UPDATE: Dems getting pretty defensive about 9/11 mini-series

Democrats like to try and lay the blame of Sept. 11 at the feet of President Bush, as if everything that led up to that fateful day happened solely on his watch. A new ABC mini-series called "The Path to 9/11" is coming out, and word is that it is supposed to take a critical look at everything that led up to it...including the obvious and glaring failures of the Clinton administration.

Naturally, that doesn't sit well with Dems, who are banking on conning the electorate this year with claims that they actually give a rat's @ss about defense. From UPI:

An upcoming TV mini-series about the origins of the Sept. 11 plot is provoking angry complaints from Democrats about the portrayal of the Clinton administration's response to terrorism.

"The Path to 9/11," a five-hour dramatization laying out the history of the Sept. 11 plot from the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, will be aired over two nights on the anniversary of the attack next week by ABC Television.

The movie is billed as a dramatization based on the report of the U.S. commission that investigated the events of Sept. 11 and circumstances leading up to it. According to a disclaimer shown at the beginning of each episode, it "has composite and representative characters and incidents, and time compressions have been used for dramatic purposes."

This part's rich:

But a portion of the film showing an aborted effort to capture al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden before the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa has aroused the ire of some of the officials portrayed.

A statement from Samuel "Sandy" Berger, who was national security adviser to President Bill Clinton at the time, calls the scenes involving him "complete fabrications."
...
But the team is forced to abort the mission when Berger hangs up on them in the middle of a conference call, after telling them he cannot give the go ahead for the action.
...
"The incidents depicted did not happen," said Berger in the statement. "They are not contained in the Sept. 11 Commission report, which is the most authoritative review of the events before and after the attack."

Cut the producers some slack, Sandy. I mean, there were probably some documents that got smuggled out in someone's trousers that caused this improvisation on ABC's part! Continuing:

But former GOP Governor Thomas Kean of New Jersey, the chairman of the Sept. 11 commission and a consultant to the production, defended the film, saying it showed "a colossal failure of government.

"If you portray that accurately," he added, "people from both (the Clinton and Bush) administrations will complain."

"I would say it's balanced," Kean said.

The film does paint a rather unflattering portrait of the incoming Bush administration -- showing how they demoted White House counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke, and failed to act against al-Qaida even after their responsibility for the November 2000 attack on the USS Cole became clear.

"The difference is, the stuff they show the Bush administration doing actually happened," said Jay Carson, a spokesman for former President Clinton.

Of course, Jay: Bubba did everything right, Bush did everything wrong. Since that paragon of honesty and virtue for whom you speak said it, then it must be true! How then does one explain away the former Diddler-in-Chief's own words that he failed to take OBL in 1996 and let him get to Afghanistan?

By the way, Michelle Malkin has a sobering reminder about how the five-year anniversary of 9/11 is being observed by the left and the right:

On the left, DU'ers prepare a mass Google-bombing campaign against ABC's 9/11 docu-drama, "The Path to 9/11," because of its critical look at the Clinton years.
...
On the right, Dale Roe organizes 2,996 bloggers to honor the memory of each and every one of the innocent men, women, and children murdered five years ago by jihadi hijackers.

Gotta have your priorities straight, huh? OK, so DU is a moonbat blog and not very representative of Democrats, right? Fine...then why is the DNC getting in on tha action (hat tip to LGF)?

Look, there were massive intel failures along the way, overlapping the Clinton administration and the first nine months of the Bush 43 administration. However, Dems are truly sick and pathetic in their unquenchable thirst for power that they would rather squash a documentary because they fear it will jeopardize their chances at the ballot box. I mean, Mikie Moore's lie-filled mockumentary "Fahrencrap 9/11" came out in 2004, and Dems had nooooooooooo problem with that. Yet let ABC, that bastion of right-wing news outlets (for those of you on the left, that was sarcasm), run a critical and objective mini-series this year, and all Hell breaks out in Leftistan!

UPDATE (9/7/2006 - 07:55 p.m. EST): In case you haven't heard by now, ABC caved to the Clintonistas. Jason at Texas Rainmaker chronicles the history.