Jonah Goldberg writes:

My basic view is, a pox on everybody. The Democratic Party embraced Michael Moore's movie at the highest levels. Daschle hugged Moore at the premiere. Carter invited him to sit with him at the convention. Etc Etc. Are they claiming that F9/11 is more accurate than the ABC miniseries? If so, I'd like to hear them say it. At the same time, when, CBS tried to come out with that Reagan biopic, conservatives howled in outrage and got CBS to drop it. Why shouldn't liberals have a go at the same thing? Of course, during the Reagan brouhaha liberals got their panties in a knot about how it was "censorship" and a horrifying example of conservative bullying when the Right succeeded. Now, it seems many of the same liberals are cheering as the former President of the United States is trying to bully ABC into dropping the miniseries. Nobody looks good in this one.

Well, to be fair, the Reagan biopic was moved from CBS to Showtime. It's probably too late now to move The Path To 9/11 to a pay cable channel, but I wonder if ABC explored that possibility as well when things began to heat up.

Late Update (9/8/06): Here's something I don't remember Republicans threatening during the brouhaha over either The Reagans or Ra^therGate: yanking a television network's license. Or as Allah puts it, channelling Dino and Luigi Vercotti, "Wonderful network you’ve got there. It’d be a shame if something happened to it".

More: Libertas, who've really owned the The Path To 9/11 story from day one, makes a similar point to mine:

Fahrenheit 9/11 was later broadcast on the DISH Network on November 1st, 2004, right before the Presidential elections. The DISH Network is owned by EchoStar, which receives its DBS license from the Federal Communications Commission. I’m not aware that Republicans ever threatened EchoStar with losing its license as a result of broadcasting that film.

Question: is this the Wellstone funeral redux, or will it all be forgotten come November? In any case, given that the beginning of September is traditionally when people start paying attention to politics again, this is not an auspicious start to the left's campaign season. And it all could have been avoided by simply letting the show air quietly--or at least not going to the mattresses over it. As the Anchoress writes:

This is what is called “overplaying your hand,” and the Democrats do it all the time. Not content with letter writing, registering complaints and the edits ABC has already agreed to, not content with Clinton’s own work to protest a made-for-tv docudrama…they threaten to pull a broadcast license if the show is not canned. Incredible.

But it's not the first time such a threat has been made.