Following up on this blog yesterday, in which I called attention to Hamilton's attack on ABC and by implication his bosom buddy Tom Kean,
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Dana Milbank in today's Washington Post details the tension emerging between Kean and Hamilton over ABC's PT9-11. Aside from the snarky insertion of the 9-11 conspiracy theorists, the report is worth reading, particularly its implication that ABC's program and the 9-11 contheorists are on the same page.
Here are the best parts:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
With 9/11 Film, Kean Finds Tough Critic in Hamilton
By Dana Milbank
Tuesday, September 12, 2006; A02
There have been few political love stories as beautiful as that of Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton, the former chairman and vice chairman of the 9/11 commission....
So it packed even more punch when Hamilton, at the National Press Club luncheon, lectured his friend about the falsified Sept. 11 docudrama Kean helped ABC produce.
"It is either a documentary or it is a drama, and to fudge it causes me a great deal of concern and suggests to me that news and entertainment are getting dangerously intertwined," the former congressman from Indiana said of his friend's film. "And I do not think that that is good for the country, because an event of this consequence is very hard to understand, and to distort it or not to present it factually in this kind of a presentation, I think, does not serve the country well."
Kean, the "co-executive producer" of this disservice, stood at Hamilton's side, his hands clasped in front of him, grinning awkwardly.
.....
Critics on the left say Kean's bout of partisanship was brought on by the campaign of his son Tom Jr. for a Senate seat from New Jersey
(ABC News was confused enough between father and son to say in its political calendar that "candidate Tom Kean Jr." was appearing with Hamilton).
Whatever the motive, Kean's foray into the land of make-believe has thrilled those who seek to discredit the 9/11 commission's report.
The participants said the ABC show, which initially had claimed to be based on the 9/11 commission's report, proved their thesis that Kean lives in the realm of fiction. "It's a dramatized fraud of a fraud," said Jim Marrs, author of "The Terror Conspiracy."
.....
An hour later in the press club's ballroom, Kean professed to being puzzled by the conspiracy crowd.
"It seems every time there's a traumatic event in American history, it spawns conspiracy theories," he said with a laugh. "I mean, people still think that John Wilkes Booth got away and hid somewhere in the South. As for the 9/11 conspiracy theories, he said, "I don't know what to do about them."
Kean saw no link between the conspiracists and his work in the docudrama trade. When the ABC question was put to him, Kean declared himself mystified by the criticism.
"I've been confounded by this whole controversy," he said innocently. He said that the film's creators are "serious people who wanted to do the best job possible," that it "was a responsible project" and that "I thought they did a good job."
His one attempt at distancing himself was halfhearted. "I was not the producer or director or the author or the writer or whatever else," said co-executive producer Kean.
Hamilton, a tireless Kean booster, answered with some rare public criticism of his partner. "They didn't ask me to participate in this," he said acidly, adding that complaints from Clinton officials were "accurate in their criticisms of ABC." As for the "docudrama" format, the no-nonsense Hoosier said: "I don't like the ring of that."
Spontaneous applause followed Hamilton's criticism."
END OF ARTICLE
Will Menendez be able to use this dust-up to get at Junior in the race for the Senate?