designed to depict historical events.

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Streicher, the Nuremberg Jew baiting Nazi editor of Der Stuermer must be laughing their heads off in hell at the way the United States has changed since their day and and has adopted their tried and true methods to lie to the people to advance their agenda. How low we have fallen is not what keeps me awake at nights now, it is how much lower will we fall before we hit bottom, wake up and get these lying greed heads out of office and in jail where they belong

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As a Disney Board member and it's largest shareholder he has more than a little sway. He is also a FOB (friend of Bill), allowing Clinton to use one of his houses when visiting his daughter back when she was a student at Stanford. A hack job on a friend by a company you own a chunk of puts you on the spot.

I would love to have heard the conversations between Jobs and Bob Iger (Disney CEO).

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I want to know who was behind this attempt to propagandize 9/11? Was it Karl Rove? Was it some shady billionaires who are doing the dirty work for Bush, the impeach-Clinton fanatics, and the right wing Republicans? How did ABC allow themselves to become a tool of the Propaganda Ministry of the latest version of the Third Reich?
Let's get some answers? How was a major network used this way by Bush's nefarious propagandists? Let's get names. Let's get who made a deal with whom, and how these sleaze merchants got together.
The Swiftboat campaign was merely a prelude to what we can expect from the Republicans if this movement to control all thought in the USA isn't exposed.

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blame someone else for their failures?

The Bush/Cheney mantra: WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS, BLAME CLINTON!

When are we going to IMPEACH and IMPRISON these CRIMINALS and their CORPORATE CRONIES?

Is this country becoming NORTH KOREA?

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I'm quite disgusted by the partisan idiocy that we are confronted with daily. I'm disgusted mostly because it's a sham, an act, nonsense, fictional posturing.

While a few dramatic scenes in this latest bit of media crapola probably did not happen that way, the actual Clinton record is much like that of GW Bush and the elder "Poppy" Bush. To date, Clinton has murdered more Iraqis than the idiot son of Bush has managed to kill.

After half a million Iraqi children had been massacred through barbaric and medieval sanctions, forced upon Iraq by the United States, through pressure on the UN, Madeleine Allbright told us that she thought the price was "worth it."

That kind of creepy sadism is straight out of the dark ages. From a million to a million and a half Iraqis perished under Clinton's wrath, mostly from preventable diseases.

Next we take the offer by the Sudan government to extradite bin Laden, when they realized what a pain in the ass he was. The Sudanese intelligence service was reading his mail and tapping his phones. They wanted to share a large file of intelligence with the US and to kick him out to stand trial somewhere.

Clinton's administration would not accept bin Laden on a platter.

When the Sudanese government asked more firmly to send bin Laden to the US, Clinton took it upon himself to bomb the only medicine plant in the Sudan with cruise missiles (several days later), thus leading to the deaths of many Sudanese children as well.

This is verifiable and documented history.

Why would Clinton behave that way?

Why would Clinton allow the CIA to import cocaine by the ton through Mena Arkansas, when he was governor?

Why are there DC-9's flying cocaine today into Mexico dressed up like Department of Homeland Security jets (ask Porter Goss why he resigned so "mysteriously")?

Why is Afghanistan the opium capital of the world today, after all that wonderful "freedom and democracy" we dropped on them from B-52s, and CIA men running around with suitcases full of money?

Why was CIA meeting with bin Laden in Dubai, and treating him at an American military hospital for kidney problems in July of 2001?

Why was bin Laden in a Pakistani military hospital on September 10 of 2001, on the eve of 9-11?

There's reasons why, but you're not going to like them. Or, you're going to deny it all and not bother doing a minute's research, or just call me names. The American sheeple have lots of techniques for avoiding guilt by association, that they actually support a brutal murderous empire with military bases in most countries of the world, that uses the threat of terror from the sky as a tool of hegemony ("Hey Bob, isn't that terrorism?").

But, hell, a grade schooler could figure it out with a little bit of education. "Terrorism" replaced "Communism" as the new boogey man. This was a long term plan, written about extensively throughout the 1990's. The collapse of the Soviet Union confronted the world's "military superpower" with a shortage of threats. They set about manufacturing them, coddling them, training and helping them. The "Al Qaeda" threat has connections going to Pakistani ISI, American CIA, MI-6, and Saudi intelligence among others.

They were seen as good business to imperial interests who seek to dominate through military "supremacy."

They still are.

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Was anyone aware that Path to 9/11 appears to be having a global release? That means we'll be watching it in Australia before you see it in the states...

Here a link to the show in OZ. Problem is, we've heard none of the controversy so I really worry the impact this bogus story is going to carry around the world...

The events of 9/11 are so horrific and vivid that making a fictional account of the events would surely be in bad taste. As such, audiences will be expecting a factual account on this notable anniversary - how easy it will be then to rewrite history in the eyes of the world...

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