As I said, many people are upset that the upcoming ABC docudrama The Path to 9/11 may use made up events based on reality to make Bill Clinton look feckless instead of using better documented instances of his fecklessness. So how much “fake but accurate” scenes is a docudrama allowed? Obviously, ever single line can’t be taken straight from a transcript, so some artistic liberty is needed. Also, it’s common to make minor changes to history for the sake of drama (in Apollo 13, the famous line was changed from “Houston, we had a problem.” to “Houston, we have a problem.”).
For a thought exercise, let’s take an actual line Clinton is known to have uttered and see what changes can be made while stilling being ethical in the representation of Bill Clinton:

You know, it would scare the shit out of Al Qaeda if suddenly a bunch of black ninjas rappelled out of helicopters into their camp.

It was confirmed by Clinton that he did indeed say this to Commander of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Hugh Shelton, thus a depiction of him saying this line to Shelton would certainly be an accurate and ethical depiction of an actual event in history. Of course, this line would run into trouble with the FCC, so what if it was instead changed to this:

You know, it would scare the crap out of Al Qaeda if suddenly a bunch of black ninjas rappelled out of helicopters into their camp.

Now, history is changed ever so slightly, but I think most would still consider this pretty accurate as the nature of the line isn’t altered.
Of course, a scene of just Clinton saying this line to Shelton wouldn’t be a very robust one for the sake of the movie, so what about adding to the line with what one could only assume was what Clinton said afterwards?

You know, it would scare the crap out of Al Qaeda if suddenly a bunch of black ninjas rappelled out of helicopters into their camp.
(giggles)
Man, I’m so high right now.

Again, while some small liberties are taken, I think this still accurately represents an actual event. What do you think?