Beats me how Sun-Timesman Elfman found “The Path to 9/11” boring. As the longtime friend asked the Democrat turned Republican, how could he? The thing kept this viewer glued to seat except for peeing time. All that ice water, you know. In fact, I’d say the National Association of TV Critics (NATC) should strip him of his credentials. He either has no concept of what’s boring or wanted to keep people from watching this because it makes Clinton and his people look bad, which it does.

Reader M. tells all:

I just phoned the local ABC-TV affiliate in Chicago (after e-mailing to the network), and the lovely African-American lady logging the phone calls said it was “refreshing” to get ONE who wanted the “Path to 9/11” to be shown!

I asked what the complaint was by the majority, and she said “They called it a pack of lies.” She said she was going to watch it, and said she wanted to tell them, “Just change the channel if you don’t like it!”

If Disney censors its property, for the Party NOT in power, it will show how dangerous the Libs will be the next time around if they get power.

Most Chicagoans are apparently sitting back thinking the network won’t buckle, but I’m wondering. How disappointing for the producers if the guys in suits do a hatchet job on it. The new version: Bill Clinton ends up in mortal combat with Osama and actually SLAYS him!  A truly happy ending.

Grrrrrrrr.

Sun-Times critic Elfman “once sat in a car forever waiting for [his] mom to come out of a grocery store,” but that was nothing compared to the five hours he presumably spent watching “The Path to 9/11,” set to run Sunday and Monday on Channel 7 in Chicago and nationwide on ABC. 

So what’s the problem?  If it’s so dull, why did 25,000 people write to compain?  That many people could be wrong.  Consider how many vote Democrat in Cook County alone.  But wrong enough to demand changes in or pulling of the show, which hasn’t aired yet?  The word must be out, not that it’s dull but that it’s very threatening to Democrat self-esteem.  Can Elfman feel threatened also?  To how many shows has he given zero stars?  Is this his all-time worst docudrama?  It’s tied anyhow, at least.

He’s on record before this as excusing pre-9/11 officials as “flawed people committing errors”?  Or is this his maiden foray into geopolitics?  Who does he think he is, Brad Pitt?  He did read a recent New Yorker article, anyhow.  Give him credit for researching the matter to that extent.  However, he might go beyond this effort, assuming he has time before his next deadline, and look at Power Line’s listing of what happened before 9/11 to deliver a sense of urgency even to flawed people.

It’s a partial listing of terrorist events as gotten from Wikipedia:

There is no doubt about the fact that the terrorist menace grew and became increasingly obvious during the Clinton administration. To note just a few highlights:

* January 25, 1993: Mir Aimal Kansi, a Pakistani, fired an AK-47 into cars waiting at a stoplight in front of the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Virginia, killing two CIA employees.

That’s for starters.  Thirty-four incidents later, the Power Line list closes:

* October 12, 2000: AL Qaeda bombs USS Cole with explosive-laden speedboat, killing 17 US sailors and wounding 40, off the port coast of Aden, Yemen.

Between 1993 and 2000, everyone who was paying any attention knew that the threat from Islamic terrorism was grave and getting worse. The catastrophic losses that occurred on Septimeber 11, 2001, could just as easily have happened in 1993, when the first plot to destroy the World Trade Center was carried off successfully, but the terrorists had miscalculated the effect of their explosives, or in 1995, when the plot to destroy eleven American airplanes in flight was thwarted by counter-intelligence work in the Philippines. What did the Clinton administration do in response to this grave threat? Essentially nothing. Worse, Clinton tried to sweep the problem under the rug, lest it disrupt the surface calm and prosperity for which he was eager to claim credit.

However Path to 9/11 portrays the Clinton administration, it can be no worse than the reality.

Hand-held cameras aside (Elfman objects to their use in the film), can this be what makes Elfman a defender of the flawed?

Chi Trib’s Michael Tackett’s main interest is how Bush is spinning things politically. He could not care less about actually defending us against terror attacks. He gets page one billing, “Behind disclosures, GOP political agenda,” so as to make his point, much as Carey Orr, Joseph Parrish, and other cartoonists had page one years ago under Col. McCormick. He’s today’s equivalent of a page-one political cartoon. Call it cartooning while on head trip.

Combine him with Mark Silva, whose story of yesterday’s late web edition is today’s hard-copy page one next to Tackett, verbatim. Look down and there it is. For Silva, and they are on the same page figuratively too, the emphasis is on torture. This is his main interest, with defense against terrorism a distant second. They are both perfect Democrats. In a Republican paper!

Some of Tackett:

“Surprising concessions” by Bush “about secret CIA prisons” are in his lede, as in the Silva head. Bush’s party is “limping” and “burdened.” Bush “still has a sense of the bold,” but “the public now listens with a far more skeptical ear” than when he “grabbed a bullhorn at ground zero in New York” and rallied the nation. He remains “unapologetic in acknowledging that his administration had gone to extraordinary–some would say extralegal–lengths in the name of defending us.” (Italics added: get the “some,” which is standard for “he did it.”)

And he used such delicate language–“alternative set of procedures”–to describe decidedly indelicate techniques in forcing information out of suspects.

Such as what? “Such” means “very” here. Indelicate? Here lies irony, even sarcasm. Cartoon analysis.

“He did not identify” nations where we may continue to hold prisoners. No? Now why not?

He attempted to shift the focus [Trib won’t let him] from the fighting in Iraq, where there is little hope of any dramatic turnaround in the short term, to various faces of evil [Italics added: This on a news page? What next?] who finally will be put on trial for their roles in terrorist attacks against the U.S.

What’s more, “He gave those villains names and faces.” Those villains. Colorful, eh? Italics not necessary.

He’s going for legislation to facilitate his pursuit of evil faces and villains, “almost ensuring that those who opposed such tribunals could be branded as weak on terrorism.” Which they certainly are not, right?

With the upcoming [sic] commemorations of the Sept. 11 attacks, the nation will be reliving that harrowing day–and the days following when Bush enjoyed the highest standing of his presidency. Having actual suspects held to account for their alleged roles in those attacks ensures in the short run that terrorism stays prominent in the news cycle.

Not if Chi Trib has anything to say about it, with Tackett leading the charge on p-1 with such (very) devastating analysis. “Niceties of the U.S. legal system” are not to obstruct punishment of “those people.” Yes, niceties. I said it’s a cartoon, but can’t he be a little more subtle?

It’s coming:

Cue the videotape of the suspect being walked before the cameras and open coverage of the case that the government has against him.

Over our dead front-page news analyses!

It apparently suits the White House now to acknowledge the existence of the CIA prisons. Before, the mere mention of the subject engendered a fury of recrimination from the administration.

Those furious recriminations get to you after a while. The strategy?

The White House, and by extension Republicans running for Congress in November, will talk about these matters, but on their terms [fancy that!], hoping to force Democrats into the kind of defensive crouch that has kept them in the minority.

Oh? That’s why? Tackett has analyzed the defensive crouch before, has he? Page one analysis, so that we could see clearly that the voting majority has not trusted them in these matters? When was that?

But Democrats signaled that they have seen this movie before [this “Farenheit 9/11” for Bushies] and are prepared.

“I understand his desire to talk about the war on terror and not Iraq,” said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Etc. Read it yourself. It’s a sort of love-letter snippet from one of Chi Trib Wash bureau’s sources with whom they feel really comfortable. Italics not added.

I am more convinced than ever that Chi Trib’s Mark Silva (and AP) and I do not see eye to eye on what’s news and what isn’t when I see his “Bush acknowledges secret CIA prisons” story in today’s late-edition web site.  He heard more of Bush’s talk today than I did, true; but I heard the part where he ran through the domino effect of getting this captured guy to talk, then this guy, then this, one leading to another, all of it leading to thwarted schemes to blow some of us up, including Silva and me.

President Bush, calling on Congress to quickly authorize trials of suspected terrorists with military tribunals, acknowledged for the first time today that the Central Intelligence Agency has subjected dozens to “tough” interrogation at secret prisons abroad and the remaining 14 have been transferred to Guantanamo Bay to await trial.

is his lede.  Lower down, he adds:

Bush, allowing that suspects have been subject to “tough” interrogation, maintains it has stopped short of torture.

He maintains it, yes.  But it’s hard to take him seriously when “Bush lied, thousands [millions?] died” is uppermost in your mind.  Especially when he’s giving “a dramatically staged speech.” 

Silva does get to the nub, finally, in the 9th and 10th (of 23) ‘grafs:

In his address, the president offered unusually explicit details about how the interrogation of Abu Zabudayah at first offered the CIA invaluable information about Al Qaeda. But Bush said only later—after Zabudayah was subjected to tougher CIA interrogation—did he provide information that ultimately led to the capture of Khalid Sheik Mohammed and other operatives and the foiling of plots.

“This program has helped us to take potential mass murderers off the streets before they were able to kill,” Bush said. “Were it not for this program, our intelligence community believes that Al Qaeda and its allies would have succeeded in launching another attack against the American homeland.”

Oh my, that doesn’t capture it, I’m afraid.  Bush ticked off the list of interrogated in a delivery that was dramatic, whether staged that way or not.  Anyhow, this should have gone much farther up, and where’s the part about voice-recognition, with its obvious reference to NSA-intercepted calls? 

Sorry, Silva, there have been desk men who would have cut and pasted your hard copy (before screens, in the days of multi-carbon “books” and overhead conveyor belts) and made it right. 

So what?  Bush “hasn’t divulged much detail about the operation or locations of the secret CIA facilities first disclosed earlier this year by The Washington Post,” and that’s what we are fixated on?  Never mind attacks thwarted? 

Nonetheless, truth will out, as in Silva’s 14th to 16th ‘grafs:

The interrogation of these suspects has led to extensive information about other suspects captured and plots thwarted, officials say, and in sum has provided about 50 percent of the U.S. government’s knowledge of the workings of Al Qaeda, its members, its travel routes, safe houses and means of communication.

“The most important source of information on where the terrorists are hiding and what they are planning is the terrorists themselves,” Bush said in his East Room address. “Captured terrorists have unique knowledge about how terrorist networks operate. They have knowledge of where the operatives are deployed, and knowledge about what plots are under way.

“This is intelligence that cannot be found any other place, and our security depends on getting this kind of information,” Bush said. “To win the war on terror, we must be able to detain, question, and when appropriate, prosecute terrorists captured here in America and on the battlefields around the world.”

Add to this a lot of sourced stuff presenting the administration side in the Final Five ‘grafs, and you do have a fair, if not great, idea of what Bush said.  So go to the end of a Silva story, and you may find good stuff — not exactly buried, but shall we say, misplaced?

What Did Fitzgerald Know and When Did He Know It? is James Taranto’s question based on a NY Times story that “hints at the possibility of prosecutorial misconduct in the Valerie Plame” case.  He quotes:

An enduring mystery of the C.I.A. leak case has been solved in recent days, but with a new twist: Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the prosecutor, knew the identity of the leaker from his very first day in the special counsel’s chair, but kept the inquiry open for nearly two more years before indicting I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, on obstruction charges.

This national story is of keen interest here in Chicago, where Fitzgerald has been wielding a mighty swift sword of Justice Dept. anti-corruption activity.  Now, says NYT, there is “rich debate” about how he handled the Plame-leak business. 

Some say he “behaved much as did the independent counsels of the 1980’s and 1990’s who often failed to bring down their quarry on official misconduct charges but pursued highly nuanced accusations of a cover-up,” says NYT.

Armitage the Leaker would have resigned when he saw the Novak column that set things percolating, knowing he had goofed, but didn’t because it would have blown his cover.  He didn’t even tell Bush, after huddling with Colin Powell and the head State Dept. lawyer with the historic name of William H. (my guess it’s for Howard) Taft IV.

He kept Bush in the dark “because [Fitzgerald] asked him not to divulge it,” says NYT, blind-sourcing.  Taranto is not pleased:

It seems that Fitzgerald and the State Department covered up a noncrime, and the effect was to keep alive the illusion that it was a crime. We won’t speculate about the prosecutor’s motives, but the more we hear about the case, the clearer it is that the whole thing stinks.

Question one for Jim Ritter after reading his “Muslims see a growing media bias” story, interview with Ibrahim Hooper of Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR): Do you not know that Ann Coulter lost her gig with National Review Online after her post-9/11 call for forced conversion of muslims?  If so, why allow Hooper to get away with his allegation that before 9/11 she “would have faced swift repudiation from her colleagues.  Now it’s accepted as legitimate commentary”?  If not, why not?

Question two: Why do you quote (selectively) only one of the allegedly “virulent” web sites, Jihad Watch, which is chock-full of news items from around the world, but not others, such as Anti-CAIR, which quotes Sen. Durbin — “[CAIR is] unusual in its extreme rhetoric and its associations with groups that are suspect” — and Sen. Charles Schumer — “we know [CAIR] has ties to terrorism” and “intimate links with Hamas” — and the prolific, learned, pointed Daniel Pipes?  Hooper gave you Jihad Watch (and the incriminating quote?) and then you routinely got routine denial and/or explanation by its proprietor, parenthesizing it?

One is tempted to think that when Hooper said bend over, you asked how far.  Sorry, but this is pitiful reportage, sloppy and unresearched, and on page 3, entire left-hand column at that.  Your editors are part of the problem too, let it be noted.

“Perils darken a shadow economy: Illegal immigrant workers, the health-care system and taxpayers all pay a steep price” is over-reported, for one thing, as my city editor used to tell me.  Some very eager social-science researchers masquerading as newspaper reporters spent a lot of hard time with injured migrants and we get the results in today’s 2nd installment, which is more of the same hitting over the head with hard-luck stories.  How many readers not given to self-flagellation can stay with such an account? 

This is less a news article than an editorial, sans punchline, which impinges on its honesty, since editorials are upfront about what they want.  These writers, aided and abetted by various editors, have a point of view over which they trip with every vivid sentence and heart-rending description: in a journalistic version of a primal scream, they tell us with their presentation that they HATE our immigration laws, HATE its application, HATE the crackdowns that have come helter-skelter in the wake of mass protests.

Another thing about an editorial: good ones make an argument, presenting the other side which they wish to discredit.  This series nowhere takes a detached moment to do that.  Its writers don’t have the time.  Nowhere do they describe the dilemma we face about open borders or not, respect for law or flouting it.  Once again, Chi Trib blows it, succumbing to emotion and giving us rant when we deserve to hear both sides.