Mary Lyon -- World News Trust
Sept. 11, 2006 -- So another 3,000 people have now died for a lie. Is that it? What IS it with these conservatives? The needless bloodshed in Iraq, over a pack of lies, isn’t enough. Now they have to bastardize September 11th? And aren’t these conservatives the same ones who’ll be whining about the so-called “liberal media,” when they’ve now proven that they own yet another television network? I’ve been saying for a long time now that if there really still were a “liberal media,” I’d know, because I’d be watching it all the time. Perhaps that’s why I cling so tenaciously to “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” on MSNBC. That’s about all there is to the so-called “liberal media.”
Disney’s Magic TV Kingdom, ABC, did a slick thing, alright, by standing behind the distortion-filled, deception-reeking “Path to 9/11” crockumentary. In the interest of full disclosure, let me say straight away that I did not watch the first half, nor do I plan to watch the second half. I’m going on a multitude of second-hand reports from reliable sources and eyewitnesses with stronger stomachs than mine at the moment. It’s bad enough that, for the sake of this column and other discourse, I’ve had to suffer the full weight of the republi-CON convention and most speech-events by George W. Bush. You know, to be undeniably familiar with what I’m talking about. And it’s bad enough that most of those insufferable Bush speeches work some sort of 9/11 exploitation in somewhere, about 30 or 40 times per speech (makes me feel as though I’ve been a “Path to 9/11” production insider all this time). But this I won’t do. I won’t buy into the further perversion of September 11th by watching a fictional account passed off as the real thing.
You can’t tell me the network saw the light and isn’t trying to pass off this six-hour bushwah bazaar as newly rehabilitated and legitimized, simply because they may have made a few edits here and there, and might have suggested that some parts of this “may be fictionalized,” or that they allowed a few crumbs from “Nightline” AFTER the Sunday night broadcast, so the libeled Sandy Berger and Richard Clarke and other insiders could correct the record. Yeah. After. Isn’t that convenient? Just in time for a lot of the people who need to see this would already have tuned away or headed off to sleep. You can find gallons of truth serum available online on sites ranging from Think Progress and Media Matters to the Daily Kos, Americablog and Huffington Post. Or, it can be as simple as googling “Path to 9/11” and savoring the many google bombs planted by self-appointed guerrilla truth-squads.
I take some small comfort in the uproar that accelerated last week in the run-up to this stupid show -- that constantly made an issue of the lies and misrepresentations in it. The connection between deliberate, outright falsehood and this telecast was made every time the subject came up. That’s a good thing, actually. If this abortion had to come to life, at least it was swaddled in questions, doubts, and suspicions. It wasn’t a clean delivery. It may have provoked people into talking about it, in which case the lies had to come up for discussion. I’m sure there are more than a few people who were hoping that this latest Disney fairytale would confirm their suspicions about how all things 9/11 traced directly back to Bill Clinton. These types of folks you’ll never convince of the truth, no matter how many facts you offer. If George Bush himself came out and admitted it wasn’t true, they’d still cling to their illusions. Why else do we still have people, from Contradicta on down, insisting there WERE WMDs and that Saddam and al Qaeda WERE in bed together (perhaps with the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny) when Bush has already had to concede there was none of the above, and the Senate Intelligence Committee’s latest report has confirmed it? Pretty soon, they’ll be coming before you with claims that Clinton actually killed Jesus, started both World Wars, destroyed the Hindenburg and the Titanic, talked Justin Timberlake into ripping open Janet Jackson’s brassiere on TV, and stuck us with “New Coke.” Some souls simply cannot be saved.
It’s too bad the producers and underwriters of this televised hose job feel it so necessary to pervert reality, and -- five years later -- official recent history. You’d think at least they’d have waited until all the principals they’ve maligned, who might object or even sue, had at least been dead for awhile. They couldn’t even wait for that.
The saddest part, beyond this further assault on the truth is the way those behind it have taken the names of the nearly 3,000 victims of September 11th in vain -- for the sake of a political agenda. These people died, scared to death before they were pulverized. Not a great way to go. Most of their remains never were found, to be given the traditional burial any other corpse will have. Their loved ones, some of them willfully trashed since by the Coultergeists of the world, get another nice slap in the face. First -- no answers, just stonewalling. Second -- finally a 9/11 Commission that was fought by the White House, stalled, foot-dragged, smoke-screened, obstructed and short-sheeted. And now this.
I’d be willing to bet, without even seeing the second half of this prime time abomination, that the bloodlust to hang it all on Clinton will indeed leave out a few critical things. It will not include that fateful seven minutes in the classroom, when Bush sat with that funny “NOW whaddo I do?” look on his face while the towers burned and people were dying. I doubt there will be any mention of the backstory about his administration trashing all heads-ups from Sandy Berger and the transition team members as the Clinton era gave way to Dubya’s, or the terrorist task force that Dick Cheney never bothered with until AFTER the Towers fell, or the demotion of the bin Laden priority by the Bush White House from the moment George “took” office, or the ignored Presidential Daily Brief and many other warnings that he let slide for the sake of a nice month-long vacation in August, 2001.
Disney/ABC may not bother anyone’s beautiful minds with the agony of Bush’s “Pet Goat” moment here. But at least now, we do know who, and what, that “Pet Goat” is.
Visualize IMPEACHMENT!!!
And then go DO something about it.
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Mary Lyon spent the first 25 years of her adult life as a broadcast journalist, at Los Angeles radio stations KRTH-FM,KFWB-AM, KHJ-AM and KLOS-FM, the NBC, ABC, RKO Radio Networks,and KTLA-TV. She retired from day-to-day broadcasting in 1996, after covering Hollywood for nine years in radio, TV, and print, for the Associated Press. She wrote and illustrated "The Frazzled Working Woman's Practical Guide to Motherhood," and is presently at work on a new craft book for kids and friends. A lifelong Democrat who began her political involvement in the Student Coalition for Humphrey-Muskie, andTom Bradley's first L.A. Mayoral campaign, Mary currently is a weekly columnist for www.democrats.us -- from the Left.