‘Path to 9/11’ tells a sad, riveting tale

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In a posting on ThinkProgress.org this week, Clarke disputed another scene that had Clinton officials refusing to give the go-ahead to American agents in Afghanistan who were in position to capture Osama bin Laden — then abruptly hanging up the phone on them.

It's a shocking occurrence. Presumably Clarke, now an ABC News consultant, will have a chance to reiterate his argument that it never happened when he appears Monday on ABC News' "9/11/06: Where Things Stand."

Perhaps another guest, Thomas Kean (the former Republican governor of New Jersey, who was chairman of the 9/11 Commission and served as senior consultant for "The Path to 9/11") will defend the film's evenhandedness. Never mind how talk-show host Rush Limbaugh has interpreted the film for his listeners as demonstrating that, in the Clinton era, "we didn't do diddly-squat," while the Bush administration was subsequently "caught up and sort of hamstrung by the existing procedures" and "hasn't had a chance to change them."

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ABC responded to the brewing controversy Tuesday only by saying that its miniseries is "a dramatization, not a documentary, drawn from a variety of sources, including the 9/11 Commission report, other published materials and from personal interviews."

The statement also noted how the events that led to 9/11 "originally sparked great debate, so it's not surprising that a movie surrounding those events has revived the debate."

But is this really debate, or does it verge on the partisan infighting that routinely disregards the vital issues themselves?

Cunningham said the film's mission is to spark more than talk.

"We are hoping our show will be a call to action," he said, "so that people are provoked to call their representatives and say, `We need to do different, we need to do more.'"

Likewise, former 9/11 Commission chairman Kean spoke hopefully of the huge audience the film could reach, far surpassing those who read the commission's report.

"If they understand the events, they can understand the recommendations," Kean said, "and we can have the wind behind us in moving this Congress to get more serious in doing some of the things we have to do."

It beats quarreling about a TV film.

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