The 5 year anniversary is just around the corner, and it brings with it a flurry of conflicting emotions.

What should be a solemn day of rememberance, a time for unity and resolve and a time to reflect has become a time to bloviate, to threaten, to blame and to intimidate.

At issue in many ways, is who to blame for the events of 9/11  with both sides using the events and findings of the 911 commission to point to the lack of the other.  

Human nature seems to have a dire need to minutely examine a tragedy, which is not a bad thing.  We explore, and we investigate and we determine cause.

In the case of 911 we know who was the cause, and we know why, so it should be a no brainner.  But it isn't.

Because cause is not enough, we also want to assign blame.  Look at 911.  We know who to blame, it was a group of Islamic terrorists.  Yet lately we have heard more about what Bush could have done between January and September to stop it, and what Clinton should have done the 8 years prior to that to prevent it.

There is a lot of room for criticism, some in the area of policies that prevented our government from fully investigating what was happening, and some of personal actions, or inactions, which allowed events to move forward unabated.  We even hear it bruited about that we created the problem ourselves with foreign policies dating back to the 80s.  One thing has been consistent.  No matter who the finger of blame gets pointed to, that person is quick to move the spotlight to another.

Even if we could stop the blaming and the blame shifting, the discovery of cause is essentially useless, unless it is used to provide a foundation of reform which will offer us better protection in the future, because while our internal power shifts in America, the real enemy is still out there, plotting and waiting.  While we fight each other, the enemy waits for the distractions to become so big that it once again leaves us so busy with our infighting, we cannot defend ourselves.  We seemed doomed to repeat the types mistakes the lead up to 911 in the first place.

The lead up to 911 was full of divisions, the Republicans having deposed the Democrats in Congress for the first time in decades, and the President reeling under a cloud of corruption and legal entanglements.

And so here we are again.  The closing out of the Bush tenure is even more divisive.  And this in a time of war, where we should be united against the common enemy, the one whose attack we are memorializing on Monday.

Instead we have settled into camps, armed and ready for battle over the most trivial of things: A  movie.

ABC is producing  a docudrama, a dramatization not of the attacks themselves, but of the events that led up to 911.

The Vice Chair of the 911 commission is acting as a technical consultant, and even with that there is a deep rift over the portrayal of the various factions.

The most critically complained about scene is one where a operation to capture or kill Bin Ladin is foiled when Sandy Berger refuses to give the ok to proceed.

Sandy says this never happened, as did Richard Clarke and others, and as it happens, the producers do not disagree.   They note that several events were compressed into one, and dramatized into that single televised event.  They are essentially correct. 

As people like Buzz Patterson (former staff officer and author) and Michael Scheuer (former CIA operative) have reported, that single dramatized event was consistent with the reality of the Clinton Whitehouse, that several operations and opportunities to either capture or kill Osama went by, untouched and undone.  The 911 Commission report confirms their accusations.

The 911 Commission however is also critical of the Bush Administration, as is the movie also critical of various Bush Whitehouse players. 

The movie (reportedly) seems to take a somewhat more critical look at Clinton then Bush, but this is somewhat understandable considering that they are examining 8 years of Clinton actions and only 8 months of Bush actions in the time leading up to 911.

The Democrats responded with fury over the criticisms of Clinton, a fury that seems a bit over the top.  After all, the 911 Commission had already made many of the same observations.  Albright responded with claims of defamation, Clarke likewise and Clinton first with demands to prescreen the movie, then a demand that they pull the movie or edit it.  A suggested boycott was abandoned when it was revealed that ABC was airing it commercial free.

The final coup de grace though, was when Democrats threatened ABC and Disney's very corporate existence, by threatening to revoke their broadcast license.

Even people who agree with the criticism over the creative license taken with the Sandy Berger scene, like conservative blogger Allahpundit, are taken aback by this tantrum, this major level threat.

The clear fact is that that is hypocrisy on the tallest order when the Democrats raised no objections to as proposed TV movie that mischaracterized Ronald Reagan severely.  A protest by conservatives led the producers to air it on cable TV instead, but they never made any edits, and I recall few Democrats howling in outrage over that.  And Democrats a plenty were begging that Michael Moore's heavily debunked lie infested mock documentary Barely right Fahrenheit 9/11 be shown on TV prior to the 2004 elections. A movie as full of irresponsible lies as that one was ok.  The Democrats never suggested that CBS lose their license when they went to air with the blogger refuted Bush National Guard AWOL story, complete with forged memos.  The complete lack of journalistic integrity and blatant irresponsibility was ok with Democrats as long as Bush was the target, and not Clinton.

And it is clear hypocrisy to claim to be protecting school children over misinformation when there is already well documented factual errors permeating our schools, with full Government sanction. 

Republicans however cannot have a free ride here.  They, as I noted are quick to jump in irregularities in truth and media that benefit the Democrats, but in this case, despite the questionable content, the initial announcement of the movie and the prescreenings brought about a wave of gloating by conservatives, who rejoiced that Clinton will finally be shown as the scoundrel he was.  While they do have a point that Clinton has been given a partial pass on his mistakes, there is something to be said about maintaining some honesty in depicting that.

The producers and their supporters are quick to point out that this is not a documentary, it is a dramatization, and credit disclaimers note the compression that combines several true events into a hybrid event that is factually based.  I have a question for them:

Why do this at all?  If the facts are consistent with events even if they are not totally factual, why not just show the factual events?

In other words, was there a compelling reason for the producers to use creative license when the facts on their own merit are bad enough?  Many Republicans have come on board with this revelation, that a demand for truth should be as accurate as possible, as Allahpundit notes here:

Sister Toldjah posted more about this as well, and she also notes some of the criticisms of the conservatives over the treatment of Bush and his staff in the docucrama.

And she has a good point, that the reactions seem to have been disproportionate.

And all along in the wake of this banter, the memory of 2996 peoples deaths are losing focus, the war on terror is losing momentum and our enemy is gaining in its boldness as it sees its foe divided.

Aside from the masses wrangling about this or that detail, the bloggers have shown two major reactions of note to Sept 11th.

The liberal bloggers at DU plan to Google bomb the movie.

And one right wing blogger has organized a Blogger Memorial to the fallen called simply 2996 (organized by a right winger, but I am sure all are invited top participate).

A glance to my left sidebar will show you which path I chose. 

And as I honor the death of Robert William McPadden, I will also spend some time in reflection on just how juvenile and frail we are sometimes, when we cannot even pay tribute to a major cataclysmic event in our history without the wailing and gnashing of teeth, accompanied by the inevitible jockying for poltical gain.

My prayer for Sept 11th is that we never forget what happened, and why it happened, and that we eventually learn from our tragedy and our mistakes, before it is too late, and we have to mourn the loss of the next group of victims of our oversight.

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