I won't because I never watch TV except to kill time in foreign hotels. If you want to test the value of TV watch it in another language (that you don't speak). A string of utterly meaningless images is what you're left with.

Whatever verbal/factual information is in a TV show is usually reducible to five minute's reading. That reading escapes the manipulating effect of dire music and harsh camera cuts along with images intended only to trigger unconscious emotional response makes it more useful still. I would be willing to read the script, but that's all.

When it's a matter of art I enjoy the non-verbal communication--it's the whole point of art. This piece is a piece of something else entirely.

I'll let others that are less bothered by enslaving their gaze to the box check out this propaganda. If David Horowitz is behind it the agenda is. 'Nuff said.

i think it's a bad idea. they've already gotten more free advertising for this bunk on liberal blogs than they ever could have had this been left just to winger sites. it's been in all the papers too. it only takes one or two people to note the atrocities, so to speak, and everyone who watches by cable will have their person added to the positive total of viewers- advertisers only want to see numbers, they don't care if you're watching it while screaming mad.

it's been well established by those who've seen it (the thinking ones, that is) that it's crap, riddled with lies, and blatantly pro-bush propaganda. this is an election year. your only power as a viewer is to not watch any Disney/ABC products, write them and tell them why you're doing so, and write the advertisers you'll be doing the same with them. if you want to be a superhero and extend that power, you'll convince your family and friends to do the same.

the media has been more or less a lost cause for some time now, and i don't understand why so many progressives, who are well aware of the role it's played in propping up bush, can't show some discipline and just say no. it's not like one can't be entertained 24/7/365 with blogs and other internet resources. just think of how much the progressive blogosphere could have an impact if every progressive dropped cable altogether and spent that money on, say, progressive PACs.

and i completely agree with tom wright. i'd add that worse than manipulation, TV has been shown to make you in fact, more stupid. the only thing i want manipulating me and making me forget myself is a pretty woman offering me a glass of fine french wine.

No commercials? Or not interrupted by commercials?

ANY advertisers on ABC would underwriting this program -- not just the ones that advertising DURING that program. I would not limit ourselves to punishing advertisers in the program. I would target ANY ABC advertiser and contact THE ADVERTISER and complain.

That said, we might target the advertisers that are taking advantage of high ratings of this program without "sponsoring" the program or advertising DURING the show.

Ad placement choices (usually made by agencies) are driven by audience size ("share") and I expect the projected ratings for this to be quite high. That means demand will be very high for time on the "lead in" and "lead out" programs (lead out will probably be your local 11 p.m. newscast). Some of these ad buys will be made "locally" (through your local affiliate) and some will be nationally, through the ABC network.

I would encourage people to call LOCAL businesses that end up advertising adjacent to this program and complain -- they sometimes have little or no control over where their ads are placed but they will be VERY unhappy if their VERY expensive TV ad results in negative phone calls from their community. Very likely they will complain to the station and it might - likely -- will result in lost revenues to the stations (who have to "make good" on the ad). Then the local station owner/managers will howl to the network if they have unhappy advertisers.

Is there any talk of establishing a central website that lists all ABC advertisers-especially local ones of affiliates' news shows, Disney-owned companies, etc. so that there can be a concerted effort to respond to the airing of Pt9/11? I'm thinking of something akin to the Stop Sinclair site? I've been frustrated by how glibly people are dismissing some sort of boycott/protest. I've got two kids, and I'm more than willing to divert our money and TV viewing elsewhere after Disney/ABC's actions. I suspect others are as well, but having some central point to focus and continually rekindle the anger that many are feeling today is needed in mho. After all, think of how MoveOn was born. There is a move afoot at DKos to create a Path Since 9/11 website. Perhaps that will fill the void.

Related to Path to 9/11 is the refrain of the right what about Michael Moore and Farenheit 9/11. As if the failure to denounce Moore's work, of his own opinion, bars any criticism of ABC or the producers of this film. The absurdity of this argument seems palpable regardless of what you think about Moore. This piece of fiction tonight was being presented not as opinion but as a history of the effort to get Bin Laden.

As anyone heard of a public response to George Will or others who are insisting that the quid pro quo of attacking Path to 9/11 was criticizing of Farenheit? 9/11?

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Having heard on several Internet Sites about “The Path to 9/11” propaganda docudrama and the fact ABC and Disney are involved, I sent emails of protest to both (via links given on Media Matters and DCCC). I understand that the very large number of protests received has caused them to make some changes although I imagine that will produce only minor improvement.

I am against any restriction on ideas being aired and discussed short of the equivalent of “ fire” being shouted in a crowded theater. Therefore, I urged them to postpone airing the docudrama until after the November elections. To me airing a blatantly propagandistic film “shouting” 9/11 fear by suggesting, just before elections, that if Democrats gain the majority in Congress we will not be safe in this country is the equivalent of shouting fire in a crowded theater.

I believe the present administration is desperate enough to do just that. Karl Rove is certainly working the bogeyman approach to the limit it can sustain. There is some evidence he has pushed it passed the limit it can sustain. I hope enough people are now aware of Rove's bogeyman scare tactics so that they will not work for another election. (We have also to work against rigged electronic voting machines. Who says the Administration is incompetent? Politics:A; Foreign Affairs: F.

For political action, I suggest this approach: if you are willing to watch the infamous docudrama --I am not-- take specific notes, get quotations as much as possible, and report back to TPMCafe. We can then develop a plan to protest the false information based on informed input.

I haven't heard anything in the way of a response to Will, Daniel.  I just want to say that I'm with you on the absurdity issue.

The tu quoque fallacy has been elevated to the level of the liturgy by the right, it seems.  It's very pavlovian.

But just to play the game, I think Moore is openly proud of his agitprop, while Horowitz feels the need to obscure his. 

Neoboho

Still no moral outrage from Mgmax about fictionalization of events related to 9/11. Just smug snark. I wonder why that is? Of course he's above all this left-right stuff. Or at least, so he claims.

I think we'll all be missing the moment when Bush is given the PDB and responds "All right you've covered your ass."

Not to mention Bush freezing in front of a classroom for several minutes.

This is my response. Fahrenheit 911 was distributed by a commercial enterprise. In contrast, ABC is a commercial enterprise that uses the public airwaves to distribute its content.

Therefore, they have a public duty to, at the least, do no harm. Stated as a positive, they have a duty to present all sides in a balanced manner.

What if there is a true national emergency next week, where the public needs to be informed of actions to save their lives.

When the signal goes off and the announcement is made to stand by for instructions, many people just laugh. They think Bush is playing with terror alerts so the Republicans won't lose Congress in the next election. And they think the networks will do what Bush asks, because they are obviously Republican oriented and present fiction as facts.

So they turn of their TVs or ignore the instructions.

THAT is the difference, mho. Perhaps slightly exaggerated to make a point. But it would be my first thought.

"It is unknowable how long that conflict [the war in Iraq] will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months."Rumsfeld-Feb.2003

Oh, I had moral outrage about this, but it had to do with the attempt at suppressing speech in a democracy to protect one side, not to do with the alleged acts of alleged falsehood (or, perhaps, merely interpretation in some cases) in a dramatization of historical events (something that has never before happened in the history of TV, of course).

That comment may have been snarky... but it may not be far from the truth, either. In another 3 hours or so, we'll start knowing-- at least, I'm pretty sure the unprecedented, and deeply dismaying, and probably totally counterproductive attempts at prior restraint will have failed by then.

"Oh, yeah, bloggers really ought to want to encourage lawsuits by public figures who think something inaccurate has been said about them. This is the worst case of myopia I've seen in my years of blogging. You guys are complete idiots." --Ann Althouse

There will be one 'commercial'. Bush, the man playing a President, will be speaking midway through the first night's broadcast. I call it a commercial, because I understand that ABC plans to suspend the broadcast during his talk and resume it after he's through. Sounds like a commercial break to me.

The damage will be done by this telecast no matter what we do now. All we can hope for is to dissuade advertisers from supporting the next Republican propaganda piece. For that reason alone I support the idea of a "blacklist" of advertisers, both local and national, who aid the broadcast by paying for ads during, before and after this telecast. I hope this will become a listing on the net that we can all use to guide out phone calls, emails and letters.

In addition, I hope all of us who are outraged, will petition the FEC and FCC to mete out appropriate punishment, including turning down the requests to continue their licenses by local channels.  This isn't just a funny joke.

Hoppy in Sacramento

The distortion of the truth doesn't even particularly bother me. It's the context and framing of the distortion. ABC had a full page, color, American flag, in my Sunday paper in the "A" news section advertising this "infotainment" as if it is a news special. Even that wouldn't be so bad if they weren't doing it ON 9/11 as if it is the Gospel truth in some way dedicated to the victims.

I'm totally in favor of supressing fraudulent and defamatory propaganda.

Fraudulent because it purports to present the 9/11 Commission findings. Defamatory because it (if not edited) will show scenes that did not take place and make previous officials look incompetent. Propaganda because it was not the idea of a historian or movie director but the project of a political group out to subvert free expression in Hollywood.

Moore's movie did not pretend to be offical history. And other than a cartoon sequence did not invent any history. Of course, I guess there are some that were fooled into thinking the cartoon was reality. Many of us have been fooled by our cartoon of a president.

I'm gonna try to watch it, definitely with a notepad in hand.   But... I'm thinking I might pick up a DVD as a back-up plan -- something soothing and apolitical in case my head threatens to explode.

"Then your moral outrage is misguided,as this has never been a free speech issue." --Whiterosebuddy

"We therefore urge you to cancel this broadcast... The Communications Act of 1934 provides your network with a free broadcast license predicated on the fundamental understanding of your principle obligation to act as a trustee of the public airwaves in serving the public interest." --Sens. Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, Debbie Stabenow, Charles Schumer and Byron Dorgan

So, they're telling Disney that they are not living up to their roll as a trustee of the public airwaves. They've been given free access to make millions off of a public resource, a cash cow that comes with some responsibilities. How does reminding them of those responsibilities constitute infringing on free speech?

Reid's office hass explicitly said that he will not be going after ABC's liscense over this, has anyone threatened to?

Not only is this "not a funny joke," it is far more offensive than Janet Jackson's fake boob, which never caused one single death.

Jan Knaus

Don't put down Josh's post on the grounds that we'd never watch the tube. I may not see the show, or much of it, but I'll be grateful if TPM people like yourselves then help me with reports on advertisers and what actually got said. I do have to admit that I found already a list of ABC advertisers on one of the usual political blogs, and I may not be helpful there, as none make products I am currently using. 

I'm hoping the troll is right in saying that Rice (and perhaps even Bush) will come off even worsebut I'm not holding my breath, given the creators. I agree in rejecting the parallel to a movie that we on the left, too, and indeed even its maker consider to be expressing a point of view. If ABC aired this as right-wing propaganda, we'd wonder about its public responsibility, but at least they'd be upfront about it, slightly fewer would be misled, and we might expect a counter, if only from the usual "moderate" pundits used these days to counter liberal. 

So Koppel's "show will exam how the WOT has created tension between the need for secrecy and the Bill of Rights." Hmm, I'm not so optimistic there either. Seems to me that expressing it in this way, as a tension, suggesting only how much sacrifice of safety we're willing to make for our abstract principles, already concedes far too much. Don't you feel safter under Bush already? 

John 

http://www.haberarts.com/

I don't have TV either, but if it seems appropriate after the dang thing has been vetted by y'all, would be delighted to take whatever action against the advertisers. I understood they'd all backed off and that Disney was having to pick up the bill. Next it was said that $40M had been given to ABC by unnamed group on the right. If the film turns out to be as bad as they say, then perhaps the FCC should experience a tsunami of disgust.

Finally some outrage from Mgmax. But is it at the scurrilous way ABC has politicized a recent national tragedy. Heck no, he thinks that's a laugh riot. No, it's because someone had the temerity to call him a troll!

And he's now downrating the comments of people who express their frustration at this travesty.

You're not a troll.

You're a shill.

Enjoy your one-handed posting tonight.

1- I have no idea what your Clinton reference has to do with this at all.

2- Would you expect Reid to clarify the meaning of his letter BEFORE anyone asked him about it? Should they have included "And we don't mean this as a thinly veiled threat against your license" in thier letter? (if they had, I would take that as a pretty explicit threat).

3- Are there standards, legal or otherwise, to which ABC should live up to as a trustee of the public airwaves? Obviously there are, as the FCC is there to levy fines for indecent content, etc.

4- Would there be a way to remind them of their responsibilities as a public trustee that wouldn't, in your view, constitute a threat?

Absent any concrete actions taken on their part to enact unreasonable sanctions against ABC, you're just making a pretty big fuss about nothing. Which seems to be what you're here for.

I like the legal turn of mind with respect to viewing this program. I hope those who are being so recklessly and wrongfully portrayed in this crockumentary—read “defamation”—will also be watching with a legal pad and pen at the ready.

Personally, I won't watch. Nor will I watch any more ABC programming for quite some time. Of course, ABC gets so much support from Disney's political connections, they won't miss my single-viewer boycott. But I'll feel better about things.

N

Taylor old pal, as of a few days ago I only downrate when I've been downrated. (Which of course happens a lot.) For instance, Hoppycalif2 got one in return. (And did that really come off as "outrage"? Even mock? Try ironic bemusement or something.)

You can find my appraisal of the rating system here:

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2006/sep/01/smearing_the_wilsons_sliming_america#comment-160373

"Shill."

"One-handed posting."

Whatever makes you feel bigger, but you expose the poverty of your own arguments when you resort to that and resolutely refuse to engage the free speech and political marketplace issues here.

John Dean was defamed in a book called "Silent Coup: The Removal of a President". He sued and some years later, won.

At a minimum, ABC and Disney should expect a fat lawsuit.

"4- Would there be a way to remind them of their responsibilities as a public trustee that wouldn't, in your view, constitute a threat?"

Not really, no. Better question: The FCC is actually under the executive branch. Are there any circumstances under which, say, President Bush could mention that he doesn't much like David Gregory's attitude toward him in his press conferences, and then mention NBC's licenses, that wouldn't make you scream total jackbooted fascism on the march?

[9:45} I still seem to be waiting for a commercial break... is this thing boring or what?!

The same requirements should apply to the broadcast that would apply to any other political commercial. For example, it should explain clearly that it is a political commercial (i.e. propaganda), who paid for it and what their affiliation with any candidates may be. Furthermore, because it is so long and because people might miss the disclaimers at the beginning and end, I believe that the disclaimers that this is a political ad should be run throughout the entire course of the program at the bottom of the screen.

So, no elected official can point out that television stations should cater to the public interest because those are the terms under which they are granted their licenses? I'm sorry, but that's just absurd.

Un-fucking-believable !!!!!

Is there ANY doubt what Nightline was all about tonight?? What a blatant attempt at covering up and explaining Clintons apathy towards terrorism. Richard Clarke has to feel like a dirty whore. There was nothing different said that wasn't said on CNN's Footsteps of Bin Laden doumentary.
Nothing says ABC caved to the Clintonistas like tonight's Nightline segment.

So I've only watched it up through the conviction of Ramzi Yousef now, but...

it's actually pretty good.

Okay, you think you know I was going to say that. But I can sufficiently detach content from artistic merit that if it had sucked I would have said "I don't know why you're in such a tizzy, it sucks and no one will even watch part 2." But it doesn't and they will. Well, half of them will, anyway.

The shakicam/extreme closeup stuff is kind of annoying and there are a few moments of obvious political correctness-pandering (we could start a drinking game based on every time someone says "This is not Islam, it's murder" or the like), and I'm wondering when Richard Clarke is going to get stuck in a basement office and get paranoid about his red stapler, but I thought it did a pretty good job of sketching quickly and believably a lot of different environments-- from the NYPD to the streets of Islamabad-- as they figure in a saga of many years.

But then we haven't reached any of the parts of real contention yet. (The only president who's come in for a jab as yet is Bush, in the 9/11 prologue-- though admittedly there are a couple of hardline "these damn civil liberties get in our way!" lines of dialogue which would be a legitimate thing for some folks to take issue with, though one shouldn't assume, I suppose, that what a law enforcement character says in context represents the official point of view of the filmmakers.)

Anyway, it's not TV miniseries crap, and it's not, as yet, a rightwing screed, and I suspect actually watching it will take a lot of the wind out of the huffing and puffing that's been going on all over the blogosphere.

P.S. Be sure to rate this zero. It gives me a warm tingly feeling.

P.P.S. There weren't any sponsors, were there? What's Josh's legal pad say?

I just tuned ABC right off of my TV as well. I would encourage everyone to do the same. Its a small thing. I'm all for watching what the enemy is doing, but if the enemy exists for people to watch it, lets not watch it.
Disney too.

Said the man who didn't watch a second of it, I'm sure.

I demand that you rate this zero! Now!

A real documentary can get away with being boring, because you watch to learn something, not to be entertained.  A piece of mixed fiction larded with a few facts like this is just can't get away with being boring.  And, this is one mighty boring movie.  My wife, who really digs movies like this, finally gave up out of sheer boredom after an hour of it.  This is a bit like a witness at a trial:  once he is shown to have lied about anything at all, his whole testimony is worthless, since you don't know how much of the rest is lies.  One would have to be extremely naive (an average TV viewer, I suppose) to believe a single thing he sees in that movie.

But, it had no sponsors other than three who "sponsored" the trailer for the movie during the preceeding show, MacDonalds, Macys and Nicorette.  At least for the half hour I watched, that was it.  This is a campaign donation to the Republican Party - a violation of campaign financing laws. 

Hoppy in Sacramento

What specifically were the lies you observed in the first hour?

You make me laugh.

____________________________________________________________ 

“I, ..., do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic..."

1. Ramzi Ahmed Yousef is Pakistani (Baluchistan), not Palestinian as the program stated. Does that have Horowitz' imprintur or what?

2. Albright didn't call Pakistan about the missile strike. Secretary of Defense Cohen spoke to that two nights ago on TV - DoD had an agent on the ground in Islamabad to inform the Pakistanis if they thought they were being attacked by India.  As it turned out, he didn't have to.

3. Yousef was arressted by DSS and DEA agents, not FBI agents.

4. Istaique Parker, a South African, turned-in Yousef for the 2 million buck reward, not because he was a peacenik, as the film tells us.

5. The film doesn't tell us that the Northern Alliance were Russian/Iran backed Islamists. The Tajiks, for example, speak Persian.

6. The CIA's Northern Afghanistan Laison Team (NALT) was formed after 911 - September 26, 01. It's true that one member, Gary Schroen, had met Masoud briefly before his assination, but the whole episode about surrounding bin Laden was untrue.

That's just off the top of my head. I'm sure there's more. I don't think O'Neill's character was accurate, but that might have to wait for episode 2.

Neoboho

No, that would be like the health inspector telling a restaurant that they can only operate if they meet sanitary conditions.

And where did Reid backpedal? He clarified the meaning of his statement.

So Koppel's "show will exam how the WOT has created tension between the need for secrecy and the Bill of Rights." Hmm, I'm not so optimistic there either. Seems to me that expressing it in this way, as a tension, suggesting only how much sacrifice of safety we're willing to make for our abstract principles, already concedes far too much.

Interesting. I view the operative word in that sentence as exam,while you see it as 'tension'.  If I go with your perspective of tension being the operative word, it suggests to be that there is a dynamic state of 'push and pull' as opposed to something already have being conceded. And that would create the question in my mind of 'what is creating this tension'?

I would  then be interested in identifying what sorts of things 'hang in the balance' and understanding the significance of the different variables  to determine whether there should be concessions made or what safeguards should be put in place. To me, that is what tension means.

Don't you feel safter under Bush already? 

From what I can tell, the most frequently used criteria for answering this question, is the length of time between the last terrorist attack in America and 9/11...which amounts to 5 years thus far, under Bush.

Given that criteria, I would have to say that I felt safer under Clinton as there were 8 years between the 1993 bombing of the WTC and the next terrorist attack in 2001. So Bush has a way to go to even be on par with Clinton's track record. A record  which was achieved without going to war with a country, spending 300billion dollars, implementing the Patriot Act to strip citizens of the their civil liberties,torturing people in secret prisons or instilling fear in the masses with the fallacious WOT hyperbole to justify wiretapping without warrants.

BTW  did you watch Koeppels show...it was excellent.

In case Josh Marshall or MC is still reading past the troll fight, here's one observation on inaccuracy.

When the terrorist is stopped at the US-Canadian border, the dog (presumably intended to be explosives-sniffing) barks and barks. Presumably this is intended to indicate that the dog senses explosives in the car.

Dogs trained to sniff explosives or drugs are trained to sit when they detect the target odors, not bark.

I'd also suggest that law-enforcement personnel are unlikely to gripe at every opportunity that the laws of the land are keeping them from doing their job. Even if they feel that way, most adults realize that such griping keeps them from doing their job too, and it's their own fault. Or they get another job.

"Nice little broadcasting license you got there... be a shame if anythin' was to 'appen to it..." --Senator Dinsdale Durbin

Yeah, Reid said it-- AFTER the press nailed him for threatening them! There's a fine line between giving someone the benefit of the doubt, and being played for a sucker.

Hmmm, did Durbin or Reid say it?  What is the source of this quote? And who  did the press nail about threatening whom?

When the character first appeared, text flashed on the screen identifying Ramzi Yousef, Palestinian.

But you just asked for a shopping list of lies.  Their relative importance is beside the point.

Come on, Mgmax, you must be joking.  The whole plot of the first installment was to paint the picture that Clinton was distracted by the sex scandal and not doing his job.  An imaginary scenario that puts the CIA at bin Laden's throat and is frustrated by indecision of Clinton's government is the substance - there was no substance in reality behind it. 

Neoboho

"Come on, Mgmax, you must be joking. The whole plot of the first installment was to paint the picture that Clinton was distracted by the sex scandal and not doing his job."

As I've said two or three times now (but no one reads my posts, they're too busy responding caustically to what I didn't say, harumph), I haven't gotten that far. I look forward to the part where Clinton is distracted by the sex scandal and not doing his job tonight!

That said, I went back to check because I plainly heard the reference to Yusef being from Baluchistan and obviously there's quite a bit showing him as a resident of Pakistan. But you're right, the on-screen title says "Palestinian." Probably a production screwup ("Pakistani, Palestinian, same thing"), though feel free to imagine a Rovian conspiracy.

"you just asked for a shopping list of lies. Their relative importance is beside the point."

So you agree that any lie is the same as any other-- even a small personal one, under oath, would be an impeachable offense, for instance?

The Times (of London), 9/4/05:

The nearest the CIA came to killing Bin Laden was on the hunting trip in February 1999, just a few months before the Predator incident. The site was a camp in the desert south of Kandahar where Bin Laden had gone with wealthy visitors from the United Arab Emirates.

Afghan agents reported the trip to a CIA station. Tracking teams were immediately dispatched and by February 9 they had located the isolated camp, close to a large airstrip.

Richard Clarke, Clinton’s senior counter-terrorism adviser, has written in his memoirs: “When word came through that we had a contemporaneous sighting from our informants, the counter-terrorism security group met immediately by secure video conference.”

An attack on the camp using cruise missiles was the only option the Americans could employ at such short notice. The previous year a similar strike using dozens of missiles had been launched on the Khalden training camp in the east of the country, but there were few casualties and the work of the camp was hardly disrupted. This time, with a smaller, more clearly defined target, the intelligence experts believed they would have more luck.

The attack was planned for February 11, but according to Scheuer the White House stalled. Officials wanted more information about Bin Laden’s movements.

In addition it was now clear that the hunting party consisted of minor princes from the United Arab Emirates, an American ally in the Gulf.

As the White House dithered, the hunting party moved on. “All that was left was a pile of burning garbage in the desert,” said Scheuer this weekend. He claimed that the group had left after Clarke called a senior figure in the Emirates royal family. “It’s hardly surprising that they pulled out so quickly and that we lost our chance to kill Bin Laden,” said Scheuer.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1764035,00.html

If this scene was conflated into a scene with Massoud it was factually wrong.

It seems unsurprising that in the poisonous Washington atmosphere of the time there was a reluctance to commit an act of war on UAE in reprisal for two embassy bombings.

You would remember the reaction after the training-camp attack, I'm sure.

I accept your good will in assuming that I am in search of the truth. For that reason, I never watch TV news other than for things such as local news, sports and the weather. The reason for this goes beyond ideology, but the efficiency of information transfer.

An experiment was run by some journalism students, who found that they could not read aloud, at a reasonable speaking pace, the front page of a major newspaper. Since TV is expected to show sports and weather, for which the visual content is important, there's even less time for serious news than in a half-hour evening news.

Now, I've moved recently and haven't arranged yet for the delivery of the Washington Post or other major paper. When I lived in the DC area, I generally read most sections, other than entertainment but always starting with Dilbert, cover to cover. I could do that in the time it took to watch TV news, and usually have time to decide which think tank reports were worth reading.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

I have no opinion on Kaus - I seldom read his stuff. 

I did read an interesting blog today from a Hollywood screenwriter who opined that it would be relatively easy for a small group to pull-of an agitprop production within the halls of the Disney empire, without Iger realizing it.  So I think Kaus has a good chance of being wrong.  I think this was a Horowitz Horror Hit, and he had the means to pull it off. If heads roll at ABC Entertainment, we'll probably never know, alas. 

Neoboho

Yes, and the problem is that we didn't know we could have (or maybe not) saved lives. So a hit on OBL was not weighted with the knowledge of 9/11, but the embassy bombings. He was a scary terrorist, only, to most. We can exclude O'Neill, who expected the worst from him, but wasn't in that loop.

All talk of preventice actions like Hitler, Stalin, etc. are skewed by the after-the-fact knowledge of history.