Media Whore is a weekly column that offers commentary on the state of popular media.
On the 9th of this month, LA’s Daily Breeze website noted, “Gripping drama, fluffy sitcom added to fall line-up.” A similar description could have accurately described what the President, Vice President and other propagandists brought to the 2006 season of September 11 anniversary coverage.
The media outlets handled the day with relative finesse. National Public Radio marked the anniversary with profiles of folks whose lives had been changed. They also ran stories that focused on the noted health hazard that first responders faced after 9/11.
The New York Times remarked upon how it was smart of CNN to send Anderson Cooper to Afghanistan, not ground zero, for the fifth anniversary of 9/11. “It is the country where this all started,” according to the Times. They later added, “All the new programs covered the anniversary with energy, respect and exhaustive detail.”
Adding humor to the otherwise somber day, The Onion jokingly reported, “NYC Unveils 9/11 Memorial Hole.”
Hijacking commemorations and stealing remarkable depth from the coverage, President Bush, Vice President Cheney and other influential members of the right wing tried to mold our thinking and how we remember the day.
ABC ran “The Path to 9/11.” The film, advertised as a screen-adaptation of the 9/11 Commission Report, took “dramatic license” to make stuff up whenever they saw fit. One scene pretends that the Northern Alliance was once close to catching Bin Laden, if only the White House had approved. This never happened. Liberties such as these actually caused several technical advisors to quit the project.
I wasn’t shocked to find out that ABC, which is owned by Disney, decided to fictionalize history. Add a talking animal and a Vanessa Williams soundtrack to the plot and we’d have another Pocahontas sequel on our hands.
The show, however, was less absurd than our very own President’s “non-political” address to the nation after his day of remembrance. “I am often asked why we are in Iraq when Saddam Hussein was not responsible for the 9/11 attacks,” he says. He answers with a clumsy, backwards explanation all too familiar: “Terrorists” and “threats” and “freedom” and all the other reasons that were served on his week-long “Republicans are better than everyone in the foreign policy department,” speaking tour.
No alternative to invasive and dangerous military action was offered. However, as columnist John Tierney has pointed out, “Bush was no match for the master of P. R.,” Osama Bin Laden. When Bin Laden lies and dramatically exaggerates, he can at least motivate his base, instead of alienating them.
As entertaining as the aforementioned were, the fluffiest display was served up by my favorite bad-aimer, Vice President Dick Cheney. This long 9/11 weekend was brought into high gear by “Meet the Press,” where our automaton second-in-command admitted to Tim Russert every mistake and blunder made during the war in Iraq. When asked if in hindsight he would still have made the same decision about invading Iraq, Cheney said he would. This makes me wonder what they mean when they reference “lessons learned” in Iraq. And all of this came to us on Sunday morning via the knowing, sneering Dick Cheney grimace that we have all come to know and loath.
And to imagine, I got all of this crap without even watching “The Game,” “Brothers & Sisters,” or “The View” now starring Rosie O’Donnell. Next year, perhaps ABC, President Bush and Vice President Cheney could leave the fluff to the fall line-up.