An adviser to the producers of “Path to 9/11” tried to explain away a huge fictionalization in the miniseries as a composite. This in reference to the scene where CIA and Northern Afghani Alliance fighters have bin Laden in their cross-hairs, his house surrounded, and the Clinton White House gutlessly calls off the attack. Former Republican New Jersey Gov. Thomas H. Kean, an official adviser on the project, said that the incident, which is not even close to anything that happened in reality, as “representative of a series of events compacted into one.” Which, of course, is complete bull–there is no indication of exactly what “series of events” this is supposed to be compacted from. According to Richard Clarke:

1. Contrary to the movie, no US military or CIA personnel were on the ground in Afghanistan and saw bin Laden.

2. Contrary to the movie, the head of the Northern Alliance, Masood, was no where near the alleged bin Laden camp and did not see UBL.

3. Contrary to the movie, the CIA Director actually said that he could not recommend a strike on the camp because the information was single sourced and we would have no way to know if bin Laden was in the target area by the time a cruise missile hit it.

Since we never had bin Laden in our cross-hairs, and since the Clinton White House never called off a raid on bin Laden, it’s clear that this is more of a “composite” of right-wing pipe-dream truthiness that says Clinton let bin Laden go.

Kean also predicted that the film will “get just as many howls from Republicans,” which chimes in with the producer’s claim that “we are also being accused of being a left wing movie that bashes Bush.” However, these claims belie the fact that the movie was distributed to a great many right-wing pundits and bloggers, and after having watched it, they showered it with high praise. The producer’s claim that they are being accused of making a “left wing movie” is completely unsubstantiated, not to mention contradicted by the evidence on hand.

The claim that right-wingerswill be “offended” as much as left-wingers is likely based upon the fact that the movie shows the Bush administration not doing much in reaction to O’Neill and Clarke’s warnings about al Qaeda in the transition, and it shows Bush getting a PDB on bin Laden. These are not even close to being equally offensive, considering that Clinton is bashed untruthfully with completely fictionalized events making him look bad, while the events regarding Bush are completely factual and not in question.