Former Vice President Al Gore today released a statement criticizing The Path to 9/11 for presenting numerous historical inaccuracies. The statement is below:

By all accounts, “The Path to 9/11″ is riddled with inaccuracies and contains material that directly contradicts the factual findings of the 9/11 Commission. I am deeply concerned that ABC is considering going forward with their plans to broadcast this so-called docudrama. The lessons from the events leading up to that tragedy are too important to trivialize, and it would be fundamentally irresponsible to air such distortions.

The Path to 9/11 is a movie rife with historical inaccuracies that blames President Clinton while heaping praise on President Bush. The docudrama was written by avowed conservative Cyrus Nowrasteh, who once spoke on a panel entitled: “Rebels With A Cause: How Conservatives Can Lead Hollywood’s Next Paradigm Shift.” But the ideological slant behind this movie goes far deeper than Nowrasteh. Research conducted by a reader at Democratic Underground has revealed that the Path to 9/11 was the result of a project hatched out by a small group of evangelical activists who sought to “transform Hollywood from the inside out.” Here is what we know:

Cunningham Linked To YWAM. David Cunningham was contracted by ABC to direct Path to 9/11. Cunningham is the son of Loren and Darlene Cunningham, the founders of Youth With a Mission (YWAM), a Christian evangelical group that actively tries to get “youth into short-term mission work and to give them opportunities to reach out in Jesus’ name.”

YWAM Sponsored the Film Institute To Change Hollywood. YWAM created an “auxillary” group called the Film Institute, which was explicitly aimed at achieving a “Godly transformation and revolution TO and THROUGH the Film and Television industry.”

Film Institute Began the “Untitled History Project.” The Film Institute’s first project was simply referred to as the “Untitled History Project” (UHP). In July 2005, Fox News reported that filming had begun on an ABC miniseries about 9/11 that ABC officials and producers were referring to it as the “Untitled History Project.” A production company entitled “UHP Productions,” which was co-founded with Disney began filming Path to 9/11 in late 2005.

UHP Became Path to 9/11. UHP Productions has only produced one movie. Harvey Keitel, who stars as FBI special agent John O’Neill in the movie, said that when he received the original script, “it said ABC History Project.”

Tell ABC to tell the truth about 9/11. Max Blumenthal has more.

Think Progress has obtained a new letter from former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former National Security Adviser Samuel Berger. The letter calls on Thomas Kean, 9/11 Commission Chairman and co-executive producer of Path to 9/11, to exert his “influence to persuade ABC to withdraw the broadcast.” Read the letter HERE.

An excerpt:

Whether your broadcast purports to be based on the 9/11 Report in whole – or only in part – is increasingly beside the point. The dramatic impact of a costly but carelessly produced film will invariably overwhelm the impression of any government document.

Amidst alarming reports that irresponsible theories about the events of 9/11 have begun to gain currency with the American people, you should not want to lend your personal reputation to a production which seems likely to instigate new and dangerous falsehoods. And so we ask that you use your influence to persuade ABC to withdraw the broadcast altogether. Failing that, we urge you to sever your relationship with this grossly misleading production.

The criticism against ABC’s docudrama The Path to 9/11 isn’t isolated simply to Clinton aides. In fact, many conservatives have criticized the film. Here are a few examples –

John Podhoretz, conservative columnist and Fox News contributor:

The portrait of Albright is an unacceptable revision of recent history and an unfair mark on a public servant who, no matter her shortcomings, doesn’t deserve to be remembered by millions of Americans as the inadvertent (and truculent) savior of Osama bin Laden. Samuel Berger, Clinton’s national security adviser, also seems to have just cause for complaint. [NYPost, 9/8/06]

James Taranto, OpinionJournal.com editor:

The Clintonites may have a point here. A few years ago, when the shoe was on the other foot, we were happy to see CBS scotch “The Reagans.” [OpinionJournal, 9/7/06]

Dean Barnett, conservative commentator posting on Hugh Hewitt’s blog:

One can (if one so chooses) give the filmmakers artistic license to [fabricate a scene]. But if that is what they have done, conservative analysts who back this movie as a historical document will mortgage their credibility doing so. [Hugh Hewitt blog, 9/6/06]

Chris Wallace, Fox News Sunday anchor:

When you put somebody on the screen and say that’s Madeleine Albright and she said this in a specific conversation and she never did say it, I think it’s slanderous, I think it’s defamatory and I think that ABC and Disney should be held to account. [Fox, 9/8/06]

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One of the odder, though probably not very significant, things about the current political debate is that recently I’ve been seeing rightwingers abandonning the traditional — and correct — conservative interpretation of the Spanish Civil War in favor of a rather dated leftwing take. It takes him a little while to get there, but Ross Douthat explains it all. I guess — maybe — this has something to do with the Trotskyite origins of neoconservatism or something.

ABC now is blasting critics of Path to 9/11, saying the movie isn’t complete. From a statement yesterday:

No one has seen the final version of the film, because the editing process is not yet complete, so criticisms of film specifics are premature and irresponsible.

That’s not what ABC told the National Review’s Stephen Spruiell on September 1:

I followed up on Andy’s Corner post this morning by calling ABC, and was told by a spokeswoman that the “Path to 9/11″ miniseries is “locked and ready to air,” and that she hadn’t heard anything about a pressure campaign to reopen the editing process.

It’s clear that the editing process reopened when people started complaining. What’s irresponsible is for ABC to lie about it.

Write ABC and tell them to tell the truth about 9/11.

On CNN American Morning, conservative talk radio host Bill Bennett told Soledad O’Brien that there is “no reason to falsify the record” or “falsify conversations” in ABC’s “Path to 9/11.” “When ABC comes out and has conversations taking place among cabinet members on recent history,” Bennett said, “I think they should correct those inaccuracies.” Watch it:

Transcript: Read more