Apple cuts the TV out of TV programming “This is a first giant step,” said Disney Chief Executive Officer Robert Iger, who appeared on stage with Jobs to tout the new offering. “It is the future, as far as we are concerned.”
The iTunes Music Store, however, will initially carry movies only from The Walt Disney Co. studios, where Apple CEO Steve Jobs is a board member. By contrast, Amazon.com Inc.’s movie service launched last week with distribution deals with seven studios — but not Disney.
I don’t see how Jobs can fulfill his obligations as Disney Director (regarding potentially libelous TV movies) when he has a stake in keeping his mouth shut.Conflict of Interest (from wikipedia)
A conflict of interest is a situation in which someone in a position of trust, such as a lawyer, a politician, or an executive or director of a corporation, has competing professional or personal interests. Such competing interests can make it difficult to fulfill his or her duties impartially. Even if there is no evidence of improper actions, a conflict of interest can create an appearance of impropriety that can undermine confidence in the ability of that person to act properly in his/her position.
We are deeply disappointed that ABC and the Disney Corporation chose to air “The Path to 9/11.” The final product was fraught with error and contained contrived scenes that are directly contradicted by the findings of the 9/11 Commission Report. The film has undoubtedly cemented in millions of viewers’ minds a false impression of critical historical events.
While there is not enough room here to fully document the fiction in your film, attached to this letter is a detailed fact sheet listing the numerous inaccuracies in the film according to the 9/11 Commission.
Nine days ago, we wrote to you asking simply that the miniseries tell the truth, as researched extensively and definitively by the bipartisan 9/11 Commission. We asked that your network not present outright fiction as historical fact to the American public. In fact, we took pains to detail sequences in the movie that were plainly invented, based upon the version of the film that was shown to television critics and distributed to many conservative commentators. During our two recent conversations, you assured us that you were personally taking the responsibility to ensure that appropriate edits to the film would be made. Publicly, ABC said that the editing process was ongoing and that it was irresponsible” to condemn the film before seeing the finished product.
Having now seen the first night of this fiction, it is clear that the edits made to the film did not address the factual errors that we brought to your attention. “The Path to 9/11” flagrantly ignored the facts as reported by the 9/11 Commission and invented its own version of history. The result, in our judgment, is irreparable damage to the Commission’s work. More importantly, it is a disservice to the American people.
That the film directly contradicts the findings of the 9/11 Commission is troubling. That it defames dedicated public officials is tragic. But the fact that it misleads millions of people about the most tragic and consequential event in recent history is disgraceful.
Sincerely,
Bruce R. Lindsey Chief Executive Officer William J. Clinton Foundation
Douglas J. Band Counselor to President Clinton Office of William Jefferson Clinton
Dave Neiwert has, as he has so often, an extremely intelligent post entitled, you guessed it, “Projecting Fascism:”
[John] Dean has hit on exactly what we’ve been observing about movement conservatives and their increasingly ugly tone in recent: it is part of a sometimes conscious strategy to project their own ambitions onto their opponents:
In other words, for a number of the right’s leading rhetoricians, the projection appears to be perfectly conscious: it is a strategy, designed to marginalize their opposition and open the field to nearly any behavior it chooses.
And it is extraordinarily successful precisely because projection, as a trait, is so deeply woven into the right-wing psyche. Those who engage in it consciously set off waves of sympathetic response from their audiences because it hits their buttons in exactly the right spot.
The deep-seatedness of this trait can make it diffidcult, at times, to discern whether the behavior is conscious or not. But it also lends to a certain predictability: One of the best indicators of where the right is heading, I’ve noted previously, can be found in the very things of which it accuses the left.
So when it starts to accuse its opponents of coddling fascism, you can rest assured that the American right is embarking on precisely that path itself. And considering what we know about fascism historically, this shouldn’t be a surprise.
Yep. In the jargon of psychotherapy, projection is a primitive defense mechanism for eliminating anxiety about one’s own self-worth. Let me try to illustrate with an example.
Let’s say, hypothetically, that you are President of the United States. Picking a name out of a hat, I’ll call you George W. Bush. All your life you’ve avoided serious danger, both physically (going AWOL, perhaps from a National Guard Unit) and psychologically (maybe you are a one-time heavy boozer who has replaced cocktails with sycophants instructed to keep all criticism away from you). You have started a war in a Middle Eastern country – any one, but let’s just say it was Iraq – and it’s going badly. You’re afraid to withdraw the troops because you think everyone will learn that you are what you know yourself to be: a deeply terrified coward.
The thought is unbearable and you must get rid of it. But how? You simply “project” those thoughts onto a hated enemy. You deny them in yourself by accusing your political enemies of the failure to commit and focus that, you fear, you yourself, for your entire life, are guilty of.
You may also try to project some of your overwhelming guilt into very revealing jokes. Suppose, for example, you can’t abide people doing things you don’t like. But you know that those who seek to control others are often given the most odious labels your culture can bestow. It makes you uncomfortable because you’re afraid you’re one of those people. So, to relieve the psychic tension, you quip, “It’s a heck of a lot easier being a dictator, as long as I’m the dictator,” just a good natured chuckle that hopefully makes you look like a powerful, responsible person that can laugh at the burdens of power, rather than covet more. Never mind that the grammatical lapses (the tenses) might expose more lust for power than you might like; no one listens that closely anyway to off the cuff laffs, so you’re safe.
Now all this is hypothetically speaking, of course. No one, not even Charles Krauthammer, should try to psychoanalyze anyone by long distance. But while my little crude example may be inapt, it is quite appropriate to note the conscious use of projection as part of the rhetorical strategy of the right. And it is, as Neiwert implies, quite conscious.
The right knows exactly who are behaving like fascists – who are, in fact, fascists: themselves.
Of course, we’ve been attacked, again and again. No, I’m not talking about the anthrax attacks. Or the assault on July 4, 2002 at LA airport, an incident that was relabeled possible terrorism when no one was looking. I’m talking Spain and Britain and Indonesia and Jordan and so on, so on.
Y’know the fake term “Islamo-fascism” used to justify the invasion of Iraq for an attack perpetrated primarily by Saudis? Guess what? Al Qaeda thinks the same way about “the Jews and the Crusaders.” New York, Madrid, London – they’re all in it together, if we attack Indonesia we send a message to Paris not to fuck with us. America’s support for Israel, Western-style nightclubs in Bali – it’s transnational, an ideology of hate. These are people who simply want to destroy us. The West – we’re all the same to al-Zawahiri, all responsible. The US bombs us? Hit Spain.
The awful tragedy of this time, and what makes it radically different than Lincoln’s or FDR’s, is that Osama is facing an enemy even more ignorant. narcissistic, and insecure than he is. Ignorant armies clashing by night, indeed.
Susan Sontag got a lot of flack when she wrote, a short time after 9/11/01 that everyone knows the US is strong, the question is whether we can be smart. Sontag was no fool. She knew there was no doubt about it, not with these clowns in charge.
How very truthy of Disney/ABC to change the erroneous “PT9/11” line, “ever since the Washington Post disclosed that we intercept his calls, UBL stopped using them altogether” to “ever since the wonderful press disclosed that we intercept his calls, UBL stopped using them altogether.”
The facts on this are well known: the Washington Post was right to complain and request that the line be changed because the Washington Times was the paper that the character in the movie would have been referring to.
Why in the hell didn’t they just change the line to reflect the paper that actually wrote the story or cut it all together? Is it just reflex now for Disney/ABC to default to the right wing?
Kevin Drum explains why Democrats are unwilling to genuflect to Republican posturing on 9/11 anymore.
James Joyner, noting the harsh tone evident in many of the lefty blogosphere’s 9/11 posts today, says that “the stridency of these posts, even from bloggers and publications on the moderate side of the lefty blogosphere is surprising.”
Speaking only for myself, I’m not sure this should come as a surprise to anyone. My biggest disappointment of the past five years — the biggest by a very long way — has been the way that George Bush transformed 9/11 from an opportunity to bring the country together into a cynical and partisan cudgel useful primarily for winning a few more votes in national elections.
It’s not my biggest disappointment; I knew they would exploit it. But I never expected they would be this aggressively shameless about it. Read the whole post for the full litany of opportunistic partisan BS.
And yet after all that, here is what the president had the nerve to say tonight:
“Winning this war will require the determined efforts of a unified country. So we must put aside our differences, and work together to meet the test that history has given us. We will defeat our enemies, we will protect our people, and we will lead the 21st century into a shining age of human liberty.”
“Put aside our differences?”
You first.
Update: If you haven’t seen Olberman’s comment tonight, be sure to check it out over at Crooks and Liars. Wow.
Max Blumenthal has the latest on the rightwing cabal that got ABC to air its propaganda. It looks like Iger was asleep at the wheel and rudely awakened.
While I had speculated here that it was writer Cyrus Nowrasteh, whose credits included “The Day Reagan Was Shot,” who brought in the lil’ religious fanatic director David Cunningham, it turns out that Cunningham brought in Nowrasteh. Weird.
David Horowitz is doing his best Sergeant Schultz impression.
Meanwhile, Glenn Greenwald reports even more proof emerges that the marketing campaign was aimed exclusively at rightwingers. No screeners for Alan Colmes, Al Franken, Ed Schultz or Rhandi Rhodes. Local LA bloviator Bill Handel got one, though. Unsolicited.
I’ve been getting a few admonistions from readers who are upset that I’m not suspending my anger to observe this day with solemnity and seriousness. But I’m not going to apologize for being angry. I was angry that day five years ago and I’m still angry.
You see, I knew — I knew — that bin Laden had just achieved a huge victory, perhaps a decisive one. This was not because of the attacks themselves or even the possibility of more in the future, which as horrible and dramatic as they are do not in themselves represent any kind of existential threat. This was because as an observer of the zeitgeist and the political scene for over 30 years at that point, I knew that our government and media would react to this event in exactly the way bin Laden hoped and that we would do to ourselves what the Islamic extremists could only dream of doing: turn the country into a permanent state of faux crisis — and enable the authoritarian right wing of this country, which was unfortunately in power at the time, to pursue a doomed military empire, create a powerful imperial presidency and build the American style police state they had longed for for decades. I knew that they would run with this “opportunity” and run with it they did.
It became a cliche and then a joke when people would say “the terrorists have won” but there is little doubt in my mind that they have achieved much of what they set out to do. Rather than being the object of sympathy and solidarity we were in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, the world now sees the United States as the terrorists do — a rogue superpower, untrustworthy and unpredictable. The irrational invasion of Iraq cemented an image in the minds of muslims and others that the US intends to steal valuable mid-east resources and wants a permanent presence in the region in order to subjugate its people.
The next generation of Americans is going to be left with a crippling economic burden from the twin effects of runaway spending on Iraq and an insane fiscal policy. Our society is being trained to believe we live in a perpetually fearful state of suspended animation, waiting for the ax to fall and increasingly sure that we must be willing to allow the government to do anything to maintain our precarious safety. (As long as we can keep shopping, of course.)
SCHNEIDER: One year after 9/11, 31 percent of Americans said they felt fear when they thought about the attacks. Five years after the attacks, that numbers is up to 44 percent.
One year after 9/11, nearly half the public expressed a desire for vengeance. Osama bin Laden is still out there. Only now are some of the terrorists being brought to trial.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We will continue to bring the world’s most dangerous terrorists to justice.
SCHNEIDER: The desire for vengeance is about the same five years later. Do Americans believe the country will ever completely return to normal? No, a view shared by more and more people. One year after 9/11, 54 percent felt the country would never get back to normal. Now, five years after the attacks, 70 percent believe the country will never return to normal.
Good work Osama. If you wanted to create terror, you seem to have succeeded. Or someone has on your behalf. There are those who seem intent upon wallowing in this “fear,” immersing themselves in it, rubbing it all over them and everybody else. And there’s no question why they want to do that. After all, terror doesn’t just benefit Al Qaeda, does it?
The conservative Center for Security Policy will begin airing a new television commercial criticizing those who might oppose [Bush’s proposed legislation on show trials for terror detainees].
Some in Congress think “that if we retreat our terrorist enemies will leave us alone,” says the ad that will run in Ohio, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Vermont and New York. “They say we should close Guantanamo, where captured foes are kept from waging war against us. … They seem to think we’ll be safer if we cut and run.”
With menacing music in the background, the commercial ends with an admonition: “Vote as if your life depended on it. Because it does.” via
And the Democrats, a day late and a dollar short when it comes to national security, have no choice but to feed into that sense of existential fear by nattering on about failed homeland security and accusing the president of feeble leadership because he hasn’t caught Osama bin Laden, thus reinforcing the notion that we are under seige. Not that they have any choice really. To do otherwise would be, as Tom Kean said yesterday on This Week, “heresy.”
So, in a very real sense, just as bin Laden depends upon the Republican party’s fear and loathing campaign to keep him relevant, the Republicans depend upon bin Laden to keep the terror on simmer. (Those tapes always dribble out just at the right moment, don’t they?) According to Ron Susskind’s book “The One Percent Solution” it is well known why in intelligence circles:
Deputy CIA director John E. McLaughlin noted at one meeting, “Bin Laden certainly did a nice favor today for the President.” Suskind quoted Jami Miscik, CIA deputy associate director for intelligence, as saying “Certainly, he would want Bush to keep doing what he’s doing for a few more years.
The problem is that this country simply cannot take an endless ginned-up “war” designed to benefit the Republican party and Islamic terrorists and neither can the rest of the world. We have big problems to face and we need allies and cooperation to deal with them. Right now we are actively making things worse by allowing our government to pursue terrorism policies that create more of it.
This week the administration is planning to force the congress to rubber stamp its heretofore illegal torture and detention regime. They are going to use some of the 9/11 families to demagogue this legislation as the only proper response to the WTC attacks and they are going to try to trap Democratic politicians into voting for it or risk being “Clelanded” in the coming campaign. You can already see the outlines of what we can expect to see in that ad I excerpted above.
This torture and detention regime is making our country less safe and less free by creating more terrorists and degrading the US Constitution, but rather than dismantling it the Republicans are going to institutionalize it. It is only the latest of many such foolish actions our government undertook since 9/11. The question is whether we will continue to allow them to do Osama bin Laden’s dirty work or if people of good sense will be able to resist their irrational warmongering and confront terrorists intelligently instead of giving them exactly what they want.
I’m not a big fan of Islamic fundamentalists myself. Like most fundamentalist religious fanatics, they are delusional, repressive, authoritarian tyrants and I have no desire for them to succeed in any way. I’m a liberal, after all. I’d really like to see the US government stop empowering them.
The fact that it is doing so makes me angry, I admit. On this day, of all days, especially.
*Note: I must admit that as much as I *knew* the Republicans would make the terrorist threat self-fulfilling by their overreaction, I never imagined that they would so boldly say things like this:
“We are used to a peacetime system in which Congress enacts the laws, the president enforces them, and the courts interpret them. In wartime, the gravity shifts to the executive branch.”
Uhm. No, actually it doesn’t. Not ever. And especially not when the war is a “war.”
CNN just gave President Bush some enthusiastic fellatio with its segment called “Commanding Presence?” I thought the question mark might lead to a serious discussion of Bush’s timorous behavior on 9/11 but since the people answering this question were Ari Fleischer and Andy Card you can imagine how critical it was. They did show the “My Pet Goat” footage, but Ari and Andy helpfully explained that it was highly unusual for anyone to interrupt the president in the middle of a photo-op so it shows just how seriously they all took it.
We then learned that he was desperate to get back to the White House, saying immediately, “I’m not gonna let some tin-horn dictator terrorist keep me outta Washington.”
They portray him as being very unusually voluble throughout that day — in private, at least. Later, after he insisted that he take marine-one instead of a motorcade because he wanted to “land at the white house” he looked down upon the smoldering pentagon and said to no one in particular, “the mightiest building in the world is on fire — this is the face of war in the 21st Century.”