It's too late to decide to attack Bin Laden, so let's attack this TV show.

ABC's "Path to 9/11," we're told, by those who want it yanked, portrays the Clinton adminstration making a strategic decision not to take out Bin Laden in a military attack. With hindsight, after 9/11, it's easy to say that was the wrong strategic decision. The question I want to raise is whether it's the wrong strategic decision to cry out about "The Path to 9/11" because of the way it portrays the Clinton administration. To say the portrayal is inaccurate is to focus everyone on the issue, to highlight how sensitive you are about it, and to set off a vigorous effort to show that it is accurate.

Perhaps we were leaving the past behind, saying things like "9/11 reset the clock for me," but now we're distracted -- distracted? like a President caught in a sex scandal... -- and we start wondering why they are making such a stink about this: Are they trying to imprint the national mind with a new story, that Clinton did no such thing and there's some vast right-wing conspiracy to subvert ABC to slander him?

No, no, no, the strategy is to imprint the national mind with a new story, that Clinton did no such thing and there's some vast right-wing conspiracy to subvert ABC to slander him, not to make you ask whether they are trying to do that and certainly not to encourage you to go rummaging through the old evidence -- what's left of it -- and feel like looking at something like this:



Now, why in hell did you look at that? Don't look at that! What repulsive right-wing prurient urge made you want to look at that Limbaugh-style political porn star... Tom Brokaw.

ADDED: And everybody also wants to look at the very parts of the show that most rile its opponents.

MORE: How insanely repressive. You know, mainstream politicians really should worry about bloggers. Ironically, the bad judgment shown by bloggers here is about wishing for hardcore repression of speech, but free speech is our lifeblood!

Clearly Bill Clinton, Sandy Berger, Madeleine Albright and American Airlines have good cause to sue Disney/ABC, the BBC, Australian and New Zealand television, and any local affiliate that broadcasts the show. How can we further help their lawsuit? I think a first step is paying close attention in each country to how the show is being marketed. Get us copies of ads, promotions, etc. that show local broadcasters and others promoting the show as true and non-fiction. How else can we help their suit?

Oh, yeah, bloggers really ought to want to encourage lawsuits by public figures who think something inaccurate has been said about them. This is the worst case of myopia I've seen in my years of blogging. You guys are complete idiots.

AND: This post is getting a lot of links. Let's check them out. Glenn Reynolds calls the original post the "best take yet" on the contoversy. Blue Crab Boulevard calls this post "pure art" (and long time readers know that I'm in this for the art). Looking at the "You guys are idiots" addendum, Dr. Sanity wields her expertise as a psychiatrist:

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the psychological mechanisms involved--DISPLACEMENT and SPLITTING-- both of which allow these idiots (I am allowed to call them that because this is a deliberate, self-imposed psychological state to maintain their denial, delusion, and hatred ) to behave in this clueless and revolting manner with regard to a TV miniseries.

Go read the analysis. Tigerhawk agrees that "the legal part of the strategy is not even slightly in the interest of bloggers" and has a lot of discussion of other blog posts, which you should read. Lawhawk hates the idea of lawsuits.

MOREOVER: Ruth Anne Adams has 11 reasons why she's watching "The Path to 9/11," one of which is that Donnie Wahlberg is giving her a Jack Bauer vibe.