What’s the big deal about the chatter between Obama administration officials and the folks behind the upcoming movie about the killing of Osama bin Laden? After all, Hollywood routinely checks in with the U.S. military to share minutiae to make movies more authentic.
Why, just look at “Battleship” as exhibit A.
So says The L.A. Times, another outlet ready, willing and able to defend the Obama administration through omitting key information that would hurt their preferred presidential candidate.
This week, The L.A. Times attempted to spin, spin spin the shocking news that the White House shared information Rep. Peter King dubbed “unprecedented and potentially dangerous” regarding the killing of Osama bin Laden by Navy SEALs.
The emails and meeting transcripts obtained by the watchdog group Judicial Watch reveal that the filmmakers got access to a Navy SEAL who was involved in orchestrating the raid, and toured “the Vault,” a CIA building where planning for the operation took place.
The documents also show how the filmmakers are attempting to construct a narrative of the years leading up to Bin Laden’s death, including debates among CIA and White House officials and rehearsals of the maneuver in the final weeks of preparation.
The access Bigelow and Boal have had to CIA, DOD and other government officials is not unheard of for Hollywood productions. “Battleship” director Peter Berg embedded for a month with Navy SEALs in western Iraq as research for his upcoming SEAL film “Lone Survivor,” and filmmaker Lionel Chetwynd was granted an hour with President Bush for a 2003 movie he wrote for Showtime, “DC 9/11: Time of Crisis.”
Nothing to see here. Please move along to more pertinent stories, like Ann Romney’s horse lawsuit and her husband’s amateur hair styling career.
The L.A. Times chose to ignore this:
Academy Award-winning director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal eagerly adopted the Obama administration’s talking points, much to the delight of senior White House officials.
The records also show that Bigelow and Boal were allowed to meet with one of the raid’s planners from Seal Team Six and were escorted through a high-security facility at CIA headquarters dubbed “The Vault.”
The CIA and Pentagon visits were arranged by The Glover Park Group, a Democratic lobbying group with close ties to many White House officials.
It’s like the Rev. Jeremiah Wright story all over again. The biased media loves to report only the less damaging aspects of that story in order to protect Obama. When the Rev. Wright imbroglio hit back in 2008, media outlets tip-toed around the reverend’s most inflammatory comments, choosing to cite only his lesser rants.
It’s deja vu time, and since this is an election year, you can’t expect the press to either ignore or carefully parse the information you see regarding the ties between the White House and the upcoming bin Laden film.