SEAL Team Six: The Raid on Osama Bin Laden will premiere on Sunday, November 4 — less than 48 hours before the presidential election — on the National Geographic Channel in prime time.
According to The New York Times , the 90-minute film was recently reedited for the president’s benefit:
“Thanks to the magic of editing, President Obama will have a starring role in a television drama about one of his biggest accomplishments — the killing of Osama bin Laden — that will be shown just two nights before the presidential election …
“But promotional materials and a copy of the movie provided to The New York Times this week also show that the film has been recut, using news and documentary footage to strengthen Mr. Obama’s role and provide a window into decision-making in the White House.
“In a joint interview on Tuesday Mr. Weinstein; the film’s director, John Stockwell; and others said the changes to the film were not politically motivated but were meant to give the film a stronger sense of realism. Some of the Obama moments were added at the suggestion of Mr. Weinstein, they said, using material gathered by Meghan O’Hara, a producer who worked closely with the documentarian Michael Moore on politically charged projects like Fahrenheit 9/11 and Sicko .”
Producer Harvey Weinstein of the Weinstein Company is big Obama backer and contributor who acquired the rights to the film for about $2.5 million at the Cannes film festival in May.
The original version of the film also inexplicably (or perhaps not) had a made-up scene portraying Mitt Romney — who was not a government official at the time and still isn’t — as a “villain.”
“Howard T. Owens, the president of the National Geographic Channel said his company had insisted on removing a scene that showed Mitt Romney appearing to oppose the raid.
” ‘We wouldn’t air this if it were propaganda,’ he said.”
Director Stockwell claims that the film has no political motivation despite the timing of its release and the inclusion of the additional footage.
Do you agree with Stockwell that there is no politics involved in SEAL Team Six: The Raid on Osama Bin Laden ?