ABC's Path to 9/11: Analysis

Part 1 of ABC's The Path to 9/11 two-part docudrama aired last night, and reactions from political types were largely as expected.

Supporters of former president Bill Clinton complained about some scenes in advance copies of the program (which were altered before airing, to reflect their concerns), some on the political right were disgusted by leftists' calls for censorship and retaliation against ABC, and others on the right took what they apparently considered to be the high road, claiming that the film's condensation of certain events into dramatic scenes was outrageous. The latter included Bill Bennett, Bill O'Reilly, John Podhoretz, and John Fund.

Fund, in his Opinion Journal article on the film, even goes so far as to say that it is fundamentally dishonorable to make docudramas: "Their rules simply aren't good enough when dealing with events that are still fresh in the minds of so many. At worst, they can be used by ideological gunslingers like director Oliver Stone, who smeared the reputations of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon in paranoid fantasy films."

That seems to me to be a serious overreaction to this film, as indeed were the reactions of the Democrat opponents of the film. The rules for dramas are different from the rules for histories, and they should be.

It's a movie, people.

Everyone involved seems to have no idea whatever of the purpose of a docudrama.

For the rest of this analysis, click here.