Melissa Hart - 9/11 Expert

Congresswoman Melissa Hart was briefly on Fred Honsberger's radio program this afternoon - and the discussion focussed (again, briefly) on ABC's "The Path to 9/11."

She unveiled her expertise of all things 9/11 by declaring that ABC's by now discredited "docudrama" was "accurate" and pretty much in keeping with the findings of the 9/11 Commission report.

Perhaps Missy Hart missed this from Richard Clarke today.

And Clarke begins:

As someone who was directly involved in almost every event depicted in the fictionalized docudrama, "The Path to 9-11," I believe it is an egregious distortion that does a deep disservice both to history and to those in both the Clinton and Bush administrations who are depicted. [emphasis added]

Someone should tell Missy about this. Then there's his next paragraph:

Sadly, ABC's Entertainment Division hired a production company and screen writer who were apparently unqualified to deal with this historically important subject matter. That error appears to have been compounded by the failure of some of the docudrama's consultants to insure that the account was accurate. Some of the most outrageous scenes were removed after a recent senior level review. What remains, however, is not the true story as told by the 9-11 Commission. [emphasis added]

Someone should tell Missy about this.

But perhaps she didn't get on-line today.

Perhaps someone should let her know that a group of professional historians wrote a letter to Robert Iger (big honcho over there at ABC). Here's the first paragraph of the letter:

We write as professional historians, who are deeply concerned by the continuing reports about ABC's scheduled broadcast of "The Path to 9/11." These reports document that this drama contains numerous flagrant falsehoods about critical events in recent American history. The key participants and eyewitnesses to these events state that the script distorts and even fabricates evidence into order to mislead viewers about the responsibility of numerous American officials for allegedly ignoring the terrorist threat before 2000. [emphasis added]

Someone should tell Missy about this.

Then there's this from mediamatters.org:

The first part of the ABC miniseries The Path to 9-11, which aired on September 10, included a fabricated scene that depicts Clinton administration officials declining to authorize the CIA to capture Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. ABC retained the controversial scene despite the fact that it is contradicted by the 9-11 Commission report -- which ABC originally cited as the film's basis (although following criticism of the film's numerous inconsistencies with the report, network officials have since minimized that claim) -- and has even been disputed in recent days by conservative media figures such as Richard Miniter. [emphasis added]

Someone should tell Missy about this.

Do I need to continue?

Ok, but only one more from Americablog:

As I first noted yesterday, I have the entire "Path to 9/11" video. And one of the very first scenes makes it explicitly clear that American Airlines had Mohammad Atta in its grasp, warning lights flashing on the computer screen, yet the airline simply blew off the threat and helped Atta kill 3,000 Americans.

Unfortunately, it's a total lie.

Here's what the "Path to 9/11" claims American Airlines did on the morning of September 11. According to Disney/ABC, American Airlines at Boston Logan had Mohammad Atta at its ticket counter and a warning came up on the screen when he tried to check in. The AA employee called a supervisor who kind of shrugged and said, blithely, just let him through. The first employee, shocked, turned to her supervisor and said, shouldn't we search him? The American Airlines supervisor responds, nah, just hold his luggage until he boards the plane. The scene is clearly intended to make American Airlines look negligent.

Only problem? It never happened. [emphasis added]

And so on.

Someone really should tell Missy about this.

How can we trust her to legislate adequately if she can't even recognize reality?

Congresswoman Melissa Hart