Via C&L: Salon.com editor Joan Walsh was on Real Time with Bill Maher, says she’s seen the miniseries, and says that the movie is “worse than you think.”

“They make him out to be a buffoon, there are several points where they juxtapose bad decisions that actually weren’t real decisions, didn’t happen, where they juxtaposed those with Clinton saying, ‘I did not have sex with that–‘ the thing you heard a million times, they make him out to be completely ineffectual, and bumbling, and distracted.”

Even the anti-left guest, P. J. O’Rourke, who said he’d love it because it bashed Clinton, harped in on the “why completely make stuff up about recent history” question, which is as far as some right-wingers will go on this one if they have anything critical to say about the movie. Well, maybe conservative Libertarian O’Rourke wasn’t paying attention to what the right wing is like when it comes to recent political history lately.

But another recent revelation indicates that Democrats aren’t the only ones slandered (‘libeled’? It’s both spoken and published…) in the movie. According to AmericaBlog, American Airlines is defamed as well. In the movie, Mohammad Atta is shown going up to the American Airlines counter at Boston’s Logan Airport, where a security warning pops up. Despite one airline worker’s disbelief that Atta is not even searched, another senior employee waves Atta through.

Except that (a) the warning appeared in Maine, not Boston; (b) there was no call in the warning to search people on the list; and (c)–the big one–Atta flew on U.S. Airways, not American.

But, if AmericaBlog is accurate (and it seems to be; though I can find no official confirmation of all the details, The New York Times does quote the film as showing Atta checking in at an American Airlines counter), then AA is made to look like their own carelessness and incompetence allowed Atta to walk onto the plane, when they could have nailed him right there.

Another scene for Disney/ABC to cut if they don’t want their fannies sued off.

Update: BTW, the movie’s ad claims that it features “Everything that might have prevented [9/11].” I would bet you a lot that it doesn’t.

Update 2: Apparently, Bush has scheduled a speech that will interrupt part 2 of the miniseries–the part that includes the small bits that showed his administration ignoring terror (although from reports, the movie doesn’t come close to showing Bush’s true negligence). No interruptions from the White House for part 1, of course.