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9/11 Commissioners Criticize ‘The Path to 9/11′

By ThinkProgress on Sep 8, 2006 at 11:51 am

ABC continues to advertise “The Path to 9/11″ as “based on the 9/11 Commission report.”

Path to 9/11 ABC banner

The people who wrote the 9/11 Commission report disagree. Here’s a review of their comments —

9/11 Commissioner Jamie Gorelick:

“I do have a problem if you make claims that the program is based upon the findings of the 9/11 Commission Report when the actors, scenes and statements in the series are not found in — and, indeed, are contradicted by — our findings.” [Link]

9/11 Commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste:

Some scenes in the film “complete fiction. … The mischaracterizations tended to support the notion that the president [Clinton] was not attentive to anti-terrorism concerns. That was the opposite from what the 9/11 commission found.” [Link]

9/11 Commissioner Tim Roemer:

In the scene, CIA operatives have Osama bin Laden cornered and are poised to capture or kill him until National Security Adviser Samuel Berger refuses to give the go-ahead. … [M]embers of the 9/11 Commission say none of that ever happened.

ROEMER: There were plans, not an operation in place. Secondly, Osama bin Laden was never in somebody’s sights. Thirdly, on page 114 of our report we say George Tenet took responsibility for pulling the plug on that particular Tarnak Farms operation. [CNN, 9/7/06]

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Media

Clinton On Path To 9/11: Film Contradicts ‘The Factual Findings of the 9/11 Commission’

By Faiz Shakir on Sep 8, 2006 at 10:21 am

While attending an event in Little Rock yesterday, President Clinton offered an explanation about his views of ABC’s docudrama “The Path to 9/11.” Clinton said the film should not have “scenes which are directly contradicted by the factual findings of the 9/11 Commission.” He added that he wanted the film to just “tell the truth,” and not “pretend it’s something it’s not.” Watch it.

[flv http://video.thinkprogress.org/2006/09/clintonpath.320.240.flv]

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Full transcript below: Read more

Climate Progress

Shade Trees are a Global Warming Solution

By Joe Romm on Sep 8, 2006 at 9:51 am

and the Washington Post gets the story (almost) right.

shade-tree-nice.jpg

The Post’s front-page article opens with the aggressive program of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District to plant millions of trees, noting:

Perhaps the most arresting feature of Sacramento’s shade crusade is its rarity, despite federal research showing that carefully planted trees can lower summertime temperatures in cities, significantly reduce air-conditioning bills and trap greenhouse gases responsible for global warming.

You might think that an article by the politically-minded Post would then note that we had a federal program to work with communities to cool them down, called “Cool Communities.” It was gutted by the Gingrich Congress because it was part of the Clinton administration’s plan to reduce global warming emissions. The Post instead wanders off into interviewing a social scientist to explain the “cultural reasons” there has not been a “rush to exploit shade.”

Significantly, a program to cool cities with shade trees (and light-colored roofs) is not only a low-cost way to mitigate global warming, it is a very cost-effective way to adapt to global warming, since it lowers urban temperatures. But the conservatives who support adaptation as a strategy for dealing with global warming only do so rhetorically, in order to fight off efforts to change our energy policy to reduce emissions. If they really believed in adaptation, we would have a major federal “Cool Communities” effort.

Until sanity returns to our politcal culture, you can learn everything you need to know about cooling cities at the terrific web site of the Heat Island Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which includes a number of useful publications, including an article from Technology Review, “Painting the Town White — and Green.“

Politics

Kean Hasn’t Talked To Clinton About Path to 9/11 Because ‘He Was Out Campaigning Against My Son Yesterday’

By Judd Legum on Sep 8, 2006 at 9:48 am

Path to 9/11 graphicTom Kean, former co-chair of the 9/11 Commission, is under fire for his association with ABC’s Path to 9/11. Kean dug in and defended the docudrama, which ABC marketed as “based on the 9/11 Commission Report,” as “reasonably accurate.” Now, Kean has acknowledged that the movie has errors and ABC is reportedly considering edits.

Yesterday, the New York Daily News asked Kean if he’d contacted Bill Clinton:

Asked if he had apologized to Clinton for inaccuracies in the movie, Kean quipped, “No, he was out campaigning against my son yesterday, so I didn’t reach out to him at all!”

Kean’s son is a GOP Senate candidate in New Jersey.

As 9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerrey said yesterday, 9/11 is “is a story that’s of great importance to every single American.” It’s not a political game.

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Politics

ThinkFast: September 8, 2006

By ThinkProgress on Sep 8, 2006 at 9:03 am

Entertainment industry trade mag Variety reports that “a bombshell decision” is being considered at ABC: “Sources close to the project say the network, which has been in a media maelstrom over the pic, is mulling the idea of yanking [The Path to 9/11] altogether.”

Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA) is “proposing to remove George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld from the military chain of command over Iraq,” which critics say is likely unconstitutional. The staunch conservative is facing a stiff reelection fight, in part due to his support for the Iraq war.

Sources tell the New America Foundation’s Steve Clemons that John Bolton’s confirmation process “is now dead.” “The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is ‘highly unlikely‘ to reconsider Bolton’s confirmation again as things now stand.”

Yesterday the Senate unanimously reinstated a special CIA unit dedicated to hunting Osama bin Laden. The CIA received intense criticism after closing the unit in late 2005.

Maryland Comptroller William Donald Schaefer continued to throw personal attacks at his opponent, Janet S. Owens, saying she is “getting fat” and “her husband rules her.” He added that she “prissy little miss” who wears “long dresses, looks like Mother Hubbard — it’s sort of like she was a man.” Read more

Yglesias

Triumph of the Will

By Matthew Yglesias on Sep 8, 2006 at 8:43 am

Neoconservative national policy analysis really only had one tune to play, albeit set to occassionally different beats. You need more force, and more will to use force. No matter what the circumstances. So Charles Krauthammer spins and whirls around the issue of withdrawal from Iraq. It turns out, though, that the country is in “A Civil War We Can Win.” If, that is, we have the will. But, of course, our national will won’t be enough:

Yesterday Maliki took over operational control of the Iraqi armed forces, the one national security institution that works. He needs to demonstrate the will to use it. The American people will support a cause that is noble and necessary, but not one that is unwinnable. And without a central Iraqi government willing to act in its own self-defense, this war will be unwinnable. [emphasis added]

How sweet it is. Another typical bit of analysis is that Krauthammer now advocates striking a compromise with the Sunni insurgency. He now sees this as essentially a group of rational actors on behalf of Iraq’s Sunni population looking for more money and political power. The sort of people who can and should be bargained with. This, of course, is the analysis of the situation you could have gotten from liberals one or two years ago. In time to do some good in other words. But that was at a time when Krauthammer was busy calling anyone who thought that appeasers and saying all we needed was the will to crush our foes.

Yglesias

Synergy

By Matthew Yglesias on Sep 8, 2006 at 8:40 am

Obviously, they don’t actively coordinate their activities, but I’d think it should be obvious that Bush and bin Laden have a synergistic relationship. OBL fairly clearly times the release of his videos so as to assist George W. Bush’s political career, presumably on the grounds that Bush’s policies generate the high levels of global polarization that can help a fringe group like al-Qaeda gain traction.

Yglesias

Rhode Island Update

By Matthew Yglesias on Sep 8, 2006 at 12:16 am

Turns out my question as to why Rhode Island was doing so well and the rest of New England so poorly was based on a bad map. Wages are actually down in Rhode Island, but up in Vermont, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire.

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