"The Path to 9/11": A Guide for Students

As you probably know by now, ABC/Disney's decision to air the ideologically skewed and factually challenged "docudrama" The Path to 9/11 this close to the election has resulted in a firestorm.

The miniseries, which (falsely) alleges the Clinton administration passed up opportunities to terminate bin Laden long before the towers fell, claims to be based on the 9/11 Commission's Report, but it appears to be informed more by the clammy fantasies of its ultraconservative writer, Cyrus Nowrasteh, some of which may be actionable.

With no attempt at the political "balance" mandated by its broadcast license, ABC has outraged Bill Clinton and former members of his administration, 9/11 commission members, families of 9/11 victims and millions of other people, compounding its misdeeds by agreeing to let President Bush give a speech during the broadcast. Will there be equal time for his political opponents to speak as well? Of course not.

But perhaps even more stunningly, Scholastic Book Services was snookered into a deal with ABC to "teach" the show in public schools. Once the outcry over the show's myriad falsehoods hit critical mass, Scholastic did an about-face. Most tellingly, they replaced their online "discussion guide," which accorded authority to the film's portrayal of events, with a letter from President/CEO Richard Robinson that read, in part:

We posted a discussion guide on Wednesday, August 23, which we believe was not in keeping with our high standards—and we took down that guide on Wednesday, September 6. We have rewritten this guide to focus more sharply on the issues of the docudrama as well as the background events.
(...)
We believe that the rewritten discussion guide presented herewith will help your students interpret the ABC docudrama, The Path to 9/11, and hope that you will find it helpful in understanding the relationship between facts and drama, and the background of the different views about 9/11 in the U.S. and around the world.

It appears that some kind of class discussion — with an emphasis on the ostensibly neutral concept of "media literacy" — will take place next week. So I thought I'd get the ball rolling with some questions students might ask their instructors, principals and local TV affiliates. Feel free to add your own, and remember to show your work.

• Why didn't educators "do their homework" to find out how far the show strayed from fact?


• What does it mean when Scholastic (with its "high standards") does a deal with a TV network to turn a fictional program into a teaching assignment? Who profits from that arrangement, since we know it's not the students?


• Is the assignment just a cynical attempt by ABC to have a captive audience and drive up ratings for the show?


• Is this assignment an even more cynical attempt by the show's right-wing backers to mislead voters prior to the midterm elections, using schools as an unethical and possibly illegal base of operations?


• Are ABC and Disney so corrupt that they would knowingly insult the memories of those who died on 9/11 with lies and pro-GOP fantasy on the five-year anniversary, or merely too stupid and ill-informed to realize that's what they were doing?


• If schools are ready to pimp themselves out to TV shows that blatantly distort history, why should we bother studying history at all?


• Do facts even matter anymore?


• Why should we believe a single thing our teachers, leaders or media tell us? Doesn't this whole experience prove that everyone who's supposed to be leading us is either for sale or asleep at the switch?


• If Disney's network is prepared to lie about 9/11 for gain, does that mean Mickey Mouse hates America?


• If this show isn't propaganda, what is?


• Why did the Bush administration, mere weeks before the attack, ignore a Presidential Daily Briefing titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside U.S."?


• Where's bin Laden, and why did President Bush say "I truly am not that concerned about him" in March of 2002?


• How come we still consider Pakistan an ally, even though they've smoked a peace pipe with al-Qaeda and the Taliban?


• Why did we invade Iraq, when even the President admits it had nothing to do with 9/11?


• If we're fighting terrorists and the terrorists hate us for our freedom, why are we always giving up our freedom to fight the terrorists?


• Why are Bush, Cheney and Congressional Republicans talking about bin Laden all the time now, right before the election?

Feel free to copy this list, add to it or just use it as a point of departure for your own conversations and lists of questions. I'm hoping that together we can compile a study guide for students who truly love freedom, believe in questioning authority and want to become engaged citizens and voters.

Speaking of which, you can protest the airing of this travesty here. If you'd like to contribute to a Democratic victory in November, I hope you'll visit Blue Notes, my ever-growing ActBlue page.