Interesting details about the production of ABC's 9/11 mockumentary (minority, grace)

[doppelgänger]

Details courtesy of Max Blumenthal:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-bl...t_b_29015.html

Before The Path to 9/11 entered the production stage, Disney/ABC contracted David Cunningham as the film's director. Cunningham is no ordinary Hollywood journeyman. He is in fact the son of Loren Cunningham, founder of the right-wing evangelical group Youth With A Mission (YWAM). The young Cunningham helped found an auxiliary of his father's group called The Film Institute (TFI), which, according to its mission statement, is "dedicated to a Godly transformation and revolution TO and THROUGH the Film and Televisionindustry." As part of TFI's long-term strategy, Cunningham helped place interns from Youth With A Mission's in film industry jobs "so that they can begin to impact and transform Hollywood from the inside out," according to a YWAM report.
Last June, Cunningham's TFI announced it was producing its first film, mysteriously titled "Untitled History Project." "TFI's first project is a doozy," a newsletter to YWAM members read. "Simply being referred to as: The Untitled History Project, it is already being called the television event of the decade and not one second has been put to film yet. Talk about great expectations!" (A web edition of the newsletter was mysteriously deleted yesterday but has been cached on Google at the link above).
The following month, on July 28, the New York Post reported that ABC was filming a mini-series "under a shroud of secrecy" about the 9/11 attacks. "At the moment, ABC officials are calling the miniseries 'Untitled Commission Report' and producers refer to it as the 'Untitled History Project,'" the Post noted.
Early on, Cunningham had recruited a young Iranian-American screenwriter named Cyrus Nowrasteh to
write the script of his secretive "Untitled" film. Not only is Nowrasteh an outspoken conservative, he is also a fervent member of the emerging network of right-wing people burrowing into the film industry with ulterior sectarian political and religious agendas, like Cunningham.
Nowrasteh's conservatism was on display when he appeared as a featured speaker at the Liberty Film Festival (LFF), an annual event founded in 2004 to premier and promote conservative-themed films supposedly too "politically incorrect" to gain acceptance at mainstream film festivals. This June, while The Path to 9/11 was being filmed, LFF founders Govindini Murty and Jason Apuzzo -- both friends of Nowrasteh -- announced they were "partnering" with right-wing activist David Horowitz. Indeed, the 2006 LFF is listed as "A Program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center."
Since the inauguration of Bill Clinton in 1992, Horowitz has labored to create a network of politically active conservatives in Hollywood. His Hollywood nest centers around his Wednesday Morning Club, a
weekly meet-and-greet session for Left Coast conservatives that has been graced with speeches by
the likes of Newt Gingrich, Victor Davis Hanson and Christopher Hitchens. The group's headquarters are at the offices of Horowitz's Center for the Study of Popular Culture, a "think tank" bankrolled for years with millions by right-wing sugardaddies like eccentric far right billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife. (Scaife
financed the Arkansas Project, a $2.3 million dirty tricks operation that included paying sources for
negative stories about Bill Clinton that turned out to be false.)
With the LFF now under Horowitz's control, his political machine began drumming up support for Cunningham and Nowrasteh's "Untitled" project, which finally was revealed in late summer as "The Path to 9/11." Horowitz's PR blitz began with an August 16 interview with Nowrasteh on his FrontPageMag webzine. In the interview, Nowrasteh foreshadowed the film's assault on Clinton's record on fighting terror. "The 9/11 report details the Clinton's administration's response -- or lack of response -- to Al Qaeda and how this emboldened Bin Laden to keep attacking American interests," Nowrasteh told FrontPageMag's Jamie Glazov. "There simply was no response. Nothing."

Take the link and read on . . . .this is very, very interesting . . .

[MaddLlama]

I also heard on a local news station that Clinton forced ABC to cut out some things in the film that made him look bad.

[doppelgänger]

Originally Posted by MaddLlama

I also heard on a local news station that Clinton forced ABC to cut out some things in the film that made him look bad.

Do you know what they were?

[MaddLlama]

Something about how he didn't listen to various warnings about an attack. They didn't really go into details.

[jonny]

Originally Posted by MaddLlama

Something about how he didn't listen to various warnings about an attack. They didn't really go into details.

He DID have the opportunity to have Bin Laden and turned him down...

He's just trying to protect his image. I wish that we all had the power to control information like these polititians do. I can't believe how worked up the democrats are getting over a movie that is historical fiction. Pathetic. I didn't seem them up in arms over Fahrenheit 9-11.

[lunamoth]

Sounds like propaganda to me (both the movie and the 'review'). It certainly would be so nice if our leaders could predict the future and prevent all bad things from happening. But then they'd be accused of preemptive strikes. Last time I checked you could not go around killing or locking up people or starting wars because you suspect someone is going to do something (ooops! I guess we are doing that now).

Minority Report, anyone?

[Booko]

Originally Posted by MaddLlama

Something about how he didn't listen to various warnings about an attack. They didn't really go into details.

There's one scene in particular where the CIA has bin Laden in their sights and Sandy Berger calls it off at the last minute.

I'm sorry, but that's not dramatic license, that's just plain ridiculous. Even Kane, the Republican head of the 911 Commission, has an issue with it. This is not just a political ploy. Apparently one of the actors made a complaint about it at the time, because it wasn't even close to historical.

And you know very well what would happen if ABC put this mockumentary out like that. People would be going around saying "Wow dude...did you know Clinton could've killed Bin Laden but he called it off?" It doesn't matter how many disclaimers you put on it, people would believe it just like 57% of Americans *still* think Saddam Hussein had something to do with 911.

ABC should be ashamed of itself for trying to defend this.