Thoughts on "The Path to 9/11"

I know this is a wee bit dated...

I watched maybe ten minutes of it after Bush's address. But I heard a ton of stuff about it. I was gung-ho about having Michael Moore's 'Fahrenheit 9/11' in theaters, so I was gung-ho about not censoring this movie. Blowhards like Rush and Fox News were saying the Clinton administration was trying to get it censored or taken off the air - maybe - but there's a huge gulf between vocally criticizing something and deliberately trying to get it off the air. I also respected ABC for airing "Path..." while other networks like CBS caved to such pressure (like CBS for shuffling The Regans to Showtime).

But anyway - it did make me think - popmatters, Paste magazine and a ton of mainstream pubs trashed 'Path to 9/11.' And yes, I've heard that the assassination movie about President Bush is getting awards overseas. And seriously - if that 'Path to 9/11' was all Bush bashing, I wouldn't be surprised if those 'C's and 'D' reviews in the magazines would become 'B+'s and 'A-'s.

(bear with me, I'm getting to my point)

So, I was sympathetic to the movie. It appeared to be critical of the Clinton administration - and let's face it - in Clinton's term, al-Quaida attacked the embassies in Africa, bombed the World Trade Center and bombed the USS Kohl. And the fact that we pretty much know every single screw-up the Bush administration did, but you have to actually do the research to find the faults of the Clinton administration. There's enough blame to go around.

So, I was sympathetic to the movie. Until ...

I read in MediaMatters and confirmed it in a few other publications that in that "Path to 9/11" - the director had the most visible ringleader of the 9/11 hijackers ...
AT THE WRONG F**KING AIRPORT!

Sorry, dudes, but if I were to write a report about the hijackings in the tenth grade, my journalism teacher would have friggin' caught this.

Dumbasses -

(here's the article from Media Matters)
Finally, part two of the "docudrama" retained a scene that had previously been exposed as factually inaccurate, in which a major airline disregards security warnings and lets one of the hijackers board his flight. The film depicts Mohammed Atta, the alleged ringleader of the 9-11 plot, checking in for his flight at Boston's Logan Airport at an American Airlines ticket counter. A security warning appears on the American Airlines employee's screen. The employee calls a supervisor, who hands Atta his ticket and allows him to pass, telling the employee that they will simply keep Atta's checked luggage off the plane until it is confirmed he has boarded.
In fact, as the 9-11 Commission report described on the first page of its first chapter, the security warning actually occurred as Atta was checking in for his flight in Portland, Maine. But Atta flew US Airways Express from Portland to Logan Airport, where he transferred to American Airlines Flight 11, which would later crash into the North Tower at the World Trade Center: