alternative hippopotamus

On September 10 and 11, ABC will show a 6-hour mini-series on events and policies that lead to the attacks of 9.11. Director Cyrus Nowrasteh claims that is an objective presentation, based on the 9.11 Commission Report.

Based on the director’s words and from accounts of Bush from Suskind’s “The One Percent Doctrine,” this hippopotamus is not convinced. It may be, of course, that Nowrasteh’s partisanship is so ingrained, that it’s part of the way he sees life. Or, it may be that his dislike of progressives is so strong that he feels justified in creating anti-Democratic propaganda two months before a pivotal election.

Propaganda or mental defect? You be the judge.

Take this excerpt of a recent interview with Front Page magazine:

This miniseries is not just about the tragedy and events of 9/11, it dramatizes “how we got there” going back 8 years to the first attack on the WTC and dealing with the Al Qaeda strikes against U.S. embassies and forces in the 90s, the political lead-up, the hatching of the terrorist plots, etc. We see the heroes on the ground, like FBI agent John O’Neill and others, who after the ‘93 attack felt sure that the terrorists would strike the WTC again. It also dramatizes the frequent opportunities the Administration had in the 90s to stop Bin Laden in his tracks — but lacked the will to do so. We also reveal the day-by-day lead-up of clues and opportunities in 2001 right up to the day of the 9/11 attacks. This is a terror thriller as well as a history lesson. I think people will be engaged and enlightened.

We see that Clinton, in the director’s view, lacked the will to stop Bin Laden. This is, of course, subjective language, as there’s no way to know what degree of “will” Clinton had, or if “will” was even the issue. Moreover, what Bush lacked we’re left guessing, as Nowrasteh neglects to point out these failings. Yet, the 9.11 attacks happened on Bush’s watch, and however many bullhorn speeches he gives, no matter how many Top Gun-style PR stops he makes, Bush is accountable for what he didn’t do 5 years ago.

If this excerpt from Suskind’s “One Percent Doctrine” is accurate, then Bush understood essentially nothing about Bin Laden, yet believed in his own ability to make this determination from a briefer’s body language: (from Brad DeLong’s site):

Verbal briefings of George W. Bush are acts of almost inestimable import… more so than… for other recent presidents. He’s not much of a reader… never has been… not a President who sees much value in hearing from a wide array of voices…. But he’s a very good listener and an extremely visual listener. He sizes people up swiftly and aptly… and trusts his eyes. It is a gift, this nonverbal acuity…. What does George W. Bush do? He makes it personal…. The expert… has done the hard work… [Bush] tries to gauge how “certain” they are of what they say….

The trap, of course, is that while these tactile, visceral markers can be crucial… they sometimes are not. The thing to focus on, at certain moments, is what someone says, not who is saying it, or how they’re saying it.

And, at an eyeball-to-eyeball intelligence briefing during this urgent summer, George W. Bush seems to have made the wrong choice.

He looked hard at the panicked CIA briefer.

“All right,” he said. “You’ve covered your ass, now.”

One wonders if a scene along those lines will make into “The Path to 9/11″?

See also: Clinton, 9/11 and the Facts, which appears to be definitive takedown on the ABC Documentally.

Stirling Newberry: “So when a party’s negatives are high, the only thing that they can do is drive the other party’s negatives even higher. ABC intends, in effect, to make a massive undeclared contribution to the Republican Congressional campaign and call it “free speech”. Well speech it is, but with trillions in tax breaks for the wealthy, it certainly wasn’t free.”