Top Items:
William Triplett / Variety:
Pols pound 'Path' — Under fire, ABC mulls yanking mini — "The Path to 9/11" is looking a lot like "The Reagans, Part II." — Bill Clinton loyalists are demanding wholesale changes to the upcoming miniseries — and while ABC is making some snips, the alterations, insiders say, may not please the Dems.
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John Amato / Crooks and Liars:
Harvey Keitel speaks out on Path to 9/11: "It turned out not all the facts were correct" — Harvey Keitel speaks out on "Showbiz Tonight about the controversy ABC's "Path to 9/11" has caused and in which he stars. — Video-WMP Video-QT (rough transcript-not full)
Alessandra Stanley / New York Times:
Laying Blame and Passing the Buck, Dramatized — THE first words spoken on "The Path to 9/11" are at check-in at Logan Airport at 7:13 a.m. "O.K., Mr. Atta," an American Airlines agent says over the clickety-clack of computer keys. "One way, nonstop to Los Angeles, no return."
Howard Kurtz / Washington Post:
ABC to Alter Show on Pre-9/11 Run-Up — ABC plans to make minor changes to its docudrama on the run-up to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in response to heated complaints from former Clinton administration officials that a number of scenes are fabricated, a network executive said yesterday.
New York Times:
Passions Flare as Broadcast of 9/11 Mini-Series Nears — Under growing pressure from Democrats and aides to former President Bill Clinton, ABC is re-evaluating and in some cases re-editing crucial scenes in its new mini-series "The Path to 9/11" to soften its portrait of the Clinton administration's pursuit …
New York Post:
'PATH' MISSED REAL — 9/11 STORY — FIRST things first: ABC's miniseries "The Path to 9/11," which will air Sept. 10 and 11, is a stiff. For those well-versed in the infuriating details of the missteps and missed opportunities in pursing al Qaeda between the first bombing of the World Trade Center …
Roger Ebert / Chicago Sun Times:
Accuracy aside, ABC's '9/11' deserves to bomb
Accuracy aside, ABC's '9/11' deserves to bomb
Discussion:
No More Mister Nice Blog
Redstate:
3,000 People Still Die — LIBERALS CAN'T CHANGE EVERY SCENE IN "THE PATH TO 9/11" — As reported earlier today, the Democratic Leadership of the United States Senate sent a threatening letter to the Walt Disney Company. For what effect - and to what end - we will have to wait and see.
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Robert Salladay / Los Angeles Times:
Gov.'s Candid Moments Caught on Audiotape — Schwarzenegger's banter with aides offers glimpse of bull session behind closed doors. — SACRAMENTO — In the sanctuary of his Capitol office with an audio recorder rolling, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger describes Republican legislators as the …
New York Times:
Conservatives Help Wal-Mart, and Vice Versa — As Wal-Mart Stores struggles to rebut criticism from unions and Democratic leaders, the company has discovered a reliable ally: prominent conservative research groups like the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation and the Manhattan Institute.
Discussion:
The Moderate Voice, Daniel W. Drezner, The Volokh Conspiracy, TAPPED, Will Wilkinson, The Corner, Blue Crab Boulevard and Media Blog
Kate Zernike / New York Times:
Lawyers and G.O.P. Chiefs Resist Proposal on Tribunal — The Bush administration's proposal to bring leading terrorism suspects before military tribunals met stiff resistance Thursday from key Republicans and top military lawyers who said some provisions would not withstand legal scrutiny …
Discussion:
TAPPED, Hit and Run, Washington Post, The RBC, PoliBlog, Ankle Biting Pundits, The Left Coaster, TPMCafe blogs, Andrew Sullivan, State of the Day and The News Blog
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Adam Liptak / New York Times:
Interrogation Methods Rejected by Military Win Bush's Support — Many of the harsh interrogation techniques repudiated by the Pentagon on Wednesday would be made lawful by legislation put forward the same day by the Bush administration. And the courts would be forbidden from intervening.
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Dana Milbank / Washington Post:
Down the Homestretch, the House Wanders Off Course — Let us stipulate, as the lawyers like to say, that horses should not be slaughtered for human consumption. — Let us further stipulate that there is nothing inherently offensive about minting coins to commemorate the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth.
Rasmussen Reports:
Tennessee Senate: Ford Within 1 — Corker (R) 45% Ford (D) 44% — The latest Rasmussen Reports election survey shows U.S. Rep. Harold Ford, Jr. closing in on Bob Corker in what has become one of the country's marquee Senate races. Ford now trails Corker by a single point, 44% to 45% (see crosstabs).
Associated Press:
Senate Panel Releases Report on Iraq Intelligence — WASHINGTON (AP) — There's no evidence Saddam Hussein had a relationship with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his Al-Qaida associates, according to a Senate report on prewar intelligence on Iraq. Democrats said the report undercuts President Bush's justification for going to war.
Discussion:
Happy Furry Puppy Story …
Damon Darlin / New York Times:
Hewlett-Packard Spied on Writers in Leaks — The California attorney general's investigation into the purloining of private phone records by agents of Hewlett-Packard has revealed that the monitoring effort began earlier than previously indicated and included journalists as targets.
Tim Fought / Associated Press:
Judge won't dismiss eavesdropping suit — PORTLAND, Ore. —A federal judge Thursday rejected a Bush administration plea to throw out a lawsuit over the government's warrantless surveillance program, saying he is not convinced going ahead with the case would harm national security.
Matthew Sheffield / NewsBusters.org:
Matthews: Plame Story Too Complicated to Cover Now — Since the revelation that Richard Armitage, a former high-ranking official in the State Department, was the source of the much-ballyhooed Valerie Plame "leak," many in the media have refused to touch the story with a ten-foot pole.
New York Post:
ISLAM-HATERS: AN ENEMY WITHIN — ISLAMIST fanatics attacked us and yearn to destroy us. The Muslim civilization of the Middle East has failed comprehensively and will continue to generate violence. The only way to deal with faith-poisoned terrorists is to kill them.
White House:
President Bush Discusses Progress in the Global War on Terror — Fact Sheet: Progress Report: Fixing the Problems Exposed by the 9/11 Attacks — THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all very much. Please be seated. (Applause.) Thank you. Sonny, thanks for the introduction. Thanks for your leadership.
Discussion:
Associated Press, This Modern World, CNN, The Carpetbagger Report, The Heretik, The Anonymous Liberal and The Talent Show
USA Today:
Technology empowers amateur journalism — for better or worse — Between broadband Internet access, inexpensive camcorders, simple audio and video editing tools — not to mention YouTube — the power of "citizen journalists" has increased tremendously in the past couple of years.
Charles Krauthammer / Washington Post:
Iraq: A Civil War We Can Still Win — As the Democrats turn themselves into the antiwar party, as popular support for the war continues to sink, as some who initially signed on to the war now heap scorn on the entire Iraqi project, the question of immediate withdrawal must be confronted.
Antonio D. French / PUB DEF:
McCaskill Rallies Democrats, Aide Kicks Jeff Smith Out of Meeting — PUB DEF EXCLUSIVE — U.S. Senate candidate Claire McCaskill met yesterday with several St. Louis area Democratic elected officials to emphasize the importance of the upcoming statewide elections and to heal whatever wounds …
Phil Rosenthal / Chicago Tribune:
Couric joins `exclusive' club with Bush chat — Much was made, at least on CBS, of Katie Couric's "exclusive interview" on Wednesday with President Bush. — But, by definition, any one-on-one interview with someone is exclusive, as opposed to, say, a news conference.