ABC’s new docudrama, âThe Path to 9/11,â has garnered at least one unfavorable review so far — from a former member of the 9/11 Commission, whose final report supposedly formed the basis of the film.
At a recent screening in Washington, D.C., former commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste “rose to denounce the veracity of a key scene involving Clinton national security adviser Samuel R. Berger,” CQ‘s Jeff Stein reports:
Berger, portrayed as a pasty-faced time-server by Kevin Dunn (Col. Hicks in âGodzillaâ) freezes in dithering apprehension when a manly and virtuous CIA agent played by Donnie Wahlberg radios in from the wilds of Afghanistan to say that he and his noble band of local tribesmen have Osama bin Laden within sight and begs for the green light to terminate him with extreme prejudice. In the film, the line goes dead before Berger offers any reply. . . .
[T]he camera pans back to show Berger surrounded by a supporting cast of fellow Clinton administration nervous Nellies, including Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and Defense Secretary William S. Cohen.
âThere was no incident like that in the film that we came across. I am disturbed by that aspect of it,â Ben-Veniste, a loyal Democrat, told the panel, which included both the producer and the commissionâs GOP chairman, former Gov. Thomas H. Kean of New Jersey.
Kean wasn’t so distraught about the scene, reports Stein. “[It was] representative of a series of events compacted into one,” Kean reportedly said in response to Ben-Veniste’s comments.
ABC has generated some controversy with the film by sending advance screening copies to conservative bloggers. At least one right-wing blogger loved the film — especially the fictional Berger scene. â[O]ne unbelievable sequence shows how . . . Sandy Berger . . . actually hung up the phone on the CIA agent on the ground,â CQ quotes.
