Swiftboating: Creating portrayals of historical events with words and video in an attempt to deceive, usually for furthering a political agenda.
Although the factual errors in "The Path to 9/11" have been well-documented, Republican-leaning news services, political commentators, and bloggers have continued to repeat the false depictions of "The Path to 9/11" as if these were factual, well-documented, historical accounts.
In the Media Matters report, "Fox anchors praised The Path to 9/11, disregarded reasons for all the "controversy"", Bill Gertz, the national security reporter for The Washington Times, was being interviewed by Fox host Steve Doocy. The following exchange took place:
DOOCY: Well, a couple members of the former Clinton administration, Bill, said you just can't have what looks like a documentary if it's not real.
GERTZ: Well, I think it was real. Like I say, I think it captured the tone or the spirit of the problems and the fact of the matter is, the Clinton administration was around for years, and the Bush administration, which had some of its problems as well, you know, they didn't back the right Afghans, they were only in power for a few months before the 9-11 attacks. So, obviously it's going to focus more on what happened during the Clinton period.
The principal thesis in "The Path to 9/11" is that President Clinton did nothing to stop Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, despite having numerous chances to kill bin Laden. In addition, the film promotes the notion that Mr. Bush was vigorously attempting to find bin Laden and kill him.
Conservatives such as Bill Bennett, Tom Shales condemned the miniseries for including fictional scenes, and Richard Minter commented on the scene with Sandy Berger, when he was portrayed as refusing to pull the trigger on bin Laden:
But certainly if I was the producer, I wouldn't have gone with this scene, because there's no factual basis for it. It seems to be drawn from an Internet myth, from a profound misunderstanding of what actually happened.
If people wanted to be critical of the Clinton years, there's things they could have said, but the idea that someone had [Osama] bin Laden in his sights in 1998 or any other time and the -- Sandy Berger refused to pull the trigger, there's zero factual basis for that.
Despite conservative criticism, many have chosen to Swiftboat the primary issue in the movie: the failure of Bill Clinton to get bin Laden. While Republicans feigned shock and dismay over the Democratic protest over "The Path to 9/11", Republicans and Democrats alike knew that this film would be taken as fact by many, and referenced as a source for false claims that Bill Clinton had bin Laden in the crosshairs, but failed to pull the trigger. Thus each side of the aisle knew that the now familiar tactic of Swiftboating would follow the airing of this miniseries.
One of the main ways that Swiftboating is being accomplished is to continue to repeat the factual errors of "The Path to 9/11" so many times, that people become confused at first, and finally, accepting of these untruths as fact. For example, Wes Vernon states in his blog that:
Let's see if we have this straight. Bill Clinton was Commander-in-Chief for eight years, but in all that time he could not pick up the phone and order an attack on Osama bin Laden, even when we had him in our crosshairs.
In a Fox News story, it was reported that Clinton had bin Laden in the crosshairs eight to ten times, but failed to act:
In the reality check department, here's what Michael Scheuer, a 22-year veteran of the CIA and head of the agency's bin Laden unit, has to say, published today in The Washington Times:
Mr. Clarke never mentions that President Bush had no chances to kill bin Laden before September 11 and leaves readers with the false impression that he, Mr. Clinton and Mr. Clinton's National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, did their best to end the bin Laden threat. That trio, in my view, abetted Al Qaeda.
Mr. Scheuer says the CIA gave Mr. Clarke and Mr. Clinton eight to ten shots at bin Laden -- eight to ten times they had him in the crosshairs -- and Clarke, Clinton, Berger et al never could pull the trigger.
In the now famous Bill Clinton and Chris Wallace interview, Chris Wallace brought up the question as to:
Why didn't you do more, connect the dots and put them out of business?
We are all aware of Mr. Clinton's response. He cited as the source of his irritation the airing of "The Path to 9/11" by ABC:
OK, let's talk about it. Now, I will answer all those things on the merits, but first I want to talk about the context in which this arises.
I'm being asked this on the FOX network. ABC just had a right- wing conservative run in their little "Path to 9/11," falsely claiming it was based on the 9/11 Commission report, with three things asserted against me directly contradicted by the 9/11 Commission report.
Even that question Chris Wallace asked Mr. Clinton was related to the airing of "The Path to 9/11". In an interview with Fox News Chief Roger Ailes, as reported yesterday states that:
Wallace has said he asked Clinton about bin Laden partly because of ABC's recent docudrama "The Path to 9/11," widely criticized as full of falsehoods by former Clinton administration officials for depicting a bungling effort at going after the terrorist leader.
So, "The Path to 9/11" has spawned the Republican talking point that the tragedy of 9/11/2001 was primarily due to inaction by the Clinton Administration. This myth has been repeated by those who would like to see Bush absolved of all blame for inaction despite being warned by the infamous Presidential Daily Briefing of August 6, 2001, titled, "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States".
In her testimony before the 9/11 Commission Report, on April 8, 1994, Condoleeza Rice reluctantly admitted to the title of the document. Despite the title of the document stating *who* wanted to attack (Bin Laden) and *where* he wanted to attack (in the United States), Ms. Rice stated:
You said, did it not warn of attacks. It did not warn of attacks inside the United States. It was historical information based on old reporting. There was no new threat information. And it did not, in fact, warn of any coming attacks inside the United States.
This is magnificent intellectual dishonesty. Ms. Rice is not dull. She is not incapable of understanding the words, "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States", yet she says that "it did not, in fact, warn of any coming attacks inside the United States".
This is even more disingenuous when the content of the Presidential Daily Briefing titled, "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States" is examined:
Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate Bin Ladin, since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the U.S. Bin Ladin implied in U.S. television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and "bring the fighting to America".
...Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including *recent* surveillance of federal buildings in New York.
Note that the memo said "recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York", belying Ms. Rice's claim that the PDB of August 6, 2001, was only "historical information based on old reporting".
The August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) even told the Bush administration what the target would be: "his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef". So the PDB told Ms. Rice and Mr. Bush who would strike and where they would strike , but nothing happened in response to this information. In fact, Ms. Rice reported regarding her actions after receiving the August 6, 2001, PDB:
I remember very well that the president was aware that there were issues inside the United States. He talked to people about this. But I don't remember the Al Qaida cells as being something that we were told we needed to do something about.
So, Ms. Rice reports to the 9/11 Commission that Al Qaida was not something that they had been told to do something about. In fact, Ms. Rice had been told. On January 25th, 2001, just days after the inauguration, Richard Clarke sent a memo to Condoleeza Rice urging her to take Al Qaida seriously:
We urgently need such a Principals level review on the al Qida networks.
Just some terrorist group?
As we noted in our briefings for you, al Qida is not some narrow, little terrorist issue that needs to be included in broader regional policy. Rather, several of our regional policies need to address centrally the transnational challenge to the US and our interests posed by the al Qida network.
You may read the Richard Clarke memo to Condoleeza Rice for yourself here.
So after reading these facts and reports, do you believe that the Republicans are dealing honestly and fairly about 9/11 and who is responsible, or have misleading portrayals in "The Path to 9/11" been repeated by the media in a tacit attempt at Swiftboating the 9/11 tragedy?