Was It OK to Fictionalize "Path to 9/11"?

Has ABC injected itself into this fall's political campaign? And will viewers take ABC's "Path to 9/11" as a completely factual account?

ABC television has created a two-night television movie that seeks to recreate the events that led up to the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington. The major facts are, well, factual and the movie portrays real politicians and other government officials who had something to do with the web of decisions that led to that fateful day.

But it's a movie and like just about every movie I can think of there is some dramatization and fictionalization. And now some of those who were put into imagined conversations are claiming that they have been unfairly defamed and that this movie dangerously mixes fictionalized entertainment with the public's perception of a real event--a huge and defining event--in American history.

We listened to a National Public Radio story about the controversy before talking about the ABC movie. What I'd like to know--and I hope there is a scholar who researches this--is how much average Americans will take this movie to be the actual truth about the events leading up to Sept. 11, 2001. (One student said ABC should at least run a disclaimer to remind viewers that while the movie has some truth in it, it is nevertheless a fictionalized account.)