Month: September 2006

What’s Newt?

by tristero

Many moons ago, I pondered the question: Is Newt Gingrich an idiot or a moron? Today, he has forced the question anew.

Apparently, Gingrich’s odious endorsement of specious World War II analogies has backfired. Not missing a beat, he now has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal in which, in goosestep with Rice, he compares the mess Bush has created around the world with the American Civil War. The parallels are striking, Newt says. Lincoln, like Bush, had to face the option of the defeatists to stop the war, or stay an unworkable course, or change direction and bring “the full might of the industrial North to bear until the war was won.”

My mind boggled when I read that. Why? Because it sure sounds to me like Newt Gingrich, former representative of Georgia, actually compared the Confederate Army to al Qaeda, the leaders of the Confederacy to Iran’s mullahs, and Jefferson Davis to Saddam Hussein.

I suppose I should take this as good news, that white folks in the South, like Newt Gingrich, are finally coming to terms with the truth of the Civil War, that it really was about slavery and not “state’s rights,” and that the racist Confederacy was, in fact, a 19th century Axis of Evil comprised of people who hated American values and wished to destroy us. But for some reason, I don’t think so: I think Newt never fully thought through the implications of his ridiculous analogy or is hoping no one notices he just insulted one of the most rock solid of the Republican bases.

And so, once again, we are left to ponder exactly what Newt is. I still believe “moron” most closely describes him. But I’m open to other opinions.

[Updated to add link to Newt’s op-ed.]

That Liberal Media

by tristero

You can count on them to push a far left agenda:

Major media outlets offered intense coverage of conservative complaints about a 2003 miniseries on Ronald and Nancy Reagan, ultimately leading CBS to pull the show from its broadcast network. The media have thus far not provided the same level of coverage to an ABC miniseries about the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that reportedly contains outright falsehoods and distortions.

[UPDATE] In comments, Anoymous Liberal writes that he posted the same point a day before Media Matters. Go here.

Lovely

by poputonian

Reuters: Evolution debate rears head again in Ohio

Americans who question evolution are testing a new tactic in Ohio, arguing that schools should be required to discuss all controversial issues from creation to stem cell research and global warming.

In what critics on Wednesday called a new attempt to bring religion into the classroom, the Ohio State Board of Education will consider a proposal next week that would oblige schools to teach critical thinking in all subjects.

The proposal, to be discussed on Monday by a school board subcommittee in Columbus, is the latest gambit by those who believe Darwin’s theory of evolution should be taught as only one disputed explanation for the origin of humankind.

School board President Sue Westendorf said the committee would debate but probably not vote on the proposal. It is designed to replace curriculum rescinded in February after a Pennsylvania court ruled that teaching the theory known as “intelligent design” in that state was unconstitutional.

The debate between those who accept the theory of evolution and those who believe in the Biblical account of creation has bubbled up periodically in U.S. schools since before the Scopes “monkey trial” in Tennessee 80 years ago.

The Pennsylvania decision handed down last December found that “intelligent design” — a theory that God must be behind evolution because life is too complex to be random — was a religious doctrine without any scientific merit.

Ohio teachers had been allowed to question evolution under a model lesson plan approved in 2004, but the school board canceled it in February after the Pennsylvania ruling.

The board, made up of religious conservatives and moderates, has been trying to replace the lesson plan ever since. Westendorf said the new proposal was aimed at broadening the disputed curriculum to require debate on topics beyond hot-button questions surrounding religion and science.

“This is about critical thinking in social studies, science, math — all of the entities, because there are controversial topics in all of those areas,” she said.

But critics said conservative Christians were simply trying to find a back-door way to teach that God created the earth.

“Ohio has always been the bellwether. Things are floated in Ohio to see if they work, and if they work, they’ll try to get them adopted elsewhere,” said Lawrence Krauss, a member of the Campaign to Defend the Constitution, which opposes the teaching of religion in public schools.

John West, senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, which promotes the teaching of intelligent design, said the proposed new policy was “good pedagogy and good for students” because it would teach them how to sift and analyze evidence.

“Students don’t like to be told that there are some questions they don’t have the right to raise.”

Eating The Elephant One Bite At A Time
by poputonian
People around the world are eating the elephant … one bite at a time. Sir James makes this observation today:

And Then There Was One…
What’s unraveling within the Labour Party could prove fateful for the Bush administration as well. It carries far more import than any of the longwinded speeches Bush has been making this week and eating up the clock on cable news. For without Blair planted beside him on the summit stage, translating and amplifying his vision into mellifluous oratory to meet the world-historical moment (his hair crackling with an urgent air of crisis), Bush will look denuded, orphaned, like an Everly Brother out there alone. Who else is there? Berlusconi is gone, and good riddance. Putin, into whose soul Bush once peered, has turned aside. Australia’s John Howard is too many time zones away. He desperately needs Blair, no matter how shabbily he has treated his junior partner (as evidenced by the “open mike” episode in St. Petersburg, where, as Anatole Kaletsky put in the Times UK, “Mr Blair went beyond the wildest parody in his sycophantic fawing to President Bush”). With Blair badly weakened or dropped down the trap door by his fed-up party, Bush will be even more diminished in his last two lame-duck years. Here is a scenario guaranteed to make neocons unhappy, courtesy of the Times’ Kaletsky:

“Mr Brown’s most important decision when he takes over as Prime Minister will be over foreign policy: to continue with the Blair policy, or to withdraw from Iraq and publicly break with President Bush. If Mr Brown has any sense he will do the latter, not only because US foreign policies have proved so disastrous, but also because a clean break with President Bush will symbolise the end of the Blair era, will allow the Labour Party to return to its internationalist traditions and will reconnect the Government with both middle-class and left-wing voters.

“But this clean break in foreign policy is exactly what Mr Blair can prevent as long as he remains in power. And it is over foreign policy, rather than over public services or taxes, that he will try hardest to ‘lock in’ his successor. Even a few weeks ago, Mr Blair might have been able to get foreign policy commitments out of Mr Brown in exchange for a public timetable for his departure. But now such a chess-style exchange is worthless, since Mr Blair is already finished. ‘Checkmate,’ says Gordon Brown.”

Yes!

“Iraq For Sale”

by tristero

I saw a preview of the new Robert Greeenwald film, Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers last night and it’s very good. It’s directed at any and all Americans who “support the troops,” especially those who support the war and assume that the Bush administration is doing everything possible to prevent the troops from suffering unnecessary harm.

And if you support the troops, for any reason, you should be furious at the incredible extent of the greed, corruption, and incompetence of the companies the Bush administration is contracting with over in Iraq. We’re talking KBR/Halliburton, CACI, Titan, and of course, Blackwater, all of which have placed their CEOs’ obscene compensation above the safety of American soldiers, of innocent Iraqi civilians, and even of their own employees.

How obscene, exactly, is the compensation of these CEOs? We’re talking around $40 million each for the most part. Paid for with your tax dollars, of course. And what do the troops get? They get lousy food and stand in line for hours for the privilege. They get an incompetent laundry service that charges you and me a C note per each soldier’s wash. They get translators that barely speak the languages or understand how to translate. They get torturers and psychopaths – drooling sadists accountable to no one who have been doing their level best to destroy any small vestiges of goodwill towards the US and its soldiers that might still exist beyond our borders. And the troops get rubbed in the face every day with the simple fact that they’ve been played for real suckers. That’s because the “private contractors” – the euphemism of choice for mercernaries these days – make about 6 times what the average soldier makes, often for doing the same job.

None of this is news to many of us, of course. But it may very well be news for lots of Americans, if this film gets seen by the kinds of people who are interviewed in it: middle-class men and women who were bamboozled by the Bush administration into a war whose only point appears to be the further enrichment of the already rich over the bodies of dead American patriots and dead Iraqis. Some liberals might object that the film finesses the larger point, that none of these Americans should be over there in the first place. In fact, it simply makes that point in language that Americans to the right of Colin Powell can understand. And it pulls no punches.

Several times people in the film bluntly accuse the men running KBR, Blackwater, et al of deliberately endangering the lives of soldiers and their own employees in pursuit of profit. The term “cold-blooded murderers” is too kind a word to describe these men. The same goes for high-placed officials in this, the worst of all American presidencies, who have blocked investigations into the war profiteers and in fact rehired them, not only for Iraq but also to slurp up funds for the cleanup after Katrina.

Even for those of us who already know all this, the film dramatizes the sheer extent of it in such a way as to make it infuriating all over again. A must see.

[UPDATE] I Arianna says that “Iraq For Sale” will make a good tool for Democrats in Red States as it paints Republicans as corrupt, cynical, and even murderous in their pursuit of profit. True enough, and that’s probably what Dems should do, but I wouldn’t quite put it that way. The film is less about Republicans and Republicanism per se as it is about the betrayal of American soldiers and American interests overseas by very specific companies and very specific politicians (all of whom are, well, Republican). Its specificity is what gives it its power; it’s not a rant against Republicanism except by implication, and so it comes across as being bipartisan.

Even more to the point, the film doesn’t give any indication that Democrats care deeply about this issue. Few major Democrats in the legislature appear willing to oppose the profiteers with the intensity it will take to bring them to justice (and many surely have committed serious crimes against Iraqis, American civilians, and American soldiers). Where’s Hillary, where’s Schumer, where’s Reid, where’s Pelosi? My recollection is that the most prominent Dems in the film are Dodd and Waxman, no slouches, but where are the so-called top leaders? I don’t remember any of them appearing (and please let me know if I’m wrong, that many of the majors are, in fact, been on top of this issue in a deeply serious way).

All Americans – even Republicans – should be appalled by the disgraceful behavior of the war profiteers. It’s simply a film anyone who supports the troops should see.

The American Scene

by digby

Atrios suggested earlier today that it might be time to start talking about the Mouse’s rather “ugly” past and I agree. Whenever they wingnuts go on about “liberal” Hollywood, I always have to laugh. It’s the oldest story in the book.

Here’s one of my favorites. Good old Uncle Walt testifying before the HUAC:

SMITH: What is your opinion of Mr. Pomerance and Mr. Howard as to whether or not they are or are not communists?

DISNEY: In my opinion they are communists. No one has any way of proving those things.

SMITH: Were you able to produce during the strike?

DISNEY: Yes, I did, because there was a very few, very small majority that was on the outside, and all the other unions ignored all the lines because of the setup of the thing.

SMITH: What is your personal opinion of the Communist Party, Mr. Disney, as to whether or not it is a political party?

DISNEY: Well, I don’t believe it is a political party. I believe it is an un-American thing. The thing that I resent the most is that they are able to get into these unions, take them over, and represent to the world that a group of people that are in my plant, that I know are good, 100 percent Americans, are trapped by this group, and they are represented to the world as supporting all of those ideologies, and it is not so, and I feel that they really ought to be smoked out and shown up for what they are, so that all of the good, free causes in this country, all the liberalisms that really are American, can go out without the taint of communism. That is my sincere feeling on it.

SMITH: Do you feel that there is a threat of communism in the motion-picture industry?

DISNEY: Yes, there is, and there are many reasons why they would like to take it over or get in and control it, or disrupt it, but I don’t think they have gotten very far, and I think the industry is made up of good Americans, just like in my plant, good, solid Americans. My boys have been fighting it longer than I have. They are trying to get out from under it and they will in time if we can just show them up.

SMITH: There are presently pending before this committee two bills relative to outlawing the Communist Party. What thoughts have you as to whether or not those bills should be passed?

DISNEY: Well, I don’t know as I qualify to speak on that. I feel if the thing can be proven un-American that it ought to be outlawed. I think in some way it should be done without interfering with the rights of the people. I think that will be done. I have that faith. Without interfering, I mean, with the good, American rights that we all have now, and we want to preserve.

SMITH: Have you any suggestions to offer as to how the industry can be helped in fighting this menace?

DISNEY: Well, I think there is a good start toward it. I know that I have been handicapped out there in fighting it, because they have been hiding behind this labor setup, they get themselves closely tied up in the labor thing, so that if you try to get rid of them they make a labor case out of it. We must keep the American labor unions clean. We have got to fight for them.

SMITH: That is all of the questions I have, Mr. Chairman.

CHAIRMAN: Mr. Vail.

VAIL: No questions.

CHAIRMAN: Mr. McDowell.

MCDOWELL: No questions.

DISNEY: Sir?

MCDOWELL: I have no questions. You have been a good witness.

DISNEY: Thank you.

CHAIRMAN: Mr. Disney, you are the fourth producer we have had as a witness, and each one of those four producers said, generally speaking, the same thing, and that is that the communists have made inroads, have attempted inroads. I just want to point that out because there seems to be a very strong unanimity among the producers that have testified before us. In addition to producers, we have had actors and writers testify to the same. There is no doubt but what the movies are probably the greatest medium for entertainment in the United States and in the world. I think you, as a creator of entertainment, probably are one of the greatest examples in the profession. I want to congratulate you on the form of entertainment which you have given the American people and given the world and congratulate you for taking time out to come here and testify before this committee. He has been very helpful.

But that doesn’t really give the full flavor of old Walt’s contribution to the Hollywood witchhunt. He was a prime mover behind it:

The Motion Picture Alliance was formed in the early 1940s by some of Hollywood’s high-profile conservatives including director Sam Wood, Walt Disney, and Leo McCarey. When the House Un-American Activities Committee investigated the motion picture industry, the “friendly witnesses” came largely from the Alliance.

Here is their “statement of principles:”

We believe in, and like, the American way of life: the liberty and freedom which generations before us have fought to create and preserve; the freedom to speak, to think, to live, to worship, to work, and to govern ourselves as individuals, as free men; the right to succeed or fail as free men, according to the measure of our ability and our strength.

Believing in these things, we find ourselves in sharp revolt against a rising tide of communism, fascism, and kindred beliefs, that seek by subversive means to undermine and change this way of life; groups that have forfeited their right to exist in this country of ours, because they seek to achieve their change by means other than the vested procedure of the ballot and to deny the right of the majority opinion of the people to rule.

In our special field of motion pictures, we resent the growing impression that this industry is made of, and dominated by, Communists, radicals, and crackpots. We believe that we represent the vast majority of the people who serve this great medium of expression. But unfortunately it has been an unorganized majority. This has been almost inevitable. The very love of freedom, of the rights of the individual, make this great majority reluctant to organize. But now we must, or we shall meanly lose “the last, best hope on earth.”

As Americans, we have no new plan to offer. We want no new plan, we want only to defend against its enemies that which is our priceless heritage; that freedom which has given man, in this country, the fullest life and the richest expression the world has ever known; that system which, in the present emergency, has fathered an effort that, more than any other single factor, will make possible the winning of this war.

As members of the motion-picture industry, we must face and accept an especial responsibility. Motion pictures are inescapably one of the world’s greatest forces for influencing public thought and opinion, both at home and abroad. In this fact lies solemn obligation. We refuse to permit the effort of Communist, Fascist, and other totalitarian-minded groups to pervert this powerful medium into an instrument for the dissemination of un-American ideas and beliefs. We pledge ourselves to fight, with every means at our organized command, any effort of any group or individual, to divert the loyalty of the screen from the free America that give it birth. And to dedicate our work, in the fullest possible measure, to the presentation of the American scene, its standards and its freedoms, its beliefs and its ideals, as we know them and believe in them.

Yes, they were just as thick and incoherent then as they are now.

But old Walt got his way, at least for a while. They succeeded in ruining a lot of people’s lives for the crime of being accused of having once been associated, however peripherally, with the communist party — and, not incidentally, having the temerity to organize unions in Hollywood.

Apparently, Walt Disney’s creepy rightwing spirit remains at the heart of the Disney empire as even today they go out of their way to cater to the religious right, help Republicans win elections and airbrush reality. Where once they tainted liberals as being communist sympathisers, they now blame them for 9/11.

The more things change…

Here’s a link to the story of that strike that old Walt was so exercized about. It’s interesting reading.

Update:

h/t to commenter The Obvious Guy

.

They Care

by digby

There is much discussion today about the result of a medical study that shows 70% of people who worked in the WTC center rubble have lung problems. I’m not surprised. I recall writing a post about this back in 2003, when it was first revealed that the administration “edited” the EPA’s health recommendations:

There are so many political and policy atrocities associated with the modern GOP and this administration that it becomes hard to feel anything more than a sort of resigned acceptance and hope that the historians will place them in their proper place in history beside other failed radical experiments.

But, every once in a while something comes to light that begets an emotional charge of such white hot anger and outrage that I find I’m shocked and awed once again at the sheer lack of decency and any claim to honor these people have, particularly after having to listen to their phony pretensions of patriotism and virtue.

Two such cases came up just recently and I wondered once again how low they can possibly go. Pretty low, apparently.

First, I simply cannot wrap my arms around the fact that the White House “sexed down” the EPA assessment of the air quality around ground zero. That they would knowingly place the people involved in the rescue and clean-up operation in long term health danger is simply so disgusting that I find it hard to imagine that any public safety worker in this country could ever vote for the Republicans again.

Remember, the people most likely to be affected by the bad air quality around the WTC after the attacks were cops, firefighters, municipal workers, rescue units and military personnel. The heroes of 9/11, the ones Bush so shamelessly exploited day after day after day — the ones that Peggy Noonan and K-Lo and Coulter got all misty and moist over.

Thanks guys. And by the way, Fuck You.

Would it have been too much trouble for the party of personal responsibility to give unspun information to citizens of the site of the most deadly terrorist attack in the nation’s history so they could decide for themselves how to mitigate the risk of serious long term consequences? The workers would have gone to work anyway, guaranteed, but they might have used more sophisticated equipment and might have discouraged people with respiratory problems from going into the area until it was completely cleared. Gosh, maybe they would have had themselves medically monitored more closely. That would have been terrible.

The only people who likely would have held back are those who work in the Stock Exchange, and there we find the real reason for the lie. Because a bunch of rich traders might have stayed home rather than expose themselves to long term lung damage, Bush and his cronies decided to throw them to the wolves, too.

Good thing you got those tax cuts boys. You’re going to need them to pay for your health costs.

Vote Republican. They care.

They sure do:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg cast doubt on the study’s claims, saying, “I don’t believe that you can say specifically a particular problem came from this particular event.”

Smoking doesn’t cause cancer and evolution and global warming are hoaxes, too, right Mike?

.

Who Lost Osama?

by digby

As the right tries to spin 9/11 as being the fault of the Democrats, I can’t help but wonder how they can do it when something like this is right out there for everyone to see:

Let’s hear no more about who caused 9/11. Even after 9/11, George W. Bush said right on television that he didn’t worry about bin Laden.

.

Why It Matters

by digby

Dean Barnett, of Hugh Hewitt’s blog, is having some second thoughts about “The Path to 9/11:”

THE CONTROVERSY ABOUT “The Path to 9/11” centers on one scene where CIA operatives and Northern Alliance irregulars under the leadership of the awe-inspiring Ahmed Shah Massoud have the opportunity to kill bin Laden. They phone NSA chief Sandy Berger for authorization to make the hit. Berger refuses to make the decision and in the scene actually hangs up on the operatives.

I’ve done a lot of reading and research regarding 9/11, and I have to admit that this story is new to me. The closest parallel I can think of is Tenet’s, Berger’s and Clinton’s irresolute follow-through on the Predator program which had the very real likelihood of knocking off bin Laden assuming the administration was willing to risk the death of innocents. Given the fact that Clinton was willing to take such a risk when the Lewinsky scandal reached its most fevered pitch, the fact that he wasn’t as bold without the looming specter of political calamity is damning. What’s more, the Clinton administration’s lethargic and chronically dilatory efforts to deal with bin Laden are an irrefutable part of the historical record.

The preceding leaves us with two possible explanations regarding the controversial scene. One is that the filmmakers have unearthed a previously unknown jewel that they can fully document; that Berger really did slam down the phone on a field agent looking for guidance. If that’s the case, then this entire conversation is irrelevant and you should cease reading this essay.

The other explanation is that, being a docudrama, the filmmakers included a fabricated scene (which was a composite of many real factors) to dramatize the ineptitude and fecklessness that so characterized the Clinton administration. One can (if one so chooses) give the filmmakers artistic license to do such a thing. But if that is what they have done, conservative analysts who back this movie as a historical document will mortgage their credibility doing so.

The second explanation is the correct one, as Thomas Kean admitted yesterday. And the problem goes much deeper than the credibility of conservative analysts. ABC is sending this thing out to 100,000 educators for free as a history lesson.

The “Student Resource Sheet” omits any mention of two crucial facts: We now know Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction, and there is a voluminous and growing body of evidence that indicates that the Bush administration knew its claims about weapons of mass destruction were unsupported…

The “Student Resource Sheet” also seems to link the war in Iraq to the 9/11 terrorist attacks: “Following the terrorist attacks on September 11, the United States began a global “War on Terror” to stop terrorist groups and state-sponsored terrorism. President Bush has led the United States into Afghanistan and Iraq and reorganized the national government in an attempt to combat terrorist activity.”

The reason this matters so much, and why Democrats are so apoplectic at the way ABC has handled this material, is that popular culture has a way of inculcating certain concepts into people’s minds, especially young minds, far more effectively than talking head programs or earnest debates among political bloggers and columnists. This is the kind of thing that could taint the debate for generations if it takes hold.

The right howled mercilessly at Oliver Stone’s depictions of JFK and Nixon, claiming that he was rewriting history. He was, and he used very clever techniques to do it — particularly the odd, dreamlike optical montages that feel like memories. But the key is that these films were about events that happened long in the past — they were re-writing history, not writing the first draft while the immediate events were still being debated. Certainly, nobody sent out high school study guides saying they were based on fact or claimed they were based on The Warren Commission Report or Nixon’s memoirs. Stone never claimed that he was depicting a factual account but rather always said that he was providing an “alternate history.”

“Path to 9/11” is using the sophisticated techniques (if not the talent) of Stone’s “alternate history” style to create an alternate reality in real time. The purpose of this can best be compared to the “who lost China” and “sell-out at Yalta” campaigns of the late 40’s. The right made political hay for decades out of those — blaming the Democrats for being soft on communism. These set the stage for the next 50 years of full throated accusations of traitorous cowardice and we are dealing with the residual results of that cynical political calculation even today. (After all, the Republicans of the day were the reluctant warriors in WWII. They desperately needed to erase that image just as they desperately need to erase the image of the Bush administration’s failures on 9/11 and Iraq.)

If this nonsense is allowed to stick, we will be battling these inaccurate demagogic, phantoms for another 50 years — and I don’t think the country will survive it. These new rightwingers make the red-baiters of the 50’s look like Gandhi. In order for the Republicans to maintain power as often and as much as possible, they must find a way to blame the Democrats for terrorism and ensure that neither party can ever stray from the most hard line they can possibly maintain. It’s the same formula that killed over 50,000 Americans in Vietnam and it’s going to do far worse this time out if we let it happen again.

.

Disney Throws Away Millions For Republican Causes

by digby

Jonathan at A Tiny Revolution notices a strange contradiction:

So…”The Path to 9/11″ cost $30 million and was written and directed by conservative ideologues. Factually speaking, it’s predictably craptastic. And yet Disney is glad to lose at least $30 million on it.

By contrast, this was Disney’s treatment of another political movie—one that eventually grossed over $200 million:

The Walt Disney Company is blocking its Miramax division from distributing a new documentary by Michael Moore that harshly criticizes President Bush, executives at both Disney and Miramax said Tuesday…

A senior Disney executive elaborated that the company had the right to quash Miramax’s distribution of films if it deemed their distribution to be against the interests of the company. The executive said Mr. Moore’s film is deemed to be against Disney’s interests not because of the company’s business dealings with the government but because Disney caters to families of all political stripes and believes Mr. Moore’s film, which does not have a release date, could alienate many.

”It’s not in the interest of any major corporation to be dragged into a highly charged partisan political battle,” this executive said.

read on…

You would think they would at least be somewhat uncomfortable about screening this rightwing mini-series only for conservatives. According to this alleged email to Hugh Hewitt, 900 screening copies were mailed out. Sadly, it appears that there were none available for members of the Clinton administration or anyone from the left.

This correspondent told Hewitt that the Disney execs were all atwitter over the week-end:

The story here is the backlash that the Disney/ABC execs experienced was completely unexpected and is what caused them to question themselves and make these changes at all. Had this been the Bush Admin pressuring, they wouldn’t have even taken the call. The execs and studio bosses are dyed in the wool liberals and huge supporters of Clinton and the Democratic Party in general. They had no idea any of this could happen. As I understand this, the lawyers and production team spent literally months corroborating every story point down to the sentence. The fact that they were the attacked and vilified by their “own team” took them completely by surprise; this is the first time they’ve been labeled right-wing, conservative conspiracists.

The scramble caused by this backlash was so all consuming that the execs spent their holiday weekend behind closed door meetings and revamped their ad campaign. But at the end of their mad scramble, they found only a handful of changes they could make and still be true to the events. The changes are done only to appease the Clinton team – to be able to say they made changes. But the blame on the Clinton team is in the DNA of the project and could not be eradicated without pulling the entire show. A $40 million investment on the part of ABC is enough to stem even Bill Clinton’s influence.

We are, apparently, supposed to assume that the communist corporate officers of Disney/ABC (many of whom inexplicably contributed to the Bush campaign) knew that the “blame on the Clinton team is in the DNA of the project” and yet they never expected this fictionalized account of the Clinton administration causing 9/11 would make any waves among their comrades. Sure, that makes perfect sense.

It’s evident that Disney/ABC Entertainment is anything but a bunch of lefties. If they were they would have been thrilled to distribute “Fahrenheit 9/11” instead of avoiding it like the plague. And they most certainly wouldn’t have signed off on crazy anti-semite Mel Gibson’s Holocaust project, for God’s sake:

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 6, 2005 – Mel Gibson, whose “The Passion of the Christ” was assailed by critics as an anti-Semitic passion play – and whose father has been on record as a Holocaust denier – has a new project under way: a nonfiction miniseries about the Holocaust.

[…]

It is not expected that Mr. Gibson will act in the miniseries, nor is it certain yet that his name, rather than his company’s, will be publicly attached to the final product, according to several people involved in developing it. Nor is it guaranteed yet that the project will be completed and broadcast.

But Quinn Taylor, ABC’s senior vice president in charge of movies for television, acknowledged that the attention-getting value of having Mr. Gibson attached to a Holocaust project was a factor.

“Controversy’s publicity, and vice versa,” Mr. Taylor said.

Right. Holocaust denial and anti-semitism is an awesome way to get publicity. But distributing a documentary about the Bush administration’s handling of 9/11 was too hot to handle. And they had no idea that a mini-series claiming that the Clinton administration was responsible for the attacks would be controversial at all.

Here’s the record:

Disney/ABC cancelled the reality show featuring a gay couple, “Welcome To The Neighborhood,” ten days before it was to air when James Dobson and the religious right threatened to withdraw their support for the conservative classic “Narnia.”

Disney refused to allow its subsidiary Miramax, which specialized in controversial fare, to distribute “Fahrenheit 9/11” allegedly because they felt it was too political.

They made a deal with Mel Gibson, beloved on the religious right for his film “The Passion,” to produce a film about the Holocaust even though they knew at the time he held extremely controversial views about the Holocaust and Judaism. They only cancelled the project when he was caught by the police drunkenly saying “all the wars in the world are caused by the Jews.”

Now they have produced a blatantly rightwing work of fiction which they are saying is based on the official 9/11 Commission report and they are giving it away without any advertising. They sent out hundreds of screening copies but failed to send any to the Clinton administration officials who are trashed in the film or to liberal columnists and bloggers.

There’s a pattern here folks and it isn’t a pattern that shows ABC knuckling under to liberals. There is a huge amount of money at stake in all these decisions, but for some reason Disney seems to be more than willing to throw it away when it benefits the right wing: already produced films and TV shows are either cancelled or allowed to be distributed by others, while hugely expensive, controversial rightwing mini-series’ are broadcast with no advertising and allowed to be downloaded for free by I-tunes.

Isn’t that something that Disney shareholders should be just a little bit concerned about? If ABC is protecting its “Narnia” franchise, at some point you have to look at whether the price they are paying is too high. If they have thrown this kind of money away to appease the GOP for business reasons then their shareholders have just been taken to the cleaners. The old K Street project is dead and when Democrats take congress this fall they aren’t going to be happy. They are on to it.

If Disney/ABC is giving away free air time for conservative projects and denying distribution to programs that don’t favor the Republican Party, then perhaps somebody needs to look at whether this stuff is legal. There are laws regulating corporate giving to campaigns. By not showing advertising it seems to me that it’s not impossible to make a case that this latest is a free gift to the Republican party just weeks before an important election.

.