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'D.C. 9/11' Spins Tale of President on Tragic Day
Showtime Docudrama Depicts a Defiant, Decisive Bush
By Paul Farhi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 19, 2003; Page C01
LOS ANGELES, June 18 -- In the hours after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, a bold, forceful President Bush orders Air Force One to return to Washington over the objections of his Secret Service detail, telling them: "If some tinhorn terrorist wants me, tell him to come and get me! I'll be at home, waiting for the bastard!"
Well, the president didn't actually speak those words. But it's close enough for the Hollywood version of events. In a forthcoming docudrama for the Showtime cable network, an actor playing the president spits out those lines to his fretful underlings in a key scene.
The made-for-TV film, "D.C. 9/11," is the first to attempt to re-create the events that swirled around the White House in the hours and days immediately after the strikes on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.
The quintessentially American story was shot primarily in Toronto, where drafts of the movie's dialogue were leaked to the Globe and Mail newspaper.
Sources here confirmed the generally heroic portrayal of the president and his aides, including the dramatic scene in which Bush is hopscotching the country in Air Force One as a security precaution. When a Secret Service agent questions the order to fly back to Washington by saying, "But Mr. President -- , " Bush replies firmly, "Try 'Commander in Chief.' Whose present command is: Take the president home!"
The two-hour film, to air around the second anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, stars Timothy Bottoms as Bush, reprising a role Bottoms played for laughs on the short-lived Comedy Central series "That's My Bush!," which went off the air a week before the Sept. 11 attacks. Many of the movie's secondary roles, such as Vice President Cheney and Secretary of State Colin Powell, are played by obscure New York and Canadian actors. Among the familiar faces in the cast are Penny Johnson Jerald (she plays the president's ex-wife on the Fox series "24"), who appears as national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, and George Takei (Sulu on the original "Star Trek" series), who plays Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta. The movie's veteran director, Daniel Petrie, made such films as "Eleanor and Franklin," "Sybil" and "A Raisin in the Sun."
The writer-producer of "D.C. 9/11," Lionel Chetwynd, declined to discuss specific scenes or dialogue in the film. But he defended its general accuracy, saying: "Everything in the movie is [based on] two or three sources. I'm not reinventing the wheel here. . . . I don't think it's possible to do a revision of this particular bit of history. Every scholar who has looked at this has come to the same place that this film does. There's nothing here that Bob Woodward would disagree with." Woodward, a Washington Post assistant managing editor, is the author of "Bush at War," a best-selling account of the aftermath of Sept. 11.
Chetwynd said his approach to the post-Sept. 11 story was similar to that of a 1974 TV movie, "The Missiles of October," a dramatization of the showdown between President Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev over Soviet missile emplacements in Cuba in 1962. "This is about how George Bush and his team came to terms with the reality around them and led the country in a new direction," he said.
He noted that the take-me-home scene is based on actual events. "Did [the president] assert his right to go home? Did the president decide to overrule the Secret Service? Yes, he did."
But the movie, which includes some documentary news footage, has already drawn scattered criticism. Writing in the Toronto Sun, columnist Linda McQuaig compared it to Hollywood's mythologizing of figures like Wyatt Earp and added that it "is sure to help the White House further its two-pronged reelection strategy: Keep Americans terrified of terrorism and make Bush look like the guy best able to defend them." And Texas radio commentator and self-styled populist Jim Hightower has derided "D.C. 9/11." On his syndicated radio program this week, Hightower said the movie will present Bush as "a combination of Harrison Ford and Arnold Schwarzenegger. . . . Instead of the doe-eyed, uncertain, worried figure that he was that day, Bush-on-film is transformed into an infallible, John Wayne-ish, Patton-type leader, barking orders to the Secret Service and demanding that the pilots return him immediately to the White House."
Neither McQuaig nor Hightower has actually seen "D.C. 9/11," notes Chetwynd, a Canadian emigrant whose earlier films ("Hanoi Hilton," "The Siege at Ruby Ridge," "Kissinger and Nixon") have often touched on national politics and policy.
However, Chetwynd acknowledges that he began the project as a "great admirer" of the president. Chetwynd is among the few outspokenly conservative producers in Hollywood, and one of the few with close ties to the White House. His 2000 Showtime film "Varian's War" (about an American who rescued French Jews from the Nazis) was screened at the executive mansion for the president and Mrs. Bush. In late 2001, President Bush appointed him to the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.
In researching "D.C. 9/11," Chetwynd had access to top White House officials, including Bush. What's more, Chetwynd ran the script past a group of conservative Washington pundits, including Fred Barnes, Charles Krauthammer and Morton Kondracke.
But he insists that only he and Showtime had control over the film's content and tone. "This isn't propaganda," he says. "It's a straightforward docudrama. I would hope what's presented is a fully colored and nuanced picture of a human being in a difficult situation."
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
'D.C. 9/11' Spins Tale of President on Tragic Day
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mikenycLI
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"However, Chetwynd acknowledges that he began the project as a "great admirer" of the president. Chetwynd is among the few outspokenly conservative producers in Hollywood, and one of the few with close ties to the White House. His 2000 Showtime film "Varian's War" (about an American who rescued French Jews from the Nazis) was screened at the executive mansion for the president and Mrs. Bush. In late 2001, President Bush appointed him to the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities."
This is, no doubt, part of his re-election campaign. Thanks for the heads-up ! Get the barf bags out !!!!
This is, no doubt, part of his re-election campaign. Thanks for the heads-up ! Get the barf bags out !!!!
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Rspaight
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Oh, dear Jeebus. A Bush *appointee* making a load of steaming glorification propaganda sponsored by Viacom, who is one of the big beneficiaries of the FCC's deregulation agenda? With Bush played by the guy from "That's My Bush!"?
I can't make that stuff up. We are truly living in Bizzaro-world.
Ryan
I can't make that stuff up. We are truly living in Bizzaro-world.
Ryan
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney
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Rspaight
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Triumph of a Bush
Anthony Lappé, September 4, 2003
"[H]aving just been told the country was under attack the commander in chief appeared uninterested in further details. He never asked if there had been any additional threats, where the attacks were coming from, how to best protect the country from further attacks, or what the current status of NORAD or the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Nor did he call for an immediate return to Washington. Instead, in the middle of a modern-day Pearl Harbor, he simply turned back to the matter at hand; the day’s photo op. Precious minutes were ticking by, and many more lives were at risk. 'Really good readers, whew!' he told the class as the electronic flashes once again began to blink and the video cameras rolled. 'These must be sixth graders.'"- From James Bamford's "Body of Secrets"
To say "DC 9/11: Time of Crisis," the Sept. 11 docudrama that airs on Showtime this Sunday, is a piece of Leni Riefenstahl-esque propaganda would be a cliché, and it would be wrong. The Nazi propagandist's films were much too crude to compete with this level of celluloid revisionism. This is 21st Century propaganda, with all the bells and emotional whistles of Hollywood's most sophisticated productions. Imagine the "West Wing" without the liberal whining, a Bruckheimer blockbuster without the bimbos, "24" without the complicated plotlines, and you have "DC 9/11," a two-hour feel-good saga that blends news footage, fictionalized scenes and fictionalized scenes made to look like news footage into a highly-effective pseudo-historical soap opera, not unlike USA Network's recent Giuliani puff-pic "Rudy." The only difference is this film (which GNN secretly obtained an advance copy of) immortalizes an embattled politician seeking re-election. It is an altogether new genre, the made-for-TV campaign adver-movie.
Bush is played by Timothy Bottoms, best known for impersonating the president on the "South Park" creators' Comedy Central flop "That's My Bush!" In "DC 9/11," for some reason, he magically looses his Texas accent, goofy smirk, and faulty command of the English language. The effect is bewildering. We get the Bush Karl Rove always dreamed he could be - patient, knowledgeable, poised, able to speak in complete sentences extemporaneously, and infallibly wise. The film chronicles the transformation of Bush from boy to man in the eight days between Sept. 11 and his historic 'either you are with us or against us' address to Congress. In between, he utters real(ish) off-the-cuff lines like "They think all we can do is file a few lawsuits," and absurdly fabricated ones like, "Modernity, pluralism, freedom. These are good things. Liberty is God's gift and it is not negotiable on this watch." He comforts the injured and reads from his bible for strength. Rove, who is conspicuously absent in the film, could never have thought up a commercial this slick.
The film was directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith, but the brains behind the operation are Lionel Chetwynd's, a right-wing Hollywood producer whose credits include the Vietnam POW pic "Hanoi Hilton," and most recently, "Varian's War," a Showtime movie about a homosexual French resistance fighter during WWII.
Chetwynd, a Canadian, is a favorite of the Bush inner circle. He calls Rove a "friend," and was appointed to the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities in 2001.
According to news reports, in writing the script for "DC 9/11," unlike those conducting the long-stymied 9/11 investigation into what actually happened that day on behalf of the American public, Chetwynd had access to top White House officials, including Bush. He also consulted a coterie of conservative talking-heads, including Fred Barnes, Charles Krauthammer and Morton Kondracke - all of whom appear regularly on the Fox News Channel.
He told the Toronto Globe & Mail, without irony, "This isn't propaganda. It's a straightforward docudrama. I would hope what's presented is a fully colored and nuanced picture of a human being in a difficult situation."
He also didn't see any irony in producing the film in Canada, where the producers avoided paying union wages and, according to the Globe & Mail, were "eligible for the federal Film or Video Production Services Tax Credit, the Ontario Film and Television Production Services Tax Credit and a federal tax-shelter program, which together could result in hundreds of thousands of dollars in Canadian government checks being sent to the producers." Shooting ultra-patriotic flicks north of the border must be a trend, the Giuliani film was also shot in Canada.
The film is in some ways a movie version of "Bush at War," the breathless account of the lead-up to the Afghan invasion written by Watergate reporter turned court hagiographer Bob Woodward. Just as in Woodward's book, Rumsfeld comes off as downright sage-like. The film begins on the morning of 9/11 with an uncanny Rumsfeld warning a group of clueless congressmen that if they didn't approve his overhaul of the military something really bad was going to happen. Of course, in real life, most of Rummy's proposals had little to do with fighting terrorism - he was obsessed with programs like weaponizing space and a revitalized anti-ballistic missile defense system. And his boss had just spent the first year of his tenure thwarting investigations into the very people who were supporting the evildoers who would attack later that morning (for more on this subject see reporting by Greg Palast, Robert Baer and the book "The Man Who Warned America" about FBI agent John O'Neill).
The film gives short rift to Bush's appearance at Booker Elementary - which is understandable. It's hard to put a heroic shine on our commander in chief continuing to read a story about goats to second graders for twenty full minutes after learning the country is under attack.
In fact, the film gives short rift to much of what actually happened that day. I guess they figured all the stuff about not scrambling jets in time to protect the Pentagon almost a full hour after the first plane hit the WTC would get too complicated for viewers. Instead, we see a command and control operation whip into action with all the speed and efficiency of a Tom Clancy film. There's confusion in the streets, but the inner circle, especially Bush, is calm and deliberate. Bush reacts angrily when the Secret Service refuses to take him immediately to Washington. "No tinhorn terrorist is going to tell me what to do." Cheney bravely orders the shoot-down of Flight 93, which tragically disappears off the radar screen before his eyes.
For a complete chronology of what really happened that fateful day, go here. And for a look at some unanswered questions about that fateful day see GNN's half-hour documentary "Aftermath" here.
News broadcasts for the film are supplied by the Fox News Channel, which is probably accurate. Who else would Bush be watching? But you wonder why the producers didn't throw in a little CBS News, after all Showtime and the news org are owned by the same mega-corp. Most people focus on Murdoch's sycophantic flag-waving, but Viacom has proven itself no slouch when it comes to sucking up to the White House. MTV, for instance, banned antiwar music videos and public service ads. CBS threw out the carrot of an MTV dance party for all her friends and a book deal to Pvt. Jessica Lynch if she would appear on a CBS News program.
The film spends most of its time, like Woodward's book, on how and where revenge would be exacted. Afghanistan is targeted quickly. But Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz plead their case for Iraq. Rumsfeld repeats what would become his mantra a year later, 'Al Qaeda hates us, Saddam hates us, Saddam may have WMD, he may give them to Al Qaeda.'
Powell is portrayed as something of a stick-in-the-mud, and an obstacle to the whole "infinite justice" project. When he complains that we can't go after Saddam because we don't want to look like we're at war with "all of Islam," Rumsfeld counters menacingly, "Only Islam that's against us" - Saddam's secularism and bin Laden's stated hate of his secular regime non-withstanding.
Among other Saddam-related nadirs, the film repeats the distortion that Saddam kicked out UN inspectors, when, in fact, the inspectors were ordered to leave by UNSCOM head Richard Butler just before Clinton launched "Operation Desert Fox" in December 1998. The failure to take out Saddam in the First Gulf War is blamed on Arab allies in the coalition not having "signed up" for removing another Arab leader from power. They even throw in a line about Saddam being responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, a theory only the most hardcore neocons support.
This is where the propaganda lays on thick, in the quick policy lines that will go over most people's head - like when Bush asks about a Saudi link to the attacks, "Surely, there's not an official Saudi connection?"
"Oh, no, no," comes the chorus.
Or when Bush appears concerned about the loss of civil liberties in Ashcroft's "patriot" plans.
At every stage, Bush simultaneously comes off as tough but kind, quick but patient. When he is shown comforting New Yorkers with lost loved ones, the viewer cannot help but be taken in.
Ultimately, if old-school propagandists like Riefenstahl gave us the "leader as superman," Chetwynd gives us the "leader as super-human," an ordinary man called upon to do great things in historic circumstances. It's a familiar American myth.
Like most American myths, this film is a powerful pack of lies with enough truth in it to make it truly dangerous. Bush really was transformed in those fateful days between his stumbling, deer-caught-in-the-headlights address to the nation on the eve of 9/11 and his triumphant speech to Congress that closes the film.
But it is that heartwarming finale that turns out to be DC 9/11's fatal flaw. When the film cuts abruptly from actor Bottoms to the real Bush, our real president's twangy voice, squinty eyes, and vengeful gaze all of a sudden seem small, like a man trying to impersonate someone great he once saw in the movies.
Anthony Lappé is Executive Editor of GNN.tv.
Anthony Lappé, September 4, 2003
"[H]aving just been told the country was under attack the commander in chief appeared uninterested in further details. He never asked if there had been any additional threats, where the attacks were coming from, how to best protect the country from further attacks, or what the current status of NORAD or the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Nor did he call for an immediate return to Washington. Instead, in the middle of a modern-day Pearl Harbor, he simply turned back to the matter at hand; the day’s photo op. Precious minutes were ticking by, and many more lives were at risk. 'Really good readers, whew!' he told the class as the electronic flashes once again began to blink and the video cameras rolled. 'These must be sixth graders.'"- From James Bamford's "Body of Secrets"
To say "DC 9/11: Time of Crisis," the Sept. 11 docudrama that airs on Showtime this Sunday, is a piece of Leni Riefenstahl-esque propaganda would be a cliché, and it would be wrong. The Nazi propagandist's films were much too crude to compete with this level of celluloid revisionism. This is 21st Century propaganda, with all the bells and emotional whistles of Hollywood's most sophisticated productions. Imagine the "West Wing" without the liberal whining, a Bruckheimer blockbuster without the bimbos, "24" without the complicated plotlines, and you have "DC 9/11," a two-hour feel-good saga that blends news footage, fictionalized scenes and fictionalized scenes made to look like news footage into a highly-effective pseudo-historical soap opera, not unlike USA Network's recent Giuliani puff-pic "Rudy." The only difference is this film (which GNN secretly obtained an advance copy of) immortalizes an embattled politician seeking re-election. It is an altogether new genre, the made-for-TV campaign adver-movie.
Bush is played by Timothy Bottoms, best known for impersonating the president on the "South Park" creators' Comedy Central flop "That's My Bush!" In "DC 9/11," for some reason, he magically looses his Texas accent, goofy smirk, and faulty command of the English language. The effect is bewildering. We get the Bush Karl Rove always dreamed he could be - patient, knowledgeable, poised, able to speak in complete sentences extemporaneously, and infallibly wise. The film chronicles the transformation of Bush from boy to man in the eight days between Sept. 11 and his historic 'either you are with us or against us' address to Congress. In between, he utters real(ish) off-the-cuff lines like "They think all we can do is file a few lawsuits," and absurdly fabricated ones like, "Modernity, pluralism, freedom. These are good things. Liberty is God's gift and it is not negotiable on this watch." He comforts the injured and reads from his bible for strength. Rove, who is conspicuously absent in the film, could never have thought up a commercial this slick.
The film was directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith, but the brains behind the operation are Lionel Chetwynd's, a right-wing Hollywood producer whose credits include the Vietnam POW pic "Hanoi Hilton," and most recently, "Varian's War," a Showtime movie about a homosexual French resistance fighter during WWII.
Chetwynd, a Canadian, is a favorite of the Bush inner circle. He calls Rove a "friend," and was appointed to the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities in 2001.
According to news reports, in writing the script for "DC 9/11," unlike those conducting the long-stymied 9/11 investigation into what actually happened that day on behalf of the American public, Chetwynd had access to top White House officials, including Bush. He also consulted a coterie of conservative talking-heads, including Fred Barnes, Charles Krauthammer and Morton Kondracke - all of whom appear regularly on the Fox News Channel.
He told the Toronto Globe & Mail, without irony, "This isn't propaganda. It's a straightforward docudrama. I would hope what's presented is a fully colored and nuanced picture of a human being in a difficult situation."
He also didn't see any irony in producing the film in Canada, where the producers avoided paying union wages and, according to the Globe & Mail, were "eligible for the federal Film or Video Production Services Tax Credit, the Ontario Film and Television Production Services Tax Credit and a federal tax-shelter program, which together could result in hundreds of thousands of dollars in Canadian government checks being sent to the producers." Shooting ultra-patriotic flicks north of the border must be a trend, the Giuliani film was also shot in Canada.
The film is in some ways a movie version of "Bush at War," the breathless account of the lead-up to the Afghan invasion written by Watergate reporter turned court hagiographer Bob Woodward. Just as in Woodward's book, Rumsfeld comes off as downright sage-like. The film begins on the morning of 9/11 with an uncanny Rumsfeld warning a group of clueless congressmen that if they didn't approve his overhaul of the military something really bad was going to happen. Of course, in real life, most of Rummy's proposals had little to do with fighting terrorism - he was obsessed with programs like weaponizing space and a revitalized anti-ballistic missile defense system. And his boss had just spent the first year of his tenure thwarting investigations into the very people who were supporting the evildoers who would attack later that morning (for more on this subject see reporting by Greg Palast, Robert Baer and the book "The Man Who Warned America" about FBI agent John O'Neill).
The film gives short rift to Bush's appearance at Booker Elementary - which is understandable. It's hard to put a heroic shine on our commander in chief continuing to read a story about goats to second graders for twenty full minutes after learning the country is under attack.
In fact, the film gives short rift to much of what actually happened that day. I guess they figured all the stuff about not scrambling jets in time to protect the Pentagon almost a full hour after the first plane hit the WTC would get too complicated for viewers. Instead, we see a command and control operation whip into action with all the speed and efficiency of a Tom Clancy film. There's confusion in the streets, but the inner circle, especially Bush, is calm and deliberate. Bush reacts angrily when the Secret Service refuses to take him immediately to Washington. "No tinhorn terrorist is going to tell me what to do." Cheney bravely orders the shoot-down of Flight 93, which tragically disappears off the radar screen before his eyes.
For a complete chronology of what really happened that fateful day, go here. And for a look at some unanswered questions about that fateful day see GNN's half-hour documentary "Aftermath" here.
News broadcasts for the film are supplied by the Fox News Channel, which is probably accurate. Who else would Bush be watching? But you wonder why the producers didn't throw in a little CBS News, after all Showtime and the news org are owned by the same mega-corp. Most people focus on Murdoch's sycophantic flag-waving, but Viacom has proven itself no slouch when it comes to sucking up to the White House. MTV, for instance, banned antiwar music videos and public service ads. CBS threw out the carrot of an MTV dance party for all her friends and a book deal to Pvt. Jessica Lynch if she would appear on a CBS News program.
The film spends most of its time, like Woodward's book, on how and where revenge would be exacted. Afghanistan is targeted quickly. But Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz plead their case for Iraq. Rumsfeld repeats what would become his mantra a year later, 'Al Qaeda hates us, Saddam hates us, Saddam may have WMD, he may give them to Al Qaeda.'
Powell is portrayed as something of a stick-in-the-mud, and an obstacle to the whole "infinite justice" project. When he complains that we can't go after Saddam because we don't want to look like we're at war with "all of Islam," Rumsfeld counters menacingly, "Only Islam that's against us" - Saddam's secularism and bin Laden's stated hate of his secular regime non-withstanding.
Among other Saddam-related nadirs, the film repeats the distortion that Saddam kicked out UN inspectors, when, in fact, the inspectors were ordered to leave by UNSCOM head Richard Butler just before Clinton launched "Operation Desert Fox" in December 1998. The failure to take out Saddam in the First Gulf War is blamed on Arab allies in the coalition not having "signed up" for removing another Arab leader from power. They even throw in a line about Saddam being responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, a theory only the most hardcore neocons support.
This is where the propaganda lays on thick, in the quick policy lines that will go over most people's head - like when Bush asks about a Saudi link to the attacks, "Surely, there's not an official Saudi connection?"
"Oh, no, no," comes the chorus.
Or when Bush appears concerned about the loss of civil liberties in Ashcroft's "patriot" plans.
At every stage, Bush simultaneously comes off as tough but kind, quick but patient. When he is shown comforting New Yorkers with lost loved ones, the viewer cannot help but be taken in.
Ultimately, if old-school propagandists like Riefenstahl gave us the "leader as superman," Chetwynd gives us the "leader as super-human," an ordinary man called upon to do great things in historic circumstances. It's a familiar American myth.
Like most American myths, this film is a powerful pack of lies with enough truth in it to make it truly dangerous. Bush really was transformed in those fateful days between his stumbling, deer-caught-in-the-headlights address to the nation on the eve of 9/11 and his triumphant speech to Congress that closes the film.
But it is that heartwarming finale that turns out to be DC 9/11's fatal flaw. When the film cuts abruptly from actor Bottoms to the real Bush, our real president's twangy voice, squinty eyes, and vengeful gaze all of a sudden seem small, like a man trying to impersonate someone great he once saw in the movies.
Anthony Lappé is Executive Editor of GNN.tv.
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney
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Rspaight
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A "mind-numbingly boring" propaganda film
A 9/11 widow reviews last night's Showtime film about President Bush's actions on and after that fateful morning.
By Kristen Breitweiser
Sept. 8, 2003 | The film "DC 9/11: Time of Crisis," which premiered Sunday night on Showtime, is a mind-numbingly boring, revisionist, two-hour-long wish list of how 9/11 might have gone if we had real leaders in the current administration. This film is rated half of a fighter jet -- since that is about what we got for our nation's defense on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.
Despite the title, the film only budgets approximately 10 minutes to the actual morning of 9/11. Most of the movie is spent cataloging the myriad cabinet-level debates as to whether to declare "war" against terrorism and how to effectively sell that to the American people.
It is understandable that so little time is actually devoted to the president's true actions on the morning of 9/11. Because to show the entire 23 minutes from 9:03 to 9:25 a.m., when President Bush, in reality, remained seated and listening to "second grade story-hour" while people like my husband were burning alive inside the World Trade Center towers, would run counter to Karl Rove's art direction and grand vision.
Remember the aircraft carrier photo-op? Bush is a man of action; in fact, he is an action hero. Except, of course, when it really counts, like in those early morning hours when this country was under attack and our Commander in Chief was drinking milk and eating cookies with second graders. Can you imagine one of those second-graders years from now when they are asked where they were on the morning of 9/11? They will simply say, "I was sitting with the President reading him a story."
It also confuses me that the filmmakers would allot so much time to the war posturing in Afghanistan because that, too, has been a failure. President Bush is quoted in the fictional drama as saying he will take Osama bin Laden "dead or alive." But, I'm sorry, have we captured him? And why so much time spent on this war plan anyway? I thought there was a copy of it on the President's desk the day before 9/11? So what's all the fuss about? Why all the cabinet meetings with all the dignified speak?
The real Condoleezza Rice apparently didn't know planes could be used as weapons, but she is portrayed in the movie as a woman who knew an awful lot about bin Laden and al-Qaida by 8 p.m. on the evening of the attacks. The real FBI was caught flat-footed by bin Laden and the 19 hijackers, but in the movie they gather the names and photos of the hijackers very rapidly. I guess their "networking" problems, like Rice's bin Laden knowledge, got "cleaned up" by the evening of 9/11 in the movie version.
It's also interesting to watch the fictional versions of Ari Fleischer and Karen Hughes "strategizing" and "orchestrating" to make President Bush look like a strong leader. Who knew that it was such hard work to frame the president as an empathetic, strong and competent leader in the face of the nation's worst tragedy? Forgive my naiveté, but I never knew how meticulously planned the president's every single word and movement were. And if his words are that carefully and painfully chosen, just how did those 16 words get into his State of the Union address anyway? But I digress.
What is so "off" about the film is that it is too slow, too methodical, too calm. There are no suit jackets hanging over chairs, no five o'clock shadows, no empty coffee cups strewn about, no shirtsleeves rolled up, no people pulling all-nighters. No tempers flaring. No panic. No raw emotion. Nothing but a lot of talking, walking and more talking, and the occasional workout session by the president -- who knew he could bench press so much weight?
When juxtaposed against the recently released transcripts of 9/11 phone calls from inside the towers, the administration's attitude doesn't look good. How could they all be so relaxed? So unemotional. How could any of them even sleep? Why weren't they worried about a second wave of attacks? How did they know for sure that there was not another attack soon to follow? Why were they so disinterested in the rescue and recovery efforts? Maybe this would explain why the Environmental Protection Agency couldn't be bothered to monitor the air quality of lower Manhattan. Nobody cared. If the Administration is this relaxed facing the nation's worst tragedy, are they asleep when they negotiate health care reform?
Just as an aside, I especially liked the tender moments shared between the president and First Lady, particularly when she mentioned the atrocities the Afghan women faced under the rule of the Taliban. We -- the 9/11 widows -- have requested meetings with the First Lady to discuss our goals for the 9/11 Independent Commission. She never answers. Honestly, we take offense that Mrs. Bush will fly halfway around the world to meet with Afghan women and yet she won't meet with us. All we want to do is make this nation safe for our children.
I did learn some things in the film. First, I didn't realize that it took President Bush until Friday afternoon to visit New York. Frankly, I don't remember much of the month of September 2001, but why would the administration want to publicize the fact that it took the President so long to visit the place terrorists had attacked? Are we buying the story that it was for national security reasons?
And since we are talking about the visit to Ground Zero, I found it particularly offensive that there was so much posturing about how to get the best photo-op. The worst part comes when the president meets a young mother and child who are desperately searching for their missing father and husband. President Bush takes the picture of the child's father and signs his name across it, telling the young girl, "When your daddy comes back, tell him you met me." For a child and wife facing the devastating loss of a loved one who very likely has just been burned, crushed and buried in rubble, meeting the president doesn't rightly matter. Nor does it matter having his signature scrawled across a photo that you wanted to display on a wall of missing victims -- something that would have offered at least a glimmer of hope.
Miscellaneous things that surprised me included the fact that the film perpetuates the big fat lie that Air Force One was a target. Forgive me, but I thought the White House admitted at the end of September 2001 that Air Force One was never a target, that no code words were spoken and that it was all a lie. So what gives?
Also surprising is the debate about whether the military may or may not have shot down Flight 93 over Pennsylvania. You would think that the President of the United States would know the answer to this query, and yet a shoot-down is raised as a possibility and never definitively answered -- even to the President.
There was also no mention of the Saudi royals and bin Laden family members who were allegedly flown out of the country in the first few days after the attacks. I guess that got left on the cutting room floor.
Not surprisingly, there is no mention of accountability. Not once does anyone say, "How the hell did this happen? Heads will roll!" I was hoping that, at least behind closed doors, there were words like, "Look, we really screwed up! let's make sure we find out what went wrong and we make sure that it never happens again!" Nope, no such luck.
Finally, with the abundance of creative license taken in the film, I was surprised to see that the film didn't take better "care" of Donald Rumsfeld. On the morning of 9/11, Rumsfeld remained at his desk -- apparently unaware that we were under attack until the Pentagon was hit, a full hour after the WTC. Why the film editors decided not to rewrite this history I don't know -- maybe in real life, thanks to recent developments in Iraq, Rummy will be leaving soon to spend more time with his family.
I watched this film with three of my widow friends. We have spent the last two years fighting this administration to try and get answers to the many questions that plague us about 9/11. When they're finally answered, our questions will undoubtedly make this nation safer than it was on that morning. But our reality is that our husbands are never coming home. We are left to raise our children without them. Too bad Showtime can't rewrite our history of 9/11 -- that would be something worth watching.
About the writer
Kristen Breitweiser is a 9/11 widow. She is a co-founder of the group September 11th Advocates and is a member of the Family Steering Committee for the 9/11 Independent Commission.
A 9/11 widow reviews last night's Showtime film about President Bush's actions on and after that fateful morning.
By Kristen Breitweiser
Sept. 8, 2003 | The film "DC 9/11: Time of Crisis," which premiered Sunday night on Showtime, is a mind-numbingly boring, revisionist, two-hour-long wish list of how 9/11 might have gone if we had real leaders in the current administration. This film is rated half of a fighter jet -- since that is about what we got for our nation's defense on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.
Despite the title, the film only budgets approximately 10 minutes to the actual morning of 9/11. Most of the movie is spent cataloging the myriad cabinet-level debates as to whether to declare "war" against terrorism and how to effectively sell that to the American people.
It is understandable that so little time is actually devoted to the president's true actions on the morning of 9/11. Because to show the entire 23 minutes from 9:03 to 9:25 a.m., when President Bush, in reality, remained seated and listening to "second grade story-hour" while people like my husband were burning alive inside the World Trade Center towers, would run counter to Karl Rove's art direction and grand vision.
Remember the aircraft carrier photo-op? Bush is a man of action; in fact, he is an action hero. Except, of course, when it really counts, like in those early morning hours when this country was under attack and our Commander in Chief was drinking milk and eating cookies with second graders. Can you imagine one of those second-graders years from now when they are asked where they were on the morning of 9/11? They will simply say, "I was sitting with the President reading him a story."
It also confuses me that the filmmakers would allot so much time to the war posturing in Afghanistan because that, too, has been a failure. President Bush is quoted in the fictional drama as saying he will take Osama bin Laden "dead or alive." But, I'm sorry, have we captured him? And why so much time spent on this war plan anyway? I thought there was a copy of it on the President's desk the day before 9/11? So what's all the fuss about? Why all the cabinet meetings with all the dignified speak?
The real Condoleezza Rice apparently didn't know planes could be used as weapons, but she is portrayed in the movie as a woman who knew an awful lot about bin Laden and al-Qaida by 8 p.m. on the evening of the attacks. The real FBI was caught flat-footed by bin Laden and the 19 hijackers, but in the movie they gather the names and photos of the hijackers very rapidly. I guess their "networking" problems, like Rice's bin Laden knowledge, got "cleaned up" by the evening of 9/11 in the movie version.
It's also interesting to watch the fictional versions of Ari Fleischer and Karen Hughes "strategizing" and "orchestrating" to make President Bush look like a strong leader. Who knew that it was such hard work to frame the president as an empathetic, strong and competent leader in the face of the nation's worst tragedy? Forgive my naiveté, but I never knew how meticulously planned the president's every single word and movement were. And if his words are that carefully and painfully chosen, just how did those 16 words get into his State of the Union address anyway? But I digress.
What is so "off" about the film is that it is too slow, too methodical, too calm. There are no suit jackets hanging over chairs, no five o'clock shadows, no empty coffee cups strewn about, no shirtsleeves rolled up, no people pulling all-nighters. No tempers flaring. No panic. No raw emotion. Nothing but a lot of talking, walking and more talking, and the occasional workout session by the president -- who knew he could bench press so much weight?
When juxtaposed against the recently released transcripts of 9/11 phone calls from inside the towers, the administration's attitude doesn't look good. How could they all be so relaxed? So unemotional. How could any of them even sleep? Why weren't they worried about a second wave of attacks? How did they know for sure that there was not another attack soon to follow? Why were they so disinterested in the rescue and recovery efforts? Maybe this would explain why the Environmental Protection Agency couldn't be bothered to monitor the air quality of lower Manhattan. Nobody cared. If the Administration is this relaxed facing the nation's worst tragedy, are they asleep when they negotiate health care reform?
Just as an aside, I especially liked the tender moments shared between the president and First Lady, particularly when she mentioned the atrocities the Afghan women faced under the rule of the Taliban. We -- the 9/11 widows -- have requested meetings with the First Lady to discuss our goals for the 9/11 Independent Commission. She never answers. Honestly, we take offense that Mrs. Bush will fly halfway around the world to meet with Afghan women and yet she won't meet with us. All we want to do is make this nation safe for our children.
I did learn some things in the film. First, I didn't realize that it took President Bush until Friday afternoon to visit New York. Frankly, I don't remember much of the month of September 2001, but why would the administration want to publicize the fact that it took the President so long to visit the place terrorists had attacked? Are we buying the story that it was for national security reasons?
And since we are talking about the visit to Ground Zero, I found it particularly offensive that there was so much posturing about how to get the best photo-op. The worst part comes when the president meets a young mother and child who are desperately searching for their missing father and husband. President Bush takes the picture of the child's father and signs his name across it, telling the young girl, "When your daddy comes back, tell him you met me." For a child and wife facing the devastating loss of a loved one who very likely has just been burned, crushed and buried in rubble, meeting the president doesn't rightly matter. Nor does it matter having his signature scrawled across a photo that you wanted to display on a wall of missing victims -- something that would have offered at least a glimmer of hope.
Miscellaneous things that surprised me included the fact that the film perpetuates the big fat lie that Air Force One was a target. Forgive me, but I thought the White House admitted at the end of September 2001 that Air Force One was never a target, that no code words were spoken and that it was all a lie. So what gives?
Also surprising is the debate about whether the military may or may not have shot down Flight 93 over Pennsylvania. You would think that the President of the United States would know the answer to this query, and yet a shoot-down is raised as a possibility and never definitively answered -- even to the President.
There was also no mention of the Saudi royals and bin Laden family members who were allegedly flown out of the country in the first few days after the attacks. I guess that got left on the cutting room floor.
Not surprisingly, there is no mention of accountability. Not once does anyone say, "How the hell did this happen? Heads will roll!" I was hoping that, at least behind closed doors, there were words like, "Look, we really screwed up! let's make sure we find out what went wrong and we make sure that it never happens again!" Nope, no such luck.
Finally, with the abundance of creative license taken in the film, I was surprised to see that the film didn't take better "care" of Donald Rumsfeld. On the morning of 9/11, Rumsfeld remained at his desk -- apparently unaware that we were under attack until the Pentagon was hit, a full hour after the WTC. Why the film editors decided not to rewrite this history I don't know -- maybe in real life, thanks to recent developments in Iraq, Rummy will be leaving soon to spend more time with his family.
I watched this film with three of my widow friends. We have spent the last two years fighting this administration to try and get answers to the many questions that plague us about 9/11. When they're finally answered, our questions will undoubtedly make this nation safer than it was on that morning. But our reality is that our husbands are never coming home. We are left to raise our children without them. Too bad Showtime can't rewrite our history of 9/11 -- that would be something worth watching.
About the writer
Kristen Breitweiser is a 9/11 widow. She is a co-founder of the group September 11th Advocates and is a member of the Family Steering Committee for the 9/11 Independent Commission.
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney