Hugh Hewitt writes:

A full page ad, brightly colored, depicting malevolent eyes peering threw a tear in the American flag the terrorust has torn, is on p. A-9 of the Los Angeles Times this morning. The copy below the title "The Path to 9/11": "The years that led up to it. Everything that might have prevented it." Part 1 airs tonight at 8 PM.

ABC has refused the left, and the fury on the left is extreme. If they'd spend less time caviling and more time watching the program and then reading Lawrence Wright's "The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11" they'd at least appear less incompetent to the American mainstream.

In addition to the ad in The L.A. Times (and presumably, other papers), as of early this morning, it's still listed in the DirecTV on-screen guide, and part one at least has already run in New Zealand.

Cry havoc and let loose the Googlebombs, but this commentor on Ann Althouse's site is spot-on:

"This firestorm is a lose-lose for Dems. Any rational voter can compare the Bush reaction to Farenheit 911 and the current Clinton reaction, and draw appriopriate conclusions."

Indeed, as the man who highlighted it is apt to say.

Update: Has the show's running time been cut?

Originally, TV listings showed Path to 9/11 as being commercial free for three hours tonight and two hours tomorrow night.
Now ABC's web site shows tonight's episode as only 2.5 hours, followed by a special 30 minute Nightline (no doubt with many Democratic guests.)

Likewise, tomorrow's episode is only 90 minutes, having been edited for President Bush's speech.

That makes an hour of originally scheduled content now gone…

As has already started, watch for numerous posts next week from assorted blogs featuring The Scenes ABC Didn't Want You To See!

More: TigerHawk writes, "The Left is virtually begging people to see 'Path to 9/11'":

First, a great many people are going to watch this show only because of the controversy coming from the left. I can say with absolute certainty that I will watch it only because John Aravosis and his ilk think that I should not be allowed to see it and judge for myself. I am sure that there are millions more just like me, and several times our number who simply want to see what all the fuss is about.

You could argue that this is a huge rope-a-dope being set-up by the left, but their past history in regards to blocking content they don't approve of doesn't seem to lend much credence to that level of conspiracy theory. And as TigerHawk goes on to write:

The bizarre efforts of Richard Clarke notwithstanding, it is obvious that every administration from Carter's through Bush 43 failed to appreciate the purposeful lethality of unconstrained Islamic radicalism. Clinton's was no different.

As the Professor wrote on Friday:

By making a big noise over this film, the Clinton people are implicitly disavowing the "pass" they've enjoyed, and in the process inviting more, rather than less, scrutiny of that Administration's antiterror record, which strikes me as very unwise, politically.

In any case, we'll see how this all plays out, starting tonight.