Apparently, ABC has knuckled under to pressure from veterans of the Clinton administration to edit a key scene in The Path To 9/11 involving Sandy Berger:

ABC toned down a scene that involved Clinton’s national security adviser, Samuel “Sandy” Berger, declining to give the order to kill bin Laden, according to a person involved with the film who declined to be identified. “That sequence has been the focus of attention,” the source said.

The network also decided that the credits would say the film is based “in part” on the 9/11 panel report, rather than “based on” the report, as the producers originally intended.

Hugh Hewitt quotes an email regarding The Path To 9/11, "apparently from someone close to the situation at ABC", according to Libertas:

The story here is the backlash that the Disney/ABC execs experienced was completely unexpected and is what caused them to question themselves and make these changes at all. Had this been the Bush Admin pressuring, they wouldn't have even taken the call. The execs and studio bosses are dyed in the wool liberals and huge supporters of Clinton and the Democratic Party in general. They had no idea any of this could happen. As I understand this, the lawyers and production team spent literally months corroborating every story point down to the sentence. The fact that they were the attacked and vilified by their "own team" took them completely by surprise; this is the first time they've been labeled right-wing, conservative conspiracists.

A couple of times this year, I looked at how stung newspapers felt, as they've suffered the first attacks they've apparently ever received from once sympathetic leftwing readers:

Back in January, I looked at the pincer movement the Washington Post has found itself stuck in lately. While the Post expects to be attacked from the right (because, to only slightly modify a recent Jonah Goldberg riff, "birds gotta fly, fish gotta swim, and conservative columnists gotta indulge their schadenfreude" about the sorry plight of the media. It's what we do), lately it's come under even more vociferous pressure from the left. That's something that Post columnist Richard Cohen recently discovered himself, much to his horror.

The L.A. Times, while far inferior in overall quality to the Post, is beginning to see similar bipartisan contempt emerge. Conservatives such as Hugh Hewitt, Patterico, Cathy Seipp, and umm, me, have long been pecking at it. But lately, Susan Estrich, best known as Michael Dukakis' campaign manager back in 1988, is none-too-thrilled with the Times' coverage of Anthony Pellicano, the wiretapping Hollywood detective. Estrich writes:

Maybe it’s just a coincidence, just a bookkeeping change, a drop in hotel distribution, as the publisher explains. Or maybe the market really works. In either case, to borrow from Abrams, some law professors I know have told me that the way the media has been hyping scandals lately has the potential to turn every newspaper into a suspected liar.

Call it the Spinal Tap media (to coin a phrase): all Marshall amps on 11, all the time.

Or as I wrote back in January:

The contempt that the MSM now finds from both sides of the aisle is quite a unique development--and it will be fascinating to watch how it all plays out.

In any case, seventy years after its creation, how's that one-size fits all mass media concept playing out these days?

The emailer that Hugh quotes regarding ABC's ozone layer of management says:

The fact that they were the attacked and vilified by their "own team" took them completely by surprise; this is the first time they've been labeled right-wing, conservative conspiracists.

They shouldn't have been that surprised. And chances are, in an era where BDS trumps all amongst the left--it won't be the last time it happens, either.

Update: Quick thought: If the report about the cut scene involving Sandy Berger is accurate, given how many review copies of the miniseries have already been sent out on DVD, how long before a clip of the scene in question ends up on YouTube? (And/or Hot Air?)

Another Update: Blue Crab Boulevard does a compare and contrast about two recent hot potato productions involving 9/11:

I think this is both interesting and revealing. Back when Fahrenheit 911 was the talk of the blogosphere, all the criticism I read was about its accuracy. There were quite a lot of bloggers that were tearing it apart for its twisting of fact. A lot of bloggers wanted to set the record straight, but to my knowledge not one of those people I was reading at that time before I started blogging myself was calling for it to be silenced. They only wanted the record straight.

Now we have a new "docudrama" about 9/11 coming out. And the left side of the blogosphere and mainstream Democratic politicians are calling for it to be radically changed or silenced. Some are gloating that they think they have silenced some voices.

Have you noticed the difference here?

One group decries the accuracy, the other decries the existence. Who is in favor of silencing the opposition again? Who is in favor of curtailing the free speech of others?

Have you noticed?

Michael Moore got to sit alongside Jimmy Carter in Carter's box seats at the Democratic National Convention in August of 2004. But it looks like the only seat George Mitchell will be getting from Bill Clinton will be in his outhouse.

More: A reader of Stephen Spruiell's "MediaBlog" spots a related example of airbrushing.

Elsewhere, Hugh Hewitt's latest column asks,"Why Does the Left Hate 'The Path to 9/11'?":

The Clinton operatives are also bringing a useful attention to the program and especially any last minute edits ABC might make. The network risks outrage from center and right if it airbrushes the narrative, and even from those in Hollywood who stand by the idea that a good faith piece of work should be unmolested by the PC police.

No matter your opinions of Presidents Clinton and Bush, be sure to watch (or set your TiVo) to ABC Sunday night at 8. You be the judge. Hopefully ABC will give you that chance.

Regarding Brokeback Mountain, Michael Medved has written that the Christian Right has finally wised up that Hollywood expects their outrage when releasing a controversial movie, and builds it into their marketing plans. So rather than play into Hollywood's hands, they no longer go full-bore apoplectic everytime a film like Brokeback or The Last Temptation of Christ is released. Or as Mark Steyn wrote:

The more artful leftie websites have taken to complaining that the religious right deliberately killed Brokeback at the box-office by declining to get mad about it.

So why didn't the Clintonistas and the DU crowd remember that lesson for themselves?

Update (9/8/06): Click here for more.