Ask Me What the – TIMING! – Secret of, Uh . . .
So what happened with this ABC 9/11 docudrama, huh? Why did such a blatantly (from what we hear) Bush-washing, Clinton-scolding hack job by partisan rightwingers get produced and scheduled to run just in time to – maybe – boost the President’s party during crucial mid-term elections?
Because things change.
The earliest reference to the show I can find indicates that ABC greenlighted “Path to 9/11″ right around Election Day 2004. Production began by the end of July 2005 in Toronto, so early drafts of the script had been through the approval process by that time. That means scenarist Cyrus Nowrasteh had been hired months before, surely by early 2005 if not clear back in late 2004 when ABC picked up the project.
Take a look at Political Arithmetik’s job approval graph and zero in on the shape of the curve midway between the 2004 and 2006 markers. And keep in mind that most people’s heuristics are not based on such good data. As Professor Charles glosses his own graph:
Virtually all commercial and news graphs of approval fail to keep a constant perspective, which means graphs are distorted as more data are added.
In short, most people, including most media people, most of the time, take very recent history for History as such. ABC brass made the crucial production decisions for “Path to 9/11″ when GW Bush and the Republican Party were riding high and conventional wisdom was that (what passes for) conservative dominance of public opinion and national security politics would continue indefinitely. It must have looked like a smart play, around the cusp of 2004-5, to approve a 9/11 dramatization by people in tune with the mood of the country.
But things change. Comes Fall 2006 and the President is unpopular, his Party disliked and the looming mid-terms look to deal reversals to both. The national mood is not at all what everybody and their broadcast executive assumed it would be back in the heady days of November 2004. So ABC has a potential massive turkey on their hands. What’s worse, the show is said to suck. All they’ve got left is niche marketing. If they can saturate the BTKWB market, they can still pull a decent number, in these days of declining ratings for everything on broadcast television. If they can get add-on viewers from the “controversy,” they can cash the advertiser checks and pat themselves on the back for “stimulating debate” besides.
What it isn’t is a decision to try to shore up an unpopular president and ruling party in the mid-term elections, presumably with an eye toward a legislative payoff thereafter. The timing is all wrong. Besides, the legislative history on Intellectual Property shows that Hollywood already owns both political parties and all three branches of government anyway. If anything, there’s some slight hope that “Path to 9/11″ will annoy enough Democratic-Party poobahs that they vote against a couple of Big Content proposals out of spite for awhile. I wouldn’t count on it, though.
Comment by Jennifer —
September 10, 2006 @ 11:20 am
It must have looked like a smart play, around the cusp of 2004-5, to approve a 9/11 dramatization by people in tune with the mood of the country.
Maybe so, but it’s still pretty damned sleazy to let truth take a backseat to moodiness. On September 12, 2001, you know what would have REALLY been in tune with the mood of our country? A documentary showing how when men convert to Islam, part of the ceremony involves raping a Christian virgin, killing her and stuffing the corpse with explosives.
Comment by David Weman —
September 10, 2006 @ 11:33 am
Isn’t the broadcast ad free?
Comment by David Weman —
September 10, 2006 @ 11:34 am
Bush was alreadsy unpopular in july 2005. Beforethat, they hadn’t spent much money.
Comment by Nell —
September 10, 2006 @ 12:24 pm
Isn’t the broadcast ad free?
Only the first night. The Sept. 11 show has some commercials.
Comment by Nell —
September 10, 2006 @ 12:37 pm
I have to agree with David Weman.
Also, because ABC is not running commercials on part one, they will not come close to recouping the $40 million spent, hence this is an unlawful in-kind contribution to the GOP election drive by way of reinforcing its theme: “Only Republicans are tough enough to protect America.”
Also, even in the months following the November 2004 election, it was very clear that the national mood was not overwhelmingly right-wing but sharply divided. A massive proportion of potential viewers clearly did not buy into the Bush legend about the war on terra.
What the immediate aftermath of the November 2004 election might have impressed on the media moguls is that Democrats would never again take power, so that they would be wise to use the five-year anniversary as an opportunity to pander to the permanent one-party regime that would decide most of the issues important to them.
The Republican’s hopes for retaining a majority in the House and/or Senate rest entirely on success at riling up and getting out their base. And a movie marketed entirely through right-wing channels is “niche marketing”, rather than GOTV? Not buying it.
Comment by Nell —
September 10, 2006 @ 12:39 pm
Republicans’ hopes, I meant.
Comment by Michael Froomkin —
September 10, 2006 @ 12:54 pm
But this superficially plausible account doesn’t explain the saturation ad campaign — full page glossy ads in newspaper inserts around the country. That’s not niche marketing.
Comment by neil —
September 10, 2006 @ 1:03 pm
If anything, there’s some slight hope that “Path to 9/11″ will annoy enough Democratic-Party poobahs that they vote against a couple of Big Content proposals out of spite for awhile.
See, the public good still has a fighting chance here! Thank goodness that even a titan like Disney can make a bonehead move once in a while.
Comment by Rich Puchalsky —
September 10, 2006 @ 6:29 pm
I don’t think so — Rove could easily figure out when they had to start making the film in order to have it come out now. And he knew that he’d be wanting it about now. Why not?
Comment by Hesiod —
September 10, 2006 @ 9:32 pm
Who cares at this point? ABC screwed the pooch. This will actually probably backfire because it is so ineptly done and comically partisan.
I imagine people at home watching it, and turning it into a drinking game on college campuses: “Drink everytime you spot a rightwing internet myth.”
They should go through a 12 pack per individual.
Comment by Doctor Memory —
September 11, 2006 @ 1:20 am
David: omitting the ads on the first night is a smart move. If they keep the “controversy” simmering long enough, they’ll more than make the money back on DVD boxed set sales.
Comment by Brian C.B. —
September 11, 2006 @ 10:07 am
I understand that there’s some sort of football game thing tonight, and that this game is a regular feature of the lives of many people. I figure that ABC is programming something to keep from just broadcasting reruns.
Comment by Johnathan Pearce —
September 11, 2006 @ 2:48 pm
Well, it rather maintains the balance vis a vis stuff like Michael Moore’s “documentaries”. The fact is that the Clinton years were years when there was a chance that OBL could have been caught. He wasn’t, and if the ABC programme gets up the noses of the Dems, too bad. It is not as if there are not plenty of programmes and articles pointing out what a mess Bush has made of the Iraq adventure.
Comment by Jess nevins —
September 11, 2006 @ 4:00 pm
“But everyone else is lying–why can’t I lie too?” is not an argument that holds any moral water.
Comment by Garth —
September 11, 2006 @ 4:31 pm
I suspect that the powers that be consider the % of people who will be turned off by this movie are already lost. What they might be counting on is the % of otherwise firm supporters who have become apathetic and might stay home but if reminded about the bullet points: 1) It Was Clinton’s Fault 2) The Terrorist Menace Remains 3) Must Vote Republican then maybe rather than staying home some will turn out to pull the Red Lever.
Comment by Brian C.B. —
September 11, 2006 @ 8:26 pm
Jonathan, I certainly remember those heady days in the late 1990s when the GOP was stalwartly calling for greater exectutive authority to be given Clinton to take on stateless terror and its incessant demands that he threaten Pakistan into supporting an American invasion of Afghanistan and our hunting down Osama bin Laden. I certainly remember the Republican leadership openly dismissing any thought that speedy prosecution of a strike against Osama after the October 2000 bombing of the Cole might influence the upcoming presidential election with some “rally round the President” effect, and insisting that Clinton seek immediate vengeance no matter what the political cost to the GOP, rather than demanding that he restrain himself until he took careful, time-consuming consultation with Congress. And, when Bush took office, three months later, I remember he didn’t wait seven months further, until after 11 September, a day like any other thanks to his vigilance, to officially establish al-Qa’ida as culpable for the Cole attack.
This kind of willed, exculpatory amnesia by the Republicans’ Party is among the most reviling fruits of 11 September. It’s one thing to charge Clinton with being incompetent and distracted, and another not to admit that you spent the eight years of his presidency bitching about Waco, black helicopters, the culture wars, welfare queens, the jack-boots of the IRS, the dangers of pornography and gays in the military and public health insurance, about the threat of the Endangered Species Act or medical marijuana or Darwin to Our Way of Life, or pointing out how the key to immediate world peace was deposing Saddam Hussein. Not to mention that the chief distraction to Clinton was your pursuit of the man for the high crime of being sexually immature and stupid with his penis. You spent eight years delegitimizing him, and it doesn’t occur to you that some of his lost presidential authority might have been spent on putting an end to this particular band of stateless terrorists, of whom he imperfectly, but far more completely than did any prominent Republican, perceived the danger, and that therefore your crass, zero-sum partisanship might have been a tad short-sighted and shameful. Not in five years has this thought obtained. No wonder that you find Disney movies so fascinating. Rent “Flubber,” next.
Comment by sean —
September 11, 2006 @ 8:38 pm
Is this some kind of joke? Maybe some long-running satirical trope that I came in in the middle of? Because otherwise I’m with Mickey Kaus, the danger of right-wingers dominating ABC seems about on a par with the danger of Hamas dominating The New Republic.
Comment by radish —
September 11, 2006 @ 10:51 pm
Do me a favor, Sean. Pretend it’s September 1988. The Gipper is on his way out, and Poppy and Dukakis are hashing out for the next round. The Soviets are withdrawing from Afghanistan. The Iran Iraq war has ended. Dan Quayle is embrassing himself left and right. The pain of Vietnam is starting to fade…
I walk up to you on the street and tell you that in fifteen years the President of the United States will be a wartime deserter who ruined every company he was ever associated with. I tell you that the US will have invaded a nation which posed no threat, for purely strategic purposes, and the resulting occupation is in the process of destroying our armed forces. I tell you that this President will have admitted that he engages in warrantless wiretapping, that state sanctioned torture will be controversial but known to occur, and that no impeachment proceedings will have been started. I tell you that there will be open calls for theocracy and a merging of church and state. I tell you that our national savings rate will be negative — not zero, negative! — and that said borrowing will be financed largely by East Asia, including China.
I know what I would have said, and I curse myself for a fool…
ABC knew they were hoisting the jolie rouge when they showed this. There’s no reason to let them back down now that they’re listing. And that goes for you too Mr. Pearce. Have a nice day and don’t forget to Fear This.
Comment by Johnathan Pearce —
September 12, 2006 @ 9:10 am
Brian C.B, cool it. Since when did I apologise for the antics of the GOP during the 1990s? I am British, by the way, and carry no water for the Republicans or the Donkey Party, either.
I just find it kind of amusing to watch folk get themselves into a state about a ABC “docudrama” which says less-than-flattering things about the former Philanderer in Chief. The truth is, much of the MSM remains full of liberal-left bias, and to get all oxidised about this show strikes me as silly.