I recently watched DC 9/11: Time of Crisis on Showtime. It is a dramatization of the terrorist attack, and the days and events that immediately followed it, as seen from within the Administration.

Short review: I liked it.

Timothy Bottoms, who didn't exactly cover himself in glory with "That's My Bush!" reprises that comedic role as a dramatic one, and does a creditable George W. Bush. (Interestingly, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, creators of both "That's My Bush!" and "South Park", are Republicans and supporters of Bush. Their initial concept for the series lampooned a newly elected President Gore, who they fully expected would win in 2000.)

Amusingly, there are two Star Trek links in the casting: Condi Rice is played by Penny Johnson, who also played Kasidy Yates, Captain Sisko's love interest in the latter seasons of Deep Space Nine; and then, of course, there's Secretary of Transportation Sulu (George Takei as Norm Mineta). Cheney was played by Lawrence Pressman, who had a recurring role in "Dark Angel". (Just a sec ... mmm, Jessica Alba ... sigh ... okay, I'm back.) The rest of the cast, I don't recall ever seeing before.

A lot of people will be turned off by the fact that it shows President Bush in a flattering light; but I think that in a situation like that, even a President as unprincipled as Nixon or Clinton could have risen to the occasion, and have no problem believing that Bush displayed some reasonably strong mettle in that interval.

And given Bush's real-life verbal clumsiness, it's hard to believe that he was quite so eloquent in private conversation. I've heard that Bush is much better in private or before small groups than when talking to a camera or a big crowd, but even so, the transition between the behind-the-scenes scenes, where the dialog was scripted by the show's writers, and Bottoms' renditions of Bush's speeches, which he had to duplicate the real Bush's words stumble-for-stumble, was jarring.

But then, I doubt that even people as intelligent and educated as Cheney or Rice spoke with such eloquence and dramatic poise in real life. No one does; everyone speaks in incomplete sentences, grammatical gaffes, and false starts when conversing extemporaneously. (Except maybe George Will. I think he'd sooner eat a bug than split an infinitive.) This false eloquence is just an artifact of Hollywood scripting.

You can also tell which networks cooperated with the making of the movie, and which didn't. When they show news footage of the events, it's almost always FoxNews. (But then, it may simply be a matter of historical accuracy. Given that they show it as the coverage being watched by the President and his staffers, and it's likely that they really did watch FoxNews for their coverage.)

The narrative covers the period from just before the attack -- starting with a distrubingly prophetic discussion at a morning meeting between Rumsfeld and various Congressional leaders -- and ends with Bush's address to the joint session of Congress. Most of the way through the speech, the narrative shifts from Bottoms reciting Bush's speech, to footage of the real President Bush, finishing the speech, showing the Port Authority policeman's shield that he carried with him through that period (and that we see Bottoms receiving from the policeman's mother in an earlier scene).

Karl Rove comes off as jovial and a little too chummy. Rumsfeld comes off as overconfident and a little too intense. The portrayal of Ashcroft was surprisingly underplayed, and not unsympathetic. The conflict of worldviews between Bush and Powell isn't shown, but it might not have emerged until later. (Assuming that the conflict is real, and not just a matter of Powell playing "good cop" to Rumsfeld's "bad cop" -- something I'm still not sure about.) And one is left doubting the sanity -- though not the efficacy -- of some of the folks at CIA. (Sometimes a little lunacy can be useful, after all.)

All in all, a well-done effort. I recommend watching it if you have the chance.