Article Last Updated: 6/23/2005 12:12 AM
joanne ostrow[/color]
Brokaw tackles the war on terror, sort ofBy Joanne Ostrow
Denver Post TV Critic
DenverPost.com
"Americans don't like it when things get complicated," a Jewish cop tells an Irish firefighter on FX's drama "Rescue Me."
He's talking about how confused people felt when heroic New York firefighters suffering post-traumatic stress turned out to be alcoholics and adulterers too. He is also reflecting current feelings toward the war and terrorism. He might have been describing this week's NBC News report on the subject. Keep it simple. Roll tape from 9/11, mention Saddam Hussein, "intel" and the Patriot Act. Throw in Abu Ghraib for the final cut, and don't judge.
"The Long War," 7 p.m. Friday on KUSA-Channel 9, is Tom Brokaw's first documentary since leaving the NBC anchor chair. It draws no conclusions.
It's great to see Brokaw reporting from Afghanistan, sitting down with high-ranking U.S. intelligence and security officials, visiting Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and France in an update on how the war on terror is going. Thank goodness he landed a primetime spot for an important subject.
Yet despite unusual access to CIA headquarters and Saudi security stations, this remains a frustratingly superficial production, wide-ranging but shallow.
It pales next to "Frontline's" work on PBS concerning Iraq and the global nature of terrorism. ("Al Qaeda's New Front" aired in January; "The Long Road to War" in 2003 drew on 12 years of Iraq coverage. A half-dozen other "Frontline" films have aggressively tackled the subjects.)
Now, almost four years after 9/11, Brokaw asks soldiers whether they think about Osama bin Laden as they patrol the rugged terrain. Why is bin Laden so hard to find? Imagine the distance from Washington, D.C., to Denver filled with Rocky Mountains all the way, and you have some idea of the turf where he's hiding, we hear. Then again, catching bin Laden won't matter one way or the other, Brokaw notes.
Will the war end in our lifetime? Nobody is optimistic.
How does new CIA director Porter Goss plan to fight terrorism? "You have to take the offense," Goss says in his first television interview.
It's all "Dateline" news-mag style: crisp, personalized and not too taxing.
The plain-spoken newsman can't help dominating the scene, nearly overshadowing the issues he seeks to discuss. President Bush's Homeland Security adviser, Frances Townsend, looks positively giddy to be in the presence of Brokaw the celebrity.
The tone of the piece is notably uncritical of U.S. policy. [That's putting it mildly!]
"Some wonder if Bush complicated the war on terrorism by sending troops to Iraq," Brokaw ventures politely. Earlier and pointedly, two "Frontline" reports ("Truth, War and Consequences" and "Rumsfeld's War") traced the roots of the war and the creation of intelligence that would justify going to Iraq. Brokaw sidesteps those issues.
The most farsighted comments emerge from one of the network's own: Baghdad- based correspondent Richard Engel describes the region's anger at America, the widespread fear that the American agenda is anti-Islam, and the belief that the U.S. and Israel intend to dominate the Islamic world. [30 seconds tacked on at tail end of segment] Engel, who freelanced for ABC News during the war, previously served as Middle East correspondent for "The World," a joint production of BBC World Service and public radio in the U.S. An hour's worth of his observations might make a powerful tutorial.
In the end, you wonder if NBC gets the access it does because the powers-that-be know what kind of inoffensive product will result. A tour of the White House here, an interview at Langley there, and it's all maddeningly simplistic.
Guantanamo Bay and torture are mentioned, as is Amnesty International's charge that it represents "the gulag of our times," but the concept is batted away with President Bush's dismissal of it as "absurd." Is it? Maybe an Israeli-Palestinian accord would change everything, the report suggests. [more like -- a split second statement-- that "progress" might change everything]
Would it? How? Why? According to whom? These questions are beyond the scope of this whirlwind sound-bite collection.
As we know from truth-telling dramas, Americans don't like it when things get complicated.
TV critic Joanne Ostrow can be reached at 303-820-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com.
