Did Disney screw-up bigtime with "Path to 9/11"?

We could be witnessing a major meltdown at the Disney corporation. Their brand, which is by far their most important asset, is losing its wholesome, family-friendly connotations and coming to be associated with bad right-wing propaganda. MyDD:

By contrast, this week, Disney's brand took a massive hit because the company got sloppy and its internal controls were revealed as weak to non-existent. Not only is the film openly fraudulent, but it's apparently really really bad. Like, loser, expensive afterschool special schlock bad, the kind of bad that makes me kind of glad I couldn't get an advance copy. Right-wing death cultists make shitty directors, apparently. And more significantly, Disney's executives were personally embarrassed, their happy little spa-drenched personas chided by no less than Bill Clinton.

(I don't know what Stoller is talking about when he says "death cultist"--following the link leads to a story about the director's evangelical ties. Even someone as annoyed with Christianity as I am wouldn't assume that makes him a death cultist.) Now Disney hasn't been a pure, fun-filled cartoons-only corporation for quite some time. They own lots of different properties, not all of which produce such wholesome material. But what's different this time is their blatant partisanship. I think this picture that Atrios is pushing sums it up nicely:


But apparently, even many conservatives aren't treating the film too kindly. Think Progress has a collection of negative comments from conservatives.

The most dismal assesment of Disney's move I've seen can be found here, at The Moderate Voice:

How often do you see a corporation truly step in it — I mean, step in it so strongly that you virtually can hear the "squish"?

How often in your lifetime do you see a big corporation do something, either by sloppy advance work or the intent of some higher-ups, that angers and bitterly offends a large number of its customers in such a way that its image could be dramatically transformed for years within a shockingly short period of time? How often do you see a corporation dig in its heels — and make matters worse? Or change course — and possibly (in another way) make matter worse? As any PR person knows, it is far easier to destroy an image (and credibility) than to rebuild it.

The Great "The Path To 911" Docudrama Controversy of 2006 is a body blow to ABC that is likely to have implications for the network and its parent company — for years.

It's a long and detailed article, and worth the read.