Monday, September 30, 2013

CNN crushed by Clinton's refusal to let them produce a biopic about Hillary; terrified too many inconvenient truths would come out abut her

 Courtesy of NewsBusters.com




An upcoming CNN documentary about Hillary Clinton has been canceled.

The show's director, Charles Ferguson, made the announcement at the Huffington Post two hours ago.

According to Ferguson, CNN had approached him about doing a documentary for the network in late 2012. After kicking around a number of subjects, they decided on Mrs. Clinton.
Ferguson was quickly given complete editorial control over the final version and a generous budget.

The day after the contract was signed, Ferguson received a message from Nick Merrill, Hillary Clinton's press secretary. He proceeded to interrogate the director who asked for an off-the-record, private conversation with Mrs. Clinton.

The request was denied.
 
Phillipe Reines, Hillary Clinton's media fixer, then interrogated various people at CNN expressing concern about alleged conflicts of interest generated because the film was a for-profit endeavor. Reines refused to speak to Ferguson about this opting instead to echo his allegations to Politico.
After the project was officially revealed to the public, Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus sent a letter to CNN threatening to boycott the network's 2016 presidential debates if it went forward with the documentary.

This didn't surprise Ferguson. "What did surprise me was that, quietly and privately, prominent Democrats made it known both to CNN and to me that they weren't delighted with the film, either," he wrote.

Readers are advised that roughly a week after the project was revealed, prominent liberals at MSNBC complained about NBC's proposed mini-series about Mrs. Clinton. I immediately smelled a rat sensing that they were likely doing this with pressure from the Clintons.

But none of this deterred Ferguson and CNN who vowed to move forward with the project until the director attended a dinner with Bill Clinton in June.

Ferguson had an opportunity to speak privately with the former president:

"I asked him about the financial crisis. He paused and then became even more soulful, thoughtful, passionate, and articulate. And then he proceeded to tell me the most amazing lies I've heard in quite a while.
 
"For example, Mr. Clinton sorrowfully lamented his inability to stop the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which banned all regulation of private (OTC) derivatives trading, and thereby greatly worsened the crisis. Mr. Clinton said that he and Larry Summers had argued with Alan Greenspan, but couldn't budge him, and then Congress passed the law by a veto-proof supermajority, tying his hands.
 
"Well, actually, the reason that the law passed by that overwhelming margin was because of the Clinton Administration's strong advocacy, including Congressional testimony by Larry Summers and harsh public and private attacks on advocates of regulation by Summers and Robert Rubin.
 
"Wow, I thought, this guy is a really good actor. And I also saw one reason why Hillary Clinton might not be thrilled about my movie.

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