Discover the Nutwork

Guess their “godly transformation” has transformed the part against bearing false witness against thy neighbor. Or maybe they just reject Jesus’ definition of one’s neighbor.

You see, sfb, the people behind this 9/11 film are liars. One moment the film is “a dramatization, not a documentary”, the next moment it’s the “truth about what actually happened during the Clinton years” which those evil Democrats are trying to “block”.

And I hereby exercise my free speech rights to tell you to shut up.

Poor SFB. You clearly didn’t understand the constitution while reading it, since if you did you’d know that someone like bl telling you to shut up has nothing to do with the idea of free speech as discussed there since of course he’s not acting with government authority.

This is shaping up as a major Disney debacle. They’re such a big operation that they can’t even afford to piss off the Democrats in Congress.

Matt Stoller writes:

Disney is leading the effort to give Hollywood control over how your TV and TiVo are built and what you can do with programs you watch.

and

Another is copyright extensions, which Disney has used to keep its perpetual license on characters like Mickey Mouse, who should by now have fallen into the public domain.

If this ultimately results in less stringent controls on intellectual property, this controversy could turn out to be a good thing: we could recover the rights to public domain and fair use that we used to have, and perhaps forestall future affronts.

But that will only be the case if enough Democrats win in November.

What an utterly disingenuous concern for freedom of speech from sfb. The issue here is clearly an attempt to get viewers to believe a false view of recent US political history in order to promote a right-wing agenda. Those who are promoting the film know full well that many viewers will take what they have seen to be an accurate account and will form their beliefs on that basis and that articles in the press afterward correcting this or that point will have little or no impact on those beliefs. For a similar case, remember the film U-571. Many viewers, probably most American viewers, persist in the false belief that the US Navy were the first to seize an Enigma machine.

I’m completely with you on this one, SFB. I’m kind of flabbergasted by how blithely some bloggers — many of whom I have a lot of respect for — have seized upon various specious justifications for pressuring ABC to shut those conservatives up, and they’ve done so, in some cases, seemingly without a shred of self-awareness or doubt about the implications of their stance.

And I must say the tone of that Max Blumenthal piece just cracks me up. A bunch of partisans have taken it upon themselves to make a movie that may be construed as a critique of their ideological and political adversaries. They have dramatized the facts as they interpret them (e.g., Sandy Berger’s insistence, according to Tenant, that the C.I.A. be responsible for the decision to take bin Laden and for any bad consequences arising therefrom), and presumably their motivation for making the film has been, at least partly, nakedly political.

Ho hum, you say? Well, wait a minute, here’s the kicker . . . these people are . . . CONSERVATIVES! The horror! The horror!

I seem to recall a recent film by Michael Moore which played fast and loose with the facts. I thought that film was pretty damaging to the Left since it 1) was up there with Leni Riefenstahl, and 2) lots of people on the left had no problemn with that. Still, I never thought banning it was a good idea.

So (appearently, since not many people have seen it) conservatives can make films with a poltical agenda. And some on the Left feel this needs a spot of censorship. Maybe, if it is as bad as being made out, it will be just as bad for the Right as Michael Moore was for the Left and the more people who see it the better.

Exactly, Neil. I hate to say it, but the lack of reflection on this issue from otherwise thoughtful bloggers makes me wonder whether the prospect of scary conservatives making films with a political agenda isn’t ultimately what’s got the blogosphere’s knickers in a knot.

Oh, and bi, SFB can answer for her or himself, but, for my part, I don’t know why “people” (whoever they are) want to have Michael Moore charged with treason, but unless you’re arguing that one good lunatic turn deserves another, I don’t understand your point. Nice to see you sticking up for the Supreme Court, though. I assume you “honour” the Supreme Court’s decision in Bush v. Gore, as all the great respecters of the courts are wont to do?

And just FYI, bi, a libel case or a treason case doesn’t necessarily end up in the Supreme Court.

Molly (or should I say “Artemis”, since you’ve used that id in many earlier comments threads) apparently you believe that telling people that it is wrong to lie is the same thing as “suggesting” that their speech be banned. It isn’t.

Chris, apparently you believe that I read minds and could magically intuit that your criticism of the “falsehoods” of a film you presumably haven’t seen didn’t also imply your agreement with this poster that the film should be “yanked.”

If all you wish to do is criticize the film, you have every right to do so.

However, if all you wish to do is to tell the filmmakers that it’s wrong to lie, my point still stands. Cinema and television have a time-honored tradition of lying about or distorting history — and some of those lies and distortions were equally politically motivated. Maybe you’ve been on their case for a good long while and I just haven’t noticed it?

Well I think I’ve always believed that persons have good pro tanto reasons not to knowingly say false things. That goes for ABC too. If they come to believe, as a result of hearing what critics say, that the film they are about to broadcast contains serious inaccuracies about important matters, then they have good reason not to broadcast the film. Telling them about inaccuracies and urging them not to broadcast on that basis, is not an act of censorship any more than it would be an act of censorship to urge the New York Times not to publish, say, a false story that a senior politician is a sex abuser.

Chris,

Do you research the comment history of *every* anonymous commenter on this blog or only the ones with whom you disagree? I’m happy to provide you with my real name in a private e-mail, if it makes a difference to you.

[Pseudonymous comments are fine. I do sometimes research comment histories. Not on grounds of disagreement, but in order to check that we aren’t mistaking political operatives or wingnut obsessives for genuine interlocutors. Not that I’m saying you are either, of course. CB]

John, please forgive my ignorance of your comments policy. Did Chris really think I was a sock puppeteer?

Yes, a time-honored tradition of distorting history in film and television (among liberal and conservative partisans) exists, but how does it follow that I am arguing that the conservative case can be advanced only through fiction and fabrication? And how, for that matter, do you know that the errors of this particular film are serious enough to warrant its cancellation? Have you seen it?

Senator Reid’s letter to Disney CEO Iger can be found here:

http://reid.senate.gov/newsroom/record.cfm?id=262624&&year=2006&

I’m with Molly on this one. Reid could well be the next Senate Majority leader. Do we really want him telling a network that their license can be pulled at any time? I mean, the threat may be implicit, but I think it’s there all the same. I’m particular thinking of the passage where Reid writes:

“The Communications Act of 1934 provides your network with a free broadcast license predicated on the fundamental understanding of your principle obligation to act as a trustee of the public airwaves in serving the public interest…Should Disney allow this programming to proceed as planned…the reputation of Disney as a corporation worthy of the trust of the American people *and the United States Congress* will be deeply damaged. 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. [emphasis added]”

Paul Krugman, amongst others on the Left, defended Michael Moore. (Are there any CT posts ripping into the Leni of the Left?)

I’ve just seen the first half of the programme. Apparently decent people for the right reasons occasionally made the wrong decisions. The programme in effect defends Clinton’s decision to bomb the Sudanese pharmaceutical factory – a reasonable decision based on maybe faulty intelligence. That’s sooo right wing.

But good to see the consensus building on the left that ill-informed knee-jerk reactions are preferable to intelligent debate.

Much of the programme followed a very similar view to that of Steve Coll’s “Ghost Wars”. Missed opportunities easily seen in hindsight. How right wing is that?

bi,

For my part, I don’t think the protection of the libel laws should be extended to politicians. It makes it too easy for the State to silence its critics, as it does in Singapore.

Isn’t Path to 9/11 the right’s equivalent of Fahrenheit 911?

It’s apparently not only the constitution that poor SFB can’t read and understand but even a couple of line comment, since of course I said nothing about the show being libelous. (Since, as a matter of law if not morality, it’s extremely hard to libel a public official in the US I’m fairly skeptical of that claim even without having seen the film.) But, this does show that not only is SFB too dumb to read even a simple text but that he’s also not interested in the truth.

Via Glenn Greenwald, damning reviews from those “the select few who received an advance version on DVD”, – Entertainment Weekly, Chigaco Sun-Times, USA Today. From the last of those, “The attempt is admirable, but in the end, the movie is defeated by its subject and by its willingness to twist that subject to score political points. Too confused for a documentary, insufficiently dramatized for a movie, Path simply doesn’t have the skill needed to support its intentions.”

Now, I haven’t seen the movie, but I can read the fulsome praise of those who have. Govindini Murty and Justin Levine. I detect curious similarities in their reviews, not plagiarism exactly, but I’d suspect they’re cribbing from the same handout which came with the DVD.

Murty in FrontPage:
“The acting is also excellent in “The Path to 9/11.” Harvey Keitel is strong, sympathetic, and quirky as FBI agent John O’Neil, and Donnie Wahlberg is also sympathetic and believable as CIA agent “Kirk.””
Levine:
“Harvey Keitel gives his best performance in years as FBI agent John O’Neill. Donnie Wahlberg gives the performance of his career as a sympathetic CIA field operative named “Kirk”.”
(Levine suspects “Donnie Wahlberg’s CIA character” is a ‘composite’ “several people.”
Levine: “The whole film is based on the public record of the 9/11 commission.”
Murty: “The five-hour miniseries (aired over two nights) is based on the 9/11 Commission report, and also on ABC News correspondent John Miller’s book, ‘The Cell.'”
Murty again: “This is the first Hollywood production I’ve seen that honestly depicts how the Clinton administration repeatedly bungled the capture of Osama Bin Laden. One astonishing sequence in “The Path to 9/11″ shows the CIA and the Northern Alliance surrounding Bin Laden’s house in Afghanistan. They’re on the verge of capturing Bin Laden, but they need final approval from the Clinton administration in order to go ahead. They phone Clinton, but he and his senior staff refuse to give authorization for the capture of Bin Laden, for fear of political fall-out if the mission should go wrong and civilians are harmed.”
This isn’t in the 9/11 Commission report. It was made up.

And the fine old film tradition of misrepresenting history is less excusable when the “history” is of still-controversial recent events involving still-active figures. These lies aren’t being told about Henry VIII or Tiberius Caesar.

After skimming the comments again, I see that Mr. PCP in #3 did the same old “But what about….” hijack switcheroo. He wants to make sure that we don’t talk at all about the film (which we haven’t even seen!)

“Horowitz and his coterie have won,” dammit.

A right to freedom of expression is written into the Constitution of the US. Nothing in Reid’s letter threatens force, and even if it did he is not in a position to carry out any such threats, and even if he were, judicial review and the Supreme Court would defend Disney if such threats were carried out and constituted a violation of the right to free expression. Part of the right to freedom of expression is the right, politely (or even rudely) to request of people that they refrain from lying or spreading falsehoods. The defenders of Disney here are on the wrong issue — or at least they misundertand what the right to freedom of expression is. Conservatives usually understand the right in much the way I am doing — if the Disney defenders here are conservative they have an eccentric view of the RtFE.

Fortunately, this is going to be a dumb made-for-TV movie. It may well prompt Americans to have entirely false beliefs about the lead up to 9/11, but they will only join the mass of false beliefs already prevailing, and by this time next week the vast vast majority of viewers will have forgotten whatever beliefs they came to have. Still, it is right to point out where everything is wrong, and to chastise Disney etc for knowingly promoting falsehoods, and ludicrous and ignorant to claim that such behaviour violates anyone’s rights to anything.

Nothing in Reid’s letter threatens force, and even if it did he is not in a position to carry out any such threats, and even if he were, judicial review and the Supreme Court would defend Disney if such threats were carried out and constituted a violation of the right to free expression.

I think the part of the letter that people question have been the statements that “the Communications Act of 1934 provides your network with a free broadcast license predicated on the fundamental understanding of your principle obligation to act as a trustee of the public airwaves in serving the public interest” and “…the reputation of Disney as a corporation worthy of the trust of the American people and the United States Congress will be deeply damaged.”

Now of course this isn’t an explicit threat, and I’m willing to grant that the Senators may not meant it as a threat. Nevertheless, if the Senators argue that Congress gives ABC a free license, and if ABC runs this movie then the Disney corporation loses the trust of Congress, it’s not hard to see why some would conclude that the license is being threatened.

Since we don’t have a free press in this country, the semi-monopolist media just can’t be counted on to police itself. ABC has no god given right to own part of the public airwaves. If it acts badly, the people have a perfect right to tell it to go piss up a rope. I think the networks ought to be broken up anyhow as a matter of good public policy under the anti-trust laws.

If the 9/11 show had been a theatrical movie, things would be different. Disney has a perfect right to distribute any piece of crap it likes, though in this instance, it might face a libel suit in the aftermath as well as commercial boycotts. Note that my position on this point contrasts with Disney’s. Disney refused to distribute Farenheit 911, though that film was not a hit piece disguised as a public service film but a frank political statement and, to judge by the available evidence, also a far more honest work.

If the ABC show wrests our recent history from the establishment guardians and makes it question-able, that is really great.

You’re a moron, Roger. Just a silly moron.

Free speech questions aside, the ABC movie invents fake stories and presents them as fact, and all of these fake events reflect very badly on Democrats. Apparently the climax of the movie is the fake scene when US Forces are ordered not to take out Bin Laden when they had him in their sights. This is the big lie technique in the service of the powers that be, but to you it wrests our recent history from the establishment guardians.

Contrarians can be at least as stupid as establishmentarians, as you’ve shown us.

One of the bots upthread compared Michael Moore to Reifensthal, but this movie is a lot closer to her work.

There are links to clips of the specifically false and defamatory scenes all over the Web, should you feel like extricating your head from… umm, the sand.

So I take it, Steve, that you agreed with CBS’s laughable decision to pull the Reagan show?

Excellent response, John. I’m not just a moron, but a silly moron. So ABC’s film showing Clinton’s people not killing Osama bin Laden – a fiction — is simply the equivalent of Leni Riefensthal – what, her Alpenfilms?

The Riefensthal reference is a red herring — the real similarity is to Abby Mann. Or to any number of the docudramas that have been on tv since the eighties. Each one compresses characters, makes up scenes, and of course dialogue. From the Atlanta Child Murders to The Thin Blue Line, docudramas consistently fictionalize scenes in order to make points. If you want substantiation for this point, I suggest you look up docudrama and fiction on Factiva. I’ll go through a few instances:

On A dangerous Life, 1988, an HBO docudrama that implied the Marcos’ ordered the murder of political adversaries:

“Producer Hal McElroy, in an HBO press release, says “A Dangerous Life” is “like new journalism, where you’re reporting real events but you create fiction to more accurately reveal to the audience what the real events were about.”

In Guts and Glory, a CBS docudrama documenting the rise and fall of Oliver North, the condemnation of the oily Oliver is conveyed by Aaron Sykes. According to the St. Petersburg Times review ofit, Aaron, North’s superior, confronts him in the last scene “with having “tried to pull nothing short of a secret government, the most dangerous thing to my country I can possible imagine.“ He accuses North of believing that “the end justifies the means.“

“You’re damn right,“ North responds.

“But that’s not what America is all about, Colonel,“ Sykes says.

Sykes doesn’t really exist. He is a fiction.

How about a more worthy documentary from 1994? “A Century of Women” has an excellent director – Barbara Koople, who did Harlan County. It relates the lives of a number of prominent women, like Francis Perkins. And it features the discussion of these lives by a fictitious group of women who are related by fictitious ties in a fictitious family.

I know that it is silly, moronic, and just plain Hitlerian to have some faint notion that docudramas almost always do the same things, that there is a long history of this, and that if you dislike it being done about 9/11, maybe you should check out how it is done at all – but then, silly moronic people make those kinds of objections. Don’t know shit from shinola, us folks. Contrarians. Not with the party line at all.

So, I would like to see the impassioned defenses of Oliver North, the Marcoses and the little fry — all subject to the fictionalizing slice and dice of docudrama.

It appears that I’m currently missing this by not watching BBC2 here in the UK. It’s bizarre how little play the whole scandal is getting here: I’m fairly sure the article I read in the Indi this morning didn’t point out that our publically funded broadcaster was showing this programme as well. And the Observer TV section says it’s a must watch, without so much of word of warning that maybe it’s more “drama” than “documentary”. In fact, it claims that it’s based upon the 9/11 Commission Report, which seems to be bollocks, as far as I see it.

Typically one needs to go to the Scottish press for something, you know, newsworthy on the whole matter.

John Emerson,

“Sorry, everything you’ve said looks like it’s from a partisan advocate who’s grabbing everything they can find to throw.”

— Right back atcha, dude. For what it’s worth, though I do consider myself center-right, I don’t think of this as a partisan position on my part. I try to examine as rigorously as possible my own motives and biases when I comment on “constroversial” issues of speech and calls to restrict speech. What I find disconcerting is that so few liberal bloggers seem to have done the same in this instance. Roy Edroso’s post on the subject seems to be a notable exception, by the way.

As for your concerns about lying and defamation, Roger has done quite a nice job of demonstrating the kind of “defamation” that fairly routinely appears in television docudramas and the made-up scenes which occur even in well-respected documentaries (The Thin Blue Line).

To be honest, that why I’m so skeptical about the liberal blogosphere’s motives in this instance. Certainly respect for historical truth and accuracy is admirable, but I’d be more inclined to take it at face value if the same bloggers had shown a similar concern for instances of misrepresentation like the ones Roger mentions.

Roger makes a good point. To what extent is the desire to have the film “yanked” animated by respect for historical truth and to what extent is it motivated by a desire to control the narrative?

I think it’s fine, all for the best. I think the Clintonistas should make their own Path to 9/11 docu-drama in which Clinton people arrest bin Laden and Saudi-loving Bushies raid secret CIA jail where he is being tortured by the good guys and set him free. Make it a 12 episodes/season TV show. That’s the ‘merican way.

I watched the first 40 minutes or so on BBC2. Very dull. The general idea seems to be that Americans are too stupid to live. At the check-in desk, Atta and his buddies looked more like gun-slingers in a spaghetti western than people whose mission depended on appearing harmless.

I’m not sure what will be in the 9/11 film, but if it implies that Clinton’s administration missed an opportunity to take out bin Laden, that’s actually true. Here’s a stunning NBC video where they actually show a tape of a CIA plane’s video feed (live at the time) of Osama on the ground in Afghanistan. (Fast forward to about 1:50 for the relevant bits). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuH1xwLUnbg&eurl=

Molly, “time-honored tradition” just means that something’s been around along time (for example, the once time-honored tradition of lynching). It’s a figure of speech; it does not actually make the tradition sacramental — though I can understand how the conservatives of today might actually feel cozier if lying were sacramentalized.

And yeah, there might actually be a free speech issue here, but SFB and Molly have been so annoying that I decided to prioritize. It would be an interesting thing to have a good-faith discussion of, with someone who is in good faith.

Molly, it’s because you misrepresented the nature of the film when making your free-speech argument. You obscured the fact that it was a dishonest movie depicting events which never took place, but calling itself “Official True Story”. And then you said that this kind of thing is “a time-honored tradition”. And you asked snarkily how we knew the show was no good, when we hadn’t actually seen it — a question easily answered. So basically I concluded that you were just a partisan picking up whichever argument or arguments you thought might got the job done, and throwing them out one after another hoping to hit something.

Your skepticism now about Democratic claims that the show is inaccurate is an additional point, because more and more people in a position to know, not all of them Democrats, are coming forward to say that they think it’s inaccurate.

As to whether Michael Moore’s movie was equally dishonest, I think that that’s an open question, but I doubt it. But Moore’s movie wasn’t shown on prime-time TV.

As I’ve said above, a big part of politics these days is convincing low-information voters with imagery and insinuations, and this film is effectively part of the Republican campaign that way. It is not even-handed between the two parties — unsurprisingly given the people who did it.

In short, if you’d confined yourself to the free speech issue instead of throwing out all kinds of other miscellaneous partisan charges and debater’s gimmicks, I would have regarded you as being in good faith.

The or a difficulty in all this is that history is different that documentary and docudrama is different that documentary. The issue here, as I understand it, is not “slandering” or “libeling” or whatnoting anyone but rather the fact that a broadcast tv docudrama about a historical event is necessarily going to be wrong. It is not okay to be wrong about history in popular culture, ie movies and docudramas, even if every single one ever made was wrong, distorted and etc. Leaving aside the well-known errors of historical fact that dog each and ever version of the Alamo, it might be instructive to revisit a docudrama on someone no one like in order to recall, in a less partisan atmosphere, the wrong-headedness of seeking to teach or learn about any moment of the past from, as someone once called it, the glass teat.
http://www.h-net.org/~german/discuss/hitlerminiseries/Hitler_miniseries_index.htm

Question for John Emerson – Have you actually *seen* this program? To the best of my knowledge, it has not been broadcast yet. So if you HAVE seen it, this makes you one of the very select few who got advance copies. Otherwise, you are like me, and most of the rest of us, and have not actually seen the program.

I do not know what the program is like, since I have not seen it. I do know that the Democratic party has been vocally objecting to it as unfair and biased. It may well be. But until I can see it, I don’t feel that I can make honest or intellegent comments about the program. So it becomes the same tired story of the differing parties making claims that the average person cannot verify because they cannot see the program.

What I object to, and why I find the defense of the Democratic senators letter so problematic is the simple point – they are calling for censorship of something they don’t like. Then bi changes the subject from the letter of the senators, and argues that someone is calling for prosecuting Michael Moore for treason, as if this is a good reason to squelch this program, sight unseen. To the best of my knowledge, bi, I cannot recall any senators or members of Congress calling for the prosecution of Michael Moore for treason. I don’t doubt that some of the crazy folks on the fringe right have made such remarks, but have any members of Congress done so? That would be comparable to Senator Reid’s letter to ABC, and in my opinion, it would be equally wrong.

Like Molly, I think the issue is censorship. If the program is crap, the the Democratic Party should show all the ways in which it is crap, and bring a counter claim right back. That’s fine – show the public why this program is trash. Denying the right of anyone to produce crap is what’s wrong here. I will not support the belief that certain ideas are beyond the pale and cannot be discussed.

John Emerson’s arguement in comment 70 seems to *me* to be that Molly Bloom shouldn’t have defended a piece of falsehood, and that since this movie is on prime time tv while Moore’s was not, that there is a difference. I think this argument is problematic, because it seems to imply that it is acceptable to censor something sight unseen because some of the people who have seen it think it is bad scholarship. It seems to me to suggest is also acceptable to censor broadcast tv because it is a venue owned by the public, and some Democratic senators feel this program is not in the public interest. The venue, broadcast tv or cable tv is really secondary – the point is, the minority leader of the US Senate is writing what could be considered to be an intimidating letter to the TV people. Would it have been permissible to send a comparable letter to the folks who planned to transmit Fahrenehit 9-11? I say emphatically that it would have been wrong to attempt to suppress Fahrenheit 9-11, for the same reasons that it is wrong to attempt to suppress the ABC program. Both may be poor journalism, and both may be even worse history. But that determination should be made after they have been seen by the public.

No thank you bi, Matt, John Emerson. Your reasons for defending efforts to kill this program before it is broadcast strke me as unconvincing. I have my personal suspicion that the ABC program, like most TV docu-dramas, is a waste of time because it is poor entertainment, and even worse history. But I absolutely object to the notion that anyone – you, me, or the Minority Leader of the Senate, should be able to tell any one of the rest of us what we can write, produce, read, or watch. If you think the ABC program is a collection of lies and scholarly intent to deceive, then show us the proof – after we all can see and decide if we agree with your analysis or not. If you think you have been hurt in an actionable way, take it to court. But prior restraint – NO THANK YOU.

I’ve seen it and it portrays the Clinton administration grappling with difficult decsions about how to fight bin Laden while at the same time avoid civilian casualties and alienating allies. Didn’t sound like right-wing propaganda.

I think that is a fair view of what happened. The programme may have taken a few dramatic licences, but that’s what most docudramas do, but most importantly it kept to the spirit of the truth which is mostly positive about Clinton.

SFB, once again you expose yourself as, frankly, an idiot who can’t read since I, at least, have not defended efforts to kill the program at all. In fact I said that I’m fairly skeptical that a libel claim can be made to stick and think it a waste of time to try. All I’d said is that you clearly don’t understand the constitution. Apparently you can’t even understand other simple paragraphs, too, so that should not be a surprise.

Although I don’t spend a lot of time at DailyKos — the endless my-party-right-or-wrong Democratic circle jerk gets tiresome fast — this dKos diary by Hunter is a very nice rendition of what an actual Democratic equivalent of The Path to 9/11 would look like.

Incidentally, have any of the purveyors of the Moore=Riefenstahl meme (here or elsewhere) actually seen any movies by these filmmakers? It’s hard to imagine two political documentarians who take a more different approach to their material. Moore is constantly on camera in his very first-person docs. Riefenstahl, especially in her Nazi-era documentary work, is never on camera. Moore’s films are fundamentally verbal; Riefenstahl’s films rely on their visual impact, with the most famous sequences often having no dialogue whatsoever. Heck, George Lucas is a more similar filmmaker to Leni Riefenstahl than Michael Moore is!

Calling Michael Moore the Democrats’ Leni Riefenstahl is just a pseudo-sophistated way of saying “liberals are all a bunch of Nazis” (pseudo-sophisticated both because it’s an entirely baseless accusation, half of the intended audience for which will feel proud of themselves for sort of knowing who Riefenstahl was, while the other half will look her up on Wikipedia and think “aha! I always knew liberals were Nazis!”).

SFB,
Please point me to the place where I said anything about the quality of the program. I’m sure you’ll not find one, which is why I say you obviously can’t read. I also clearly didn’t say you don’t care about free speech, but rather that you don’t understand how the idea is used in relation to the first ammendment. (You made that quite clear in your early posts.) Prior restraint is a legal term. It can be done only be those acting with legal authority. Individual Democratic sentators cannot exercise prior restraint, nor, at this time, could all of the Democrats in congress (since they don’t have a majority.) Please note that saying this is to say something about the meaning of the term ‘prior restraint’ and not about the wisdom of any approach to the show. I don’t have any special interest in it at all. I do have an interest in people who used terms they don’t understand.

Ben Alpers: That dKos entry rocks. :) About Riefenstahl: of course, just like the “cite the court and trial” and “none of us have seen it” and “it is pointless to try to continue this conversation with you” lines, this Riefenstahl defence is just another handy pail of mud to sling at people. You don’t need to have actually watched any of Riefenstahl’s works; you just need to keep throwing out her name ad nauseam.

Finally, on the 5th anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy, I’d like to remind everyone that there are some things which make the US the great nation she is, and also Michael Moore is fat.

SFB, it was you who wanted the thread to be about the Senators’ letter. If you had wanted to make the case against the letter, you (like Molly) should have stuck to that issue, and not thrown in a lot of stuff (which we don’t agree with) about how the film really isn’t that bad, or that we can’t criticize a film we haven’t seen personally, or that there’s a time-honored tradition of this kind of thing and we should just sit and take it.

Edroso took a position somewhat like yours, but he didn’t throw in all the other miscellaneous arguments.

You have no evidence – just the say-so of people with a vested interest in this dispute. False. Harvey Keitel is one of the critics, and insofar as he has a vested interest, he should be supporting the film. Other critics are people (FBI, some of them) who refused to work for the film, or quit, because they thoguht it was dishonest. Again, the only vested they had would have been their paycheck, but they turned it down.

You guys are throwing out everything plus the kitchen sink, which is why I’m not listening. The otiginal topic of the thread was the movoe itself, and you’re wrong about that one.

John, if you can tell me specifically what in the film is libelous or wrong, then you have a case. But, if you are like me, and you have not seen the film, you are not talking about anything you know anything about. From day one, this whole line of discussion has been about a film that most (possibly all) of the commentators on this board have not seen. This is not informed criticism. I said in my first post (#3) that unless McLemee had seen it, his criticism seemed uninformed. I still stand by that. Unless you have actually seen this movie, you are judging something you have no ability of make an informed judgement about. If your level of judgement is that a political party objects to the film, and that is sufficient evidence that the film is bad, then so be it. I, personally, don’t think that is informed or thoughtful analysis, but you are welcome to your opinion. John, the original thread may have been the movie, but your comment closing in #86 makes my initial case nicely:

“The otiginal topic of the thread was the movoe itself, and you’re wrong about that one.”

How can you tell if the movie is good, bad or indifferent until you can actually *see* it? Note that in my initial comment I said the movie might well be junk. It probably is, in my opinion, judging from what I’ve seen of how television does history, most of it is poor entertainment, and even poorer history. But unless I can see the film, I don’t think I can offer any worthwhile criticism of it. Apparently many of the commenters here are either recipients of the advance copies of “Path to 9-11,” or they are talking about a subject they have no firsthand knowledge about. If bi thinks you don’t need to watch someone’s films to critique them, (#84), it shows me how little value I need to place in bi’s judgement. Again, thank you for proving my case. Most of the commentators here are making a political judgement based on the political viewpoint of other intersted parties, not on evaluation of the film.

Walt (#87), you are welcome to express your opinion – exercise that free speech. Plenty of people have been calling for the impeachment of President Bush (wasn’t that one of the calls that came from another film a few years ago? Wink, wink) but I don’t think ABC is doing anything to prevent you from making those calls or writing your member of Congress. However, Senator Reid seems to be threatening ABC, which does not look like free speech to me.

My secondary point in my initial post, was that I found the behavior of Senator Reid more troubling than the possibility that ABC was producing trash. Obviously we disagree. I agree with Brendan in his quote from Glenn Reynolds. The Democrats should have ignored this. Instead, they are making themselves look even worse than the Republicans, hard as that may seem.

You’ve said the same thing eight times, sfb — twice in the most recent post.

A lot of people who have seen the movie, or worked in it, or refused to work in it, say it was inaccurate. It portays events that did not take place, and they’re defamatory. The most vivid is the accusation that during the Clinton administration US forces had OBL in their sights and were told to back off. This is an event that did not take place. There are other specific tendentious errors. ABC is not honest about the show’s fictional nature — sometimes they advertise it as “True Official Report” and claim, falsely, that it was based on the 9/11 committee report.

This isn’t movie criticism. We’re not talking about cinematography or acting performances. This show is fiction presenting itself as fact, and the distortions of fact are tendentious.

This movie was very widely circulated, hundreds of copies, but not to anyone who might possibly disagree with it; in fact, people who asked were refused copies. That’s a very bad sign, but to you it proves that we’r wrong because we have to rely on a very large number of second-hand reports. That’s imbecilic, dude, sorry. You have a big problem.

Some other time, maybe the Reid letter should be discussed. Edroso makes quite a bit of sense.

On Reid, as Harry said, I don’t see any threat there. I read it as an appeal to the public interest. Americans and Congress trust that something presented on tv as an historical account of recent events will be true. Taking actions that violate this trust is a disservice to the public, which is the justification for airwaves being accessible for corporate broadcasting. No implied action, just telling ABC/Disney they’re being irresponsible.

You’re right, Albert. It is fictionalized, not libelous, and I should point out that Roger’s description of the North movie used the term “fictionalized.” Without rereading Roger’s comment, I mistakenly used the word “libelous.” I should say, though, that John’s one example of distorted history in the movie seems more fictionalized than libelous.

My other points still stand.

I want to say something on the side about the free-speech defense.

In the US, it is a matter of law that the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum used for broadcast television (along with other parts) is a common good. The privilege of using it for one’s business is granted by license and is subject to regulation on all kinds of criteria, some of them with bright lines of acceptable conduct and some extremely fuzzy. There is no right in law to broadcast at will, nor does the possession of a current license allowing you the use of some frequencies give you the right to broadcast what you wish for the duration.

Now, you may think this is bad law. There are some good arguments to be made that alternatives would promote a wider range of programming while making the administration of broadcasting much less capricious. But for now, this is the law we’ve got, and it’s the law ABC is operating under, and they know it. If you think that they ought to operate under some other legal framework, that’s cool, but it’s irrelevant to the substance of this case. You could make the same defense for absolutely everything broadcast, and should, if your point is that the basic assumptions are wrong. There’s no reason to single out this particular bit of partisan hackwork over infomercials, soap opera,s and sporting events, if you’re after the fundamentals.

SFB and Molly: Why is it not allowed to criticize procedure regarding the circulation of a film and verification of the ‘facts’ portrayed in it, rather than the quality of its drama?

This is simply what John (#90)does.

So, do you think the procedure stinks? For instance, that no democrats from the commission were asked to comment on the film’s ‘documentary side’.

Does it tell you anything about the movie if the content is remotely like what John tells us, and what clips surfaced appear to say? Does this not allow you to criticize the film before having seen it along the following lines: “If this is the case, that sucks badly and hurts my sense of what is right, but if it is not the case, that does not suck and does not hurt my sense of what is right”.

When Michael Moore prepared his 9/11 movie, some people from the right made a fuss about what they saw as inaccuracies, infedelities, lies and so forth in that movie. So this is what is happening to the new movie. As I recall, by the way, a number left-wingers disapproved of and criticized the manipulative elements in that movie also. And besides, though Moore’s movie was manipulative, it seems to have been more openly so than the new one which shifts between being ‘drama’ and ‘documentary’.

The core point of criticism raised against “Path to 9/11” seems to be the fictional construct of a clear opportunity to ‘take out’ Usama Bin Ladin. If this did not happen (which ABC seems to acknowledge it DID NOT) then I would say that it is very bad form indeed to air such a scene. Agree?

Welcome back, neil morrison! Do you still stand by your Moore = Riefenstahl comparison? Have you actually watched any of Riefenstahl’s films?

“SFB and Molly: Why is it not allowed to criticize procedure regarding the circulation of a film and verification of the ‘facts’ portrayed in it, rather than the quality of its drama?

This is simply what John (#90)does.”

— And that’s what those Cornerites that Roy Edroso is always mocking are doing, as well. So next time Jonah Goldberg or John Podhoretz question the historical accuracy of a film they haven’t acutally seen (based on second hand reports), you all can laugh, but I’d hope you’d have a twinge of awareness of your own hypocrisy. And while I disagree with your position that the film shouldn’t be yanked, it does not follow that your criticism should not be allowed.

Yes, people rightly made a fuss about the distortions in Moore’s movie, though no prominent conservatives, as far as I can remember, called for it to be yanked from theaters. People have every
to make a fuss about the distortions in *this* movie as well. People have every right to call for its cancellation — it’s not against the law or unconstitutional to do so. And I have every right to disagree with that position, and to tell you why.

“The core point of criticism raised against “Path to 9/11” seems to be the fictional construct of a clear opportunity to ‘take out’ Usama Bin Ladin. If this did not happen (which ABC seems to acknowledge it DID NOT) then I would say that it is very bad form indeed to air such a scene. Agree?”

A thousand times, yes. ABC should cut the scene if it’s egregiously false and inaccurate. Where do you all get the idea that I’m defending the film itself? I simply don’t agree with calling for its cancellation, and — as I’ve said over and over again –the selective outrage, while being in some respects highly amusing, strikes me as rather hypocritical.

“Molly, I reject you ‘everyone does it’ principle. Yes, perhaps I object more loudly when the slanders are more significant to me. Boo fuckin hoo.”

John,

I reject your repeated blatant distortion of my position. To say that my position is “everyone does it” is to imply that I am excusing or defending the practice of distortion and misrepresentation. I hate the practice — and that’s why I don’t get my idea of history from a television show.

In any event, I request that you cease and desist mischaracterizing my position forthwith. If you continue to slander me, I will be forced to call for your being banned from further comments on this thread. Let’s have a little respect for truth and accuracy here, people.

Neil, thanks for your comment and the reference. I am not convinced though that ‘an amalgam of events’ does not come too close to a lie or slandering when the doers or non-doers in the ‘amalgam’ happen to be from one side.

Molly, thanks. I have not doubted your motives. About your argument: What if the ‘Democrat side’ had not made a fuss this time? Would the producers have changed anything if there had been less of a storm against them? Or, if the democrat side had held its legal fire until after the film had been shown? If no, was it not right of them to do so?

I did not see you defending the film itself, but you seem to insulate the ABC from critique – at least until it, for many practical purposes, is too late (meaning it will take a lot more effort to kill the same lie when it is already out of the box and growing).

If I misread you, it may be because you did not respond directly to Chris’s point (#22)above that “Telling [the ABC] about inaccuracies and urging them not to broadcast on that basis, is not an act of censorship any more than it would be an act of censorship to urge the New York Times not to publish, say, a false story that a senior politician is a sex abuser.”

Btw. I, as you, am not going to watch the film. It is not broadcast in my country, that is one reason.

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“Clinton Caused 9/11: Because Michael Moore is Fat”

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