The ongoing battle regarding ABC's docudrama miniseries "Path to 9/11" poses the question: Which is more craven behavior, making stuff up in a film that purports to be based on "The 9/11 Commission Report" (and employed the commission's head as a consultant), or to cave immediately when those depicted call you on your b.s.?

(Rumors swirl that ABC just might cancel the $30-million production outright.)

(UPDATE: ABC will interrupt the miniseries on the East Coast on Monday at 9 p.m. -- right about the time things really head South for the Bush Administration in the narrative -- for an address to the nation from President Bush, one the White House declares "will not be political in nature.")

Bill Clinton and others have pointed to some fictionalized scenes in the film, complaining that the film says that he was too politically hamstrung by the Monica Lewinsky scandal to act boldly against Osama bin Laden when he had the chance in 1998 (there’s a pointedly smirking inclusion of his famous utterance, “I did not have sex with that woman…�).

But one accurate kvetch doesn't necessarily make the follow-up grouse equally credible. The charge seems a not-unreasonable interpretation; other parts of Clinton’s agenda were certainly thwarted by House Republicans eager to impeach him, who assailed his one failed missile strike as a weak, "Wag the Dog" strategy and no doubt put a kibbosh on future, tougher measures. Certainly, had he not been embroiled in scandal, he could've struck harder at al Qaeda. (Those rabid to nail Clinton over such a relatively petty offense, rather than soberly consider the geopolitical situation, should share a measure of complicity in this failure.)

Democrats also complain that the film, written by conservative Cyrus Nowrasteh -- they managed to find a conservative in Hollywood! -- doesn't take the Bush Administration to task for its own oversights. It's true the film is less explicit and even a smidgen obfuscating in examining the current Administration’s pre-9/11 failures, though there is a scene in which White House anti-terrorism czar Richard Clarke is snubbed by Rice when he tries to engage her on the subject.

(Clarke, in his book "Against All Enemies," insists Clinton never kept his eye off al Qaeda during his personal turmoil, while pointing to a host of nonchalant behavior on behalf of the current Administration. Question: Does the fact that Bush devalued Clarke in 2001 validate his claims, make his reportage sour grapes, or some combination thereof?)

But there's plenty of blame to go around, and the miniseries is most damning when considering America's future, pointing out at the conclusion just how remiss the Bush Administration has been in implementing the 9/11 Commmission's recommendations for making the country safer.

ABC buckled awfully quickly when liberals complained, however, which begs the question: If the network had such little faith in its material, why did they OK it in the first place? (CBS, of course, moved its far less incendiary miniseries "The Reagans" to Showtime, where it was seen by a mere fraction of the audience it would've garnered on the broadcast network.)

Joe Scarborough, on MSNBC the other evening, became an unlikely advocate for artists rights (he often grouses about La-La Land's creative element) when he decried ABC's caving in, saying no one asked for changes to Oliver Stone's "Nixon" or Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse Now." This seems a pretty seriously disingenuous argument: "Apocalypse Now" was fiction, pure and simple, while "Nixon" came after the principal character had died and the controversy that plagued him had dissipated over 20 years. Sept. 11 and its fallout continues to affect us today. (To be fair, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann kind of went in the other direction in oversimplifying, declaring the film placed blame on Clinton and Clinton only.)

Finally: It's a movie, a docudrama. It's not a news report, not a documentary. All docudramas take artistic license, and anyone who takes the particulars of one as gospel without consulting other sources is too stupid for their opinion to matter much.

All this said: "Path to 9/11," politics notwithstanding (and whatever form it finally airs in), is a pretty compelling thriller (many said the same thing about "The 9/11 Commission Report" itself).