Max Blumenthal, in the Nation, identifies the secret conspiracy behind ABC’s recent docudrama.

On Friday, September 8, just forty-eight hours before ABC planned to air its so-called “docudrama,” The Path to 9/11, Robert Iger, CEO of ABC’s corporate parent, the Walt Disney Company, was presented with incontrovertible evidence outlining the involvement of that film’s screenwriter and director in a concerted right-wing effort to blame former President Bill Clinton for allowing the 9/11 attacks to take place. Iger told a source close to ABC that he was “deeply troubled” by the information and claimed he had no previous knowledge of the institutional right-wing ties of The Path to 9/11’s creators. He reportedly said that he has commenced an internal investigation to verify the role of the film’s creators in deliberately advancing disinformation through ABC.

Heavens to Betsy! The director of Path to 9/11, David L. Cunningham, comes from an Evangelical family. And its writer, Cyrus Nowrasteh, has an alarming past, involving (writing episodes of Falcon Crest and) some sort of friendship with Mr. Apuzzo and Ms. Murty of the conservative Libertas film blog. And aha! Mr. Apuzzo has an alliance of some kind with David Horowitz.

Mr. Blumenthal, and the editors of the Nation, seem to be operating on the basis of some peculiar cultural and political double-standard which regards the friendships, professional associations, and artistic productions of leftists active in the Entertainment Industry as entirely wholesome, natural, and normal forms of personal association and creative expression; and which, at the same time, considers even a single television production incorporating some conservative perspectives as a major outrage, and any indentifiable ties between conservatives as ipso facto evidence of deep dark conspiracy.

Let’s see here: Hollywood, accusations of secret covert ideological associations & intentional designs to influence public opinion in unsavory directions, efforts to silence members of the industry on the basis of unpopular opinions… Haven’t we all heard of that sort of thing before? Isn’t that… McCarthyism?