ABC's Lame Defense Over 9/11 Miniseries Controversy

Let me just weigh in on one comment by ABC. They sent out a statement just a day or two ago that was reported in the New York Times on Wednesday. It said, in part, “The events that lead to 9/11 originally sparked great debate, so it’s not surprising that a movie surrounding those events has revived the debate.”

Nice try. In fact, there have been a NUMBER of TV documentaries, TV docudramas, two feature films (Oliver Stone's "World Trade Center" and "United 93"), the 9-11 Commission Report itself, a number of nonfiction books and even a graphic novel rendering of the 9-11 Commission report and on and on and on. By and large, they have been praised for sticking to the facts. NONE OF THEM have even remotely been the center of controversy like this miniseries. All of them strove to be as accurate as possible. NONE OF THEM have even been accused of wholesale fabrications and lies, which the ABC miniseries has all but confessed to. All of them strove to reflect -- where appropriate -- the bipartisan tone of the 9/11 Commission report. NONE OF THEM focused on partisan political attacks or gave favored treatment to one political party either in the making of their projects and certainly not in the promoting of them. All of them -- including leftie Oliver Stone -- strove for and achieved a non-partisan look at the events of the day. Heck, Spike Lee did a four hour documentary on the devastation of Katrina and received nothing but praise and admiration for the balanced, accurate but impassioned work he did. OLIVER STONE AND SPIKE LEE -- it doesn't get more leftie than that, but they managed to tackle 9-11 and Katrina without pandering to one party or lying and distorting the facts. Why can't ABC? Because they didn't try.

ABC's miniseries is not in hot water because 9-11 is a controversial topic. We can name literally dozens of releases in all sorts of formats that tackled it successfully and with a respect for the facts. ABC's miniseries is in hot water because it is an unbalanced, partisan attack that attempts to rewrite history, it was promoted by reaching out only to the far right and it is a bald attempt to influence an upcoming election by dividing the country and spreading lies and falsehoods.