Fahrenheit 9/11

[Guest]

Scots, man, I likes you more and more.

Perdita

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Dita,

Watch his films. Enjoy them for whatever art you find within them. Just remember, you are watching a propaganda film, purely and simply. No better or worse than The Birth of a Nation, Olympia or Triumph of Will. It is a cinematic expression of a political agenda.

-Colly

 

[Guest]

Colly, if it were anyone else I'd say you being condescending, but I know you aren't. I very much appreciate the art of Griffiths and Riefenstal (sp.?), have yet to make up my mind about Moore.

Thanks for your wishes. P.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Colly, if it were anyone else I'd say you being condescending, but I know you aren't. I very much appreciate the art of Griffiths and Riefenstal (sp.?), have yet to make up my mind about Moore.

Thanks for your wishes. P.

I have to take your word that any of them hold artistic merit. I can't tell good acting or cinimatography from bad, unless it's really awful. There was no intent on my part to be condescending, rather I gave him credit for being in the ranks of the great propagandists. Perhaps too much credit, but in reality, you are much better equiped to tell me if he deserves such accolade. I rarely watch movies & have little appreciation of the art involved.

If it isn't too much trouble, I would really like to know your opinion on his skill after you have seen the movie.

-Colly

 

[Guest]

If it isn't too much trouble, I would really like to know your opinion on his skill after you have seen the movie.

Ha ha, I'll give everyone my opinion. I can't speak as well about Leni R. (though she did create beauty out of evil). But D.W. Griffiths was film's first genius. He actually created (invented) film technique that everyone takes for granted now. He made an art out of what before had been a craft.

anon, Perdita

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Ha ha, I'll give everyone my opinion. I can't speak as well about Leni R. (though she did create beauty out of evil). But D.W. Griffiths was film's first genius. He actually created (invented) film technique that everyone takes for granted now. He made an art out of what before had been a craft.

anon, Perdita

Leni was perhaps the best ever at incorporating nationalistic propaganda into works that are now considered classics of the propagandist's art. I have studied Nazi propaganda and ever and again she is mentioned as a master of it. Often portrayed as the antithesis of clumsy people like Geobles & Stricher.


-Colly

 

[Guest]

Leni was perhaps the best ever at incorporating nationalistic propaganda into works that are now considered classics of the propagandist's art. I have studied Nazi propaganda and ever and again she is mentioned as a master of it. Often portrayed as the antithesis of clumsy people like Geobles & Stricher.

I agree. She was that rare thing, an artist first. I won't judge her but it seems to me she used Hitler for her art, as he used her art for his own ends. There is a very good doc. on her, probably available to rent on dvd; books too, I just haven't the time to learn more about her. P.

 

[Pure]

Colly said, of Moore's film

Moore is scathing. Not factually correct, but scathing.

Perhaps you could furnish us unwashed with a short list, of

5-6 'factual errors' of the film.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Colly said, of Moore's film

Moore is scathing. Not factually correct, but scathing.

Perhaps you could furnish us unwashed with a short list, of

5-6 'factual errors' of the film.

Perhaps I could. Perhaps you could do just as well with a google search for Michale Moore? There only seem to be two types of sites, those who support him and those who hate him. The haters have more factual errors for his works than Franken does for Ann Coulter's book.

-Colly

 

[shereads]

Dita,

Watch his films. Enjoy them for whatever art you find within them. Just remember, you are watching a propaganda film, purely and simply. No better or worse than The Birth of a Nation, Olympia or Triumph of Will. It is a cinematic expression of a political agenda.

-Colly

Birth of a Nation is a work of fiction with a script. I haven't seen more than a few clips of Leni R's films, so I can't speak with any authority about her. But I've been a follower of Moore's since "Roger & Me" and his television show. The power of his work is not its "artistry" but his restraint. Yes, it's propoganda in that it's edited, and he adds commentary. But the most powerful scenes in "Columbine" and "Roger & Me" are the moments of pure documentary, when he refrains from commenting and lets the scene speak for itself.

In "Roger & Me," the story of Flint, Michigan after the automakers outsourced thousands of jobs to Mexico, the most memorable moment takes place on a country club golf course, where Moore asks a socialite to comment on unemployment in Flint.

Without irony, she says, "Why don't those people stop complaining, and just get other jobs?" Then she takes her golf swing.

That moment foreshadows the clip from "Farenheit 911" that was shown on Letterman Friday night: George W. Bush is on the golf course, talking to someone who's holding a camera: "I call on all the world leaders to help fight the war on terror. We've got to get rid of these terrorists." He gives a little smirk and adds, "Now watch this swing."

The absurdity of that moment requires no comment, nor does Moore give any.

We're shown propoganda every time we're presented with our scripted, rehearsed president, who has given fewer press conferences than any other president since the advent of broadcast journalism - because his handlers know that the more he talks, the more danger there is that he will reveal the shallow nature of both his thinking and his character. Thank God someone like Moore goes to the trouble to locate and collect these unscripted scenes that show the side of GWB his handlers keep hidden.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Birth of a Nation is a work of fiction with a script. I haven't seen more than a few clips of Leni R's films, so I can't speak with any authority about her. But I've been a follower of Moore's since "Roger & Me" and his television show. The power of his work is not its "artistry" but his restraint. Yes, it's propoganda in that it's edited, and he adds commentary. But the most powerful scenes in "Columbine" and "Roger & Me" are the moments of pure documentary, when he refrains from commenting and lets the scene speak for itself.

In "Roger & Me," the story of Flint, Michigan after the automakers outsourced thousands of jobs to Mexico, the most memorable moment takes place on a country club golf course, where Moore asks a socialite to comment on unemployment in Flint.

Without irony, she says, "Why don't those people stop complaining, and just get other jobs?" Then she takes her golf swing.

That moment foreshadows the clip from "Farenheit 911" that was shown on Letterman Friday night: George W. Bush is on the golf course, talking to someone who's holding a camera: "I call on all the world leaders to help fight the war on terror. We've got to get rid of these terrorists." He gives a little smirk and adds, "Now watch this swing."

The absurdity of that moment requires no comment, nor does Moore give any.

We're shown propoganda every time we're presented with our scripted, rehearsed president, who has given fewer press conferences than any other president since the advent of broadcast journalism - because his handlers know that the more he talks, the more danger there is that he will reveal the shallow nature of both his thinking and his character. Thank God someone like Moore goes to the trouble to locate and collect these unscripted scenes that show the side of GWB his handlers keep hidden.

One tiny section from one of the many websites ripping Moore:

Fact: Bowling splices together two different election ads, one run by the Bush campaign (featuring a revolving door, and not even mentioning Horton) and another run by an independent expenditure campaign (naming Horton, and showing footage from which it can be seen that he is black). At the end, the ad ala' Moore has the customary note that it was paid for by the Bush-Quayle campaign. Moore intones "whether you're a psychotic killer or running for president of the United States, the one thing you can always count on is white America's fear of the black man." There is nothing to reveal that most of the ad just seen (and all of it that was relevant to Moore's claim) was not the Bush-Quayle ad, which didn't even name Horton.

Fact: Apparently unsatisfied with splicing the ads, Bowling's editors added a subtitle "Willie Horton released. Then kills again."

Fact: Ben Fitz also noted that Bowling's editors didn't bother to research the events before doctoring the ads. Horton's second arrest was not for murder. (The second set of charges were aggravated assault and rape).

If you take a little time you will find he is accused not only of splicing ads, but of splicing speeches, parts of speeches and even of splicing the end of one sentence onto the begining of another.

Can you tell where the splices are? If the scenes don't speak well enough and he decides to make them look better will you notice? Will you know? If the scene needs splicing to make it powerful is it documentary or propaganda? Do you care? Probably not.

However, it isn't documentary if it's doctored. And he admits doctoring it. It isn't documentary if he has a political goal of sticking it to the Bushs. He admits he does.

Enjoy it. Watch it. Eat it up, he is ripping people you don't like and it's entertainment. I am going to wait for Dita's opinion of its value as art.

To me he is no better than Coulter or Rush. It's propaganda and political commentary disguised as entertainment. You asked in another thread how anyone could listen to Rush or read Ann and be entertained. As far as I am concerned, you are doing the exact same thing with Moore. You are getting a dose of hateful propaganda disguised as entertainment.

When Ann sets out to wreck someone and misquotes facts she isn't doing anything different than this man cutting clips and splicing words to attack someone he hates. The only real difference is Ann attacks people you like and Moore attacks people you hate. With the caveat that Moore admits he is setting out to stick it to Bush and Ann dosen't usually admit she is going for someone's throat.

-Colly

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Darn double posts

-Colly

 

[Wildcard Ky]

I know I'm repeating myself, but once again I must say that Moore is entitled to make what ever kind of film he likes. I have no problem with that. My problem starts with the term "documentary". To me, a documentary is a fact based piece that should simply show an accurate, unbiased representation of something that has occurred.

Moore admits that he has a bias and an agenda in what he does. Does this not create a conflict with the intended purpose of a "documentary"?

Perdita is looking at art and craft of the movie making. Moore is very good at both. There are some that will go to the movie simply thinking that since it's supposed to be a documentary, they are seeing the complete truth. Moore simply doesn't work that way. His works aren't complete truth, they are spun with an agenda. He admits it, yet still claims it's a documentary.

Shereads: I tried to send a response PM back to you, but your box was full. I'll try again tomorrow.

 

[shereads]

I know I'm repeating myself, but once again I must say that Moore is entitled to make what ever kind of film he likes. I have no problem with that. My problem starts with the term "documentary". To me, a documentary is a fact based piece that should simply show an accurate, unbiased representation of something that has occurred.

Moore admits that he has a bias and an agenda in what he does. Does this not create a conflict with the intended purpose of a "documentary"?

Perdita is looking at art and craft of the movie making. Moore is very good at both. There are some that will go to the movie simply thinking that since it's supposed to be a documentary, they are seeing the complete truth. Moore simply doesn't work that way. His works aren't complete truth, they are spun with an agenda. He admits it, yet still claims it's a documentary.

Shereads: I tried to send a response PM back to you, but your box was full. I'll try again tomorrow.

Every documentary film has a point-of-view; that doesn't make it untrue.

Roger & Me showed the closure of the Flint plants from the autoworkers' point of view. Columbine was a look at violence in America. Farenheit 911 is a painstakingly assembled presentation of evidence that has been there for anybody to see, if they bothered to look, to arrive at a conclusion that seems pretty obvious: that Bush/Cheney wanted a war in Iraq, that they used 9/11 to drum up public support, that they successfully diverted attention away from the Saudis, that they had reason to know that Chalabi could not be trusted as an information source but they used him anyway, that they tried to stop the formation of the 911 investigating committee, that they fired people with opposing views instead of listening to them, that they allowed the "outing" of Joseph Wilson's wife when he went to the press with the truth...All of this is documented. For someone to go to the trouble to assemble it in a format that people will watch and understand makes it propoganda?

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Every documentary film has a point-of-view; that doesn't make it untrue.

Roger & Me showed the closure of the Flint plants from the autoworkers' point of view. Columbine was a look at violence in America. Farenheit 911 is a painstakingly assembled presentation of evidence that has been there for anybody to see, if they bothered to look, to arrive at a conclusion that seems pretty obvious: that Bush/Cheney wanted a war in Iraq, that they used 9/11 to drum up public support, that they successfully diverted attention away from the Saudis, that they had reason to know that Chalabi could not be trusted as an information source but they used him anyway, that they tried to stop the formation of the 911 investigating committee, that they fired people with opposing views instead of listening to them, that they allowed the "outing" of Joseph Wilson's wife when he went to the press with the truth...All of this is documented. For someone to go to the trouble to assemble it in a format that people will watch and understand makes it propoganda?

He admitted it is assembled with the intention of hurting the Bush administration. If you present facts with an agenda to do harm to someone, you are presenting propaganda. It's no different than Nazi hate propaganda against Jews or Klan hate propaganda against blacks, or Fundamenatalist hate against gays.

The fact that it is dressed up better does not make it any less hateful. The fact that it is presented with intent to harm makes it propaganda in every sense of the word.

-Colly

 

[shereads]

He admitted it is assembled with the intention of hurting the Bush administration. If you present facts with an agenda to do harm to someone, you are presenting propaganda. It's no different than Nazi hate propaganda against Jews or Klan hate propaganda against blacks, or Fundamenatalist hate against gays.

The fact that it is dressed up better does not make it any less hateful. The fact that it is presented with intent to harm makes it propaganda in every sense of the word.

-Colly

If a black filmmaker assembled a documentary with the intention of hurting the Ku Klux Klan, is that also hate propoganda?

What if a Jewish filmmaker had produced a documentary with the intention of hurting Hitler? Would that be hate propoganda?

By your logic, anyone who presents an unflattering picture of another, even if it is true and if the motive is to prevent the person from doing additional harm, then it qualifies as hate propoganda.

Edited to add: You say that Moore "admitted" that his motive is to hurt the Bush administration, as if he had something to be ashamed of. I think, as Moore does, that the press has been timid about covering Bush/Cheney since 9/11, and that it's about time somebody showed the carefully hidden dark side. To compare George W. Bush to the innocent victims of hate propoganda is to imply that he is innocent. You and I pay the substantial salaries of the staffers whose job is to make sure we never see this president in an unflattering light. Would you prefer that we not see the other side?

 

[Colleen Thomas]

If a black filmmaker assembled a documentary with the intention of hurting the Ku Klux Klan, is that also hate propoganda?

What if a Jewish filmmaker had produced a documentary with the intention of hurting Hitler? Would that be hate propoganda?

By your logic, anyone who presents an unflattering picture of another, even if it is true and if the motive is to prevent the person from doing additional harm, then it qualifies as hate propoganda.

If the intent is to harm, then yes, it is. If the intent is to harm and the evidence is doctored then it ceases to be documentary and becomes pure propaganda.

In the case of the Klan however, a competant filmaker could do a documentary without altering evidence, or changing things via splicing. In that case, if he sticks totally to fact and presents only the facts it can be called documentary.

Documentaries are held to a pretty strong set of criterion, criteria that Moore ignores. One reason Moore chooses to call his inventions documentary is because you can hide behind that tag to present information with an agenda and not be labled a propagandist. As long as people don't call you on your doctoring, you can be a hate pedler and call yourself something else.

Documentarians, in general, present facts to bring about a conclusion they desire. That's accepted. But if the admited intent is to hurt someone, it's propaganda. If you alter things to get your point across more forcefully, it ceases to be documentary. It becomes pure propaganda then. Hate packaged as fact.

If your intent is to harm, then you are making a propaganda film. If your intent is to inform, then you are making a dcoumentary. In the case of your example a black filmaker could make a film about the Klan only with the intent to inform. Te information is damning enough without doctoring or intent to harm. Similarly, a documentary on Hitler needs no intent to harm, the facts are damning enoungh without it.

-Colly

 

[Clare Quilty]

I have studied Nazi propaganda...

My monocle fell out from shock upon reading this. I would have never guessed this in a million years

 

[minsue]

My monocle fell out from shock upon reading this. I would have never guessed this in a million years

Congratulations, Clare. You have just joined the exlusive club of my ignore list. I think this is the first time that I have ever had 2 people on there at the same time.

You should be so very proud.

 

[Pure]

Colly said, Moore is scathing. Not factually correct, but scathing.



Pure: Perhaps you could furnish us unwashed with a short list, of 5-6 'factual errors' of the film.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Colly: Perhaps I could. Perhaps you could do just as well with a google search for Michale Moore?

I thought you were making a claim about Farenheit 9-11. I see you later post about Columbine.

You present no evidence for your claim. _Google and find the evidence for what I say_ is pretty slippery and sabotages debate.

Later you say,

Documentarians, in general, present facts to bring about a conclusion they desire. That's accepted. But if the admited intent is to hurt someone, it's propaganda. If you alter things to get your point across more forcefully, it ceases to be documentary. It becomes pure propaganda then. Hate packaged as fact.

Again, do you mean to apply this to 9-11? There are lots of 'ifs', but it seems you still suggest Moore "alter[ed] things" [=facts].

Moore undoubtedly selected his footage. Something like, if I were to compile a film of silly remarks of Bush; but if they were made, my film is factual.

Are you claiming the Farenheit film contains other than facts? What 'things' have been altered.?

----

PS, I have 'googled' about Moore and facts and errors, and I find only a collection of right wing blogs and bulletin boards etc. claiming factual errors, and occasionally complaining of the editing of 'Columbine'.

I take it 'factual errrors' is simply a slogan and item of faith among right- wing persons.

Again, not sure why I should spend time attempting to determine if others have posted evidence to back up *your claims here.

 

[Pure]

Just to get some 'facts' on the table, from hardly a left-wing source:

http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/ThisWeek/Entertainment/michael_moore040620-1.html


Heat Is On

Filmmaker Michael Moore Takes on Factual Challenges to Fahrenheit 9/11



June 20, 2004 — Michael Moore's controversial new movie, Fahrenheit 9/11, opens on screens across the United States on Friday. It's sure to enrage Bush lovers and rally Bush haters. But can it convince any of the unconvinced? This Week anchor George Stephanopoulos visited with Moore in his hometown of Flint, Mich. to talk about it. Moore began the interview, excerpted below, by establishing his motivation for making the film.



STEPHANOPOULOS: Random House defines "propaganda" as information, rumors, et cetera, deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, et cetera. By that definition, Fahrenheit 911 is propaganda, isn't it?

MOORE: Well, it's an op-ed piece. It's my opinion about the last four years of the Bush administration. And that's what I call it. I'm not trying to pretend that this is some sort of, you know, fair and balanced work of journalism, even though those who use the words "fair and balanced" often aren't that, but—

STEPHANOPOULOS: And your goal is to defeat President Bush.

MOORE: I would like to see Mr. Bush removed from the White House.

{Saudis Fly Away

Critics of the movie charge that Moore's filmmaking style is deliberately misleading. Stephanopoulos raised two separate issues about the film's accuracy — the first regarding Moore's assertions about the movement of the bin Laden family in the week following 9/11. }

STEPHANOPOULOS: Take the issue of the Saudi planes. You make a big issue, a big chunk in the film about this issue where a few days after Sept. 11, many members of the Osama bin Laden family, Saudi nationals, were taken out of the country. It was helped, arranged by the White House. You suggest it was done when the airspace was closed. You suggest that these people were not screened. And you also [suggest] there's a whole sinister subtext there that this was because of the Bush family ties to the bin Laden family. But the 9/11 commission report found that they didn't fly until the airspace was open, that they were screened by the FBI. In fact—

MOORE: That's not true. That's not true. And in fact … there's an FBI agent who was on the al Qaeda task force who's in my movie, who says quite bluntly, "No, proper police procedures were not followed."

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, wait. But what wasn't true? Because it says here in the 9/11 commission report that these flights didn't take off until after the airspace reopened. That is true, correct?

MOORE: No, they were on charter flights. Once the airspace opened for commercial flights, they hadn't opened for the charter flights. And so the charter flights that picked up the bin Ladens around the country, that went to the various cities — this was all assisted by the White House, which really should be the real focus of this.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, but Richard Clarke, who's probably at the top of the White House enemy list, says that it was his decision, he takes responsibility for it. He doesn't think it was a mistake.

MOORE: Right. And he said that he's made mistakes, and he apologized to the 9/11 families for those mistakes.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But that wasn't one of the mistakes.

MOORE: Well, I happen to think it was a mistake. And the FBI did not do the proper interrogation, as our FBI agent says in the movie.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You said you have one retired FBI agent in the movie, Jack Cloonan, I think his name is. But here's the 9/11 commission report. It says, "The FBI has concluded that nobody was allowed to depart on these six flights that the FBI wanted to interview in connection with the 9/11 attacks, or who the FBI later concluded had any involvement in those attacks. To date, we have uncovered no evidence to contradict those conclusions." Do you have any reason to doubt the credibility of the 9/11 commission?

MOORE: Well, first of all, that's their preliminary report. This is not the final report.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, but then you make a pretty outrageous leap, though. You … suggest that Bush has somehow gone easy on bin Laden because of these connections between the bin Laden family—

MOORE: I don't blame him for that. I don't blame him for that. Hey, if you gave me $1.4 billion, I'd take your call too. Easy on Bin Ladens?

STEPHANOPOULOS: Do you believe that Bush has gone easy on bin Laden because … of ties between the Bush family and the bin Laden family?

MOORE: I believe he's gone easy on the Saudi royals and the bin Ladens? Absolutely. They turned their head the other way. First of all, all the way leading up to 9/11, they didn't even want to think that there was anything wrong with Saudi Arabia.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But you're also making leaps, and by doing that, aren't you doing exactly what you accuse your opponents of doing? A lot of people have said the Bush administration looked at the raw data, looked at the raw intelligence about weapons of mass destruction, but then cherry-picked it, selectively edited it, exaggerated parts, extrapolated parts. Aren't you doing exactly the same thing?

MOORE: No, I'm presenting the truth. One hundred forty-two Saudi royals were assisted in leaving the country in the days after 9/11. They went to the front of the line. And as soon as the airspace opened to leave the country, they were the first to get out.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But they were screened by the FBI.

MOORE: What do you mean? No, they weren't. According to the 9/11 report, only 30 of the 142 were screened. The others had no interview. It is not outrageous to think that there's something suspicious about the fact that all of a sudden, all of these people wanted to get out of the country on a one-way ticket and not come back.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But do you accept the conclusion of the 9/11 commission now that all 142 of these people have been checked against the FBI watch list and there were no matches?

MOORE: That's not their conclusion. This is the preliminary report, and that's why they've put it up on the Web site. And I am making my comment on their preliminary report.
------
Congressman Flap

Stephanopoulos also asked Moore about a scene involving Rep. Mark Kennedy, R-Minn.

====
STEPHANOPOULOS: You have a scene when you're up on Capitol Hill encountering members of Congress, asking them if they would ask their sons and daughters to enlist … in the military. And one of those members of Congress who appears in the trailer, Mark Kennedy, said you left out what he told you, which is that he has two nephews serving in the military, one in Afghanistan. And he went on to say that, "Michael Moore doesn't always give the whole truth. He's a master of the misleading."

MOORE: Well, at the time, when we interviewed him, he didn't have any family members in Afghanistan. And when he saw the trailer for this movie, he issued a report to the press saying that he said that he had a kid in—

STEPHANOPOULOS: He said he told you he had two nephews.

MOORE: … No, he didn't. And we released the transcript and we put it on our Web site. This is what I mean by our war room. Any time a guy like this comes along and says, "I told him I had two nephews and one was going to Iraq and one was going to Afghanistan," he's lying. And I've got the raw footage and the transcript to prove it. So any time these Republicans come at me like this, this is exactly what they're going to get. And people can go to my Web site and read the transcript and read the truth. What he just said there, what you just quoted, is not true.

This Week followed up with the office of Rep. Kennedy. He did have two nephews in the military, but neither served in Iraq. Kennedy's staff agrees that Moore's Website is accurate but insists the movie version is misleading. In the film, Moore says, "Congressman, I'm trying to get members of Congress to get their kids to enlist in the Army and go over to Iraq."

But, from the transcript, here's the rest:MOORE: Is there any way you could help me with that?KENNEDY: How would I help you?MOORE: Pass it out to other members of Congress.KENNEDY: I'd be happy to — especially those who voted for the war. I have a nephew on his way to Afghanistan.

[end excerpts]{{my bold: pure}}

 

[Clare Quilty]

Congratulations, Clare. You have just joined the exlusive club of my ignore list. I think this is the first time that I have ever had 2 people on there at the same time.

You should be so very proud.

Perhaps I would be if I had any clue as to who you are. Unfortunately, this is the first of your posts that I've seen--First and last.

Edited: Ah, now I see why you suddenly popped up out of nowhere. I said something vaguely unflattering of your fascist poetical muse. Faux lesbian internet love, how sweet.

 

[Pure]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/20/movies/20SHEN.html?pagewanted=1

{{Note: the link will not work, if you are not registered, which can be done for free}}

Will Michael Moore's Facts Check Out?

By PHILIP SHENON

Published: June 20, 2004

HOLLYWOOD, Calif.

MICHAEL MOORE is not coy about his hopes for "Fahrenheit 9/11," his blistering documentary attack on President Bush and the war in Iraq. He wants it to be remembered as the first big-audience, election-year film that helped unseat a president.

"And it's not just a hope," the Oscar-winning filmmaker said in a phone interview last week, describing focus groups in Michigan in April at which, after seeing the movie, previously undecided voters expressed eagerness to defeat Mr. Bush. "We found that if you entered the theater on the fence, you fell off it somewhere during those two hours," he said. "It ignites a fire in people who had given up."

The movie's indictment of the president is nothing if not sprawling. Mr. Moore suggests that Mr. Bush and his administration jeopardized national security in an effort to placate Bush family cronies in Saudi Arabia, that the White House helped members of Mr. bin Laden's family to flee the United States after Sept. 11 and that the administration manipulated terrorism alert levels in order to scare Americans into supporting the invasion of Iraq.

Mr. Moore's previous films generated a cottage industry of conservative commentators eager to prove sloppiness and exaggeration in his films; a handful of mainstream critics have also found flaws. But if "Fahrenheit 9/11" attracts the audience Mr. Moore and his distributors are predicting, Mr. Moore may face an onslaught of fact-checking unlike anything he — or any other documentary filmmaker — has ever experienced. After all, White House officials and the Bush family began impugning the film even before any of them had seen it.

"Outrageously false," said Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director, last month when told about the film's assertion of a sinister connection between Mr. Bush and the family of Osama bin Laden. The former president George H. W. Bush was quoted in The New York Daily News calling Mr. Moore a "slime ball" and describing the documentary as "a vicious personal attack on our son."

So how will Mr. Moore's movie stand up under close examination? Is the film's depiction of Mr. Bush as a lazy and duplicitous leader, blinded by his family's financial ties to Arab moneymen and the Saudi Arabian royal family, true to fact?

Mr. Moore and his distributors have refused to circulate copies of the film and its script before the film's release this Friday; his production team said that as of last Wednesday, there was no final script because the film was still undergoing minor editing — for clarity, they said, not accuracy.

After a year spent covering the federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, I was recently allowed to attend a Hollywood screening. Based on that single viewing, and after separating out what is clearly presented as Mr. Moore's opinion from what is stated as fact, it seems safe to say that central assertions of fact in "Fahrenheit 9/11" are supported by the public record (indeed, many of them will be familiar to those who have closely followed Mr. Bush's political career).

Mr. Moore is on firm ground in arguing that the Bushes, like many prominent Texas families with oil interests, have profited handsomely from their relationships with prominent Saudis, including members of the royal family and of the large and fabulously wealthy bin Laden clan, which has insisted it long ago disowned Osama. Mr. Moore spends several minutes in the film documenting ties between the president and James R. Bath, a financial advisor to a prominent member of the bin Laden family who was an original investor in Mr. Bush's Arbusto energy company and who served with the future president in the Air National Guard in the early 1970's. The Bath friendship, which indirectly links Mr. Bush to the family of the world's most notorious terrorist, has received less attention from national news organization than it has from reporters in Texas, but it has been well documented.

Mr. Moore charges that President Bush and his aides paid too little attention to warnings in the summer of 2001 that Al Qaeda was about to attack, including a detailed Aug. 6, 2001, C.I.A. briefing that warned of terrorism within the country's borders. In its final report next month, the Sept. 11 commission can be expected to offer support to this assertion. Mr. Moore says that instead of focusing on Al Qaeda, the president spent 42 percent of his first eight months in office on vacation; the figure came not from a conspiracy-hungry Web site but from a calculation by The Washington Post.

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The most valid criticisms of the film are likely to involve the artful way that Mr. Moore connects the facts, and whether he has left out others that might undermine his scalding attack. A great many statistics fly by in the movie — such as assertions that 6 percent to 7 percent of the United States is owned by Saudi Arabians, and that Saudi companies have paid more than $1.4 billion to Bush family interests. But Mr. Moore doesn't explain how he arrived at them, or what these vague interests comprise. Mr. Moore and his team say they have news reports and other evidence to back up the numbers and that it will be posted on his Web site (www.michaelmoore.com) after the film's release.

Mr. Moore may also be criticized for the way he portrays the evacuation of the extended bin Laden family from the United States after Sept. 11. As the Sept. 11 commission has found, the Saudi government was able to pull strings at senior levels of the Bush administration to help the bin Ladens leave the United States.

But while the film clearly suggests that the flights occurred at a time when all air traffic was grounded immediately after the attacks ("Even Ricky Martin couldn't fly," Mr. Moore says over video of the singer wandering in an airport lobby), the Sept. 11 commission said in a report this April that there was "no credible evidence that any chartered flights of Saudi Arabian nationals departed the United States before the reopening of national airspace" and that the F.B.I. had concluded that no one aboard the flights was involved in Sept. 11.

In conversation, Mr. Moore defended the scene, saying his goal was to show how the White House was eager to bend and break the rules for Saudi friends — in this case, the extended family of the terrorist who had just brought down the twin towers and attacked the Pentagon. And as reporters have found, the White House still refuses to document fully how the flights were arranged.

"I don't want to get lost in the forest because of a single tree," Mr. Moore said. "The main point I want people to go away with is that these people got special treatment because they were bin Ladens or Saudi royals, and you and I would never have been given that treatment."Mr. Moore may also have to defend his portrayal of Mr. Bush's presidency as sinking prior to Sept. 11, citing an inability to win support for his legislation. But he fails to mention that in May, Congress agreed to Mr. Bush's $1.35 trillion tax cut, the centerpiece of his legislative agenda. Mr. Moore said that his review of news coverage before Sept. 11 shows that, with or without the tax cut, the Bush presidency was floundering before the terrorist attacks.

Mr. Moore said, "I've read what other people wrote and said at the time, and he was definitely on the ropes."

MR. MOORE usually revels in his role as the target of conservative attacks, and his delight in playing the mischievous, little-guy bomb-thrower has brought him fame, wealth and the devotion of fans more interested in rhetorical force than precision. But with "Fahrenheit" he has taken on his biggest and best-defended target yet, and his production staff says that on his orders they have taken no chances in checking and double-checking the film, knowing Bush supporters would pounce on factual mistakes.

Mr. Moore is readying for a conservative counterattack, saying he has created a political-style "war room" to offer an instant response to any assault on the film's credibility. He has retained Chris Lehane, a Democratic Party strategist known as a master of the black art of "oppo," or opposition research, used to discredit detractors. He also hired outside fact-checkers, led by a former general counsel of The New Yorker and a veteran member of that magazine's legendary fact-checking team, to vet the film. And he is threatening to go one step further, saying he has consulted with lawyers who can bring defamation suits against anyone who maligns the film or damages his reputation.

[end excerpts] {{my bold; pure}}

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I had no intention of engaeing you in a running argument over Moore's credibility. I'm not an expert on Moore, in fact I think he's an ass in the same mold as Rush Linbaugh or Ann Coulter or any of the other talking heads, but since you insist.

Dateline NBC:


Lauer: "But you didn't set out to poke a sharp stick in the eye of the Bush administration and the Bush family?"

Moore: "That's part of what I'm doing. But most importantly, listen, if I just wanted to -- if it was just about the politics, if that was my primary motivation, politics, I would, you know, suspend what I'm doing right now and get out on a campaign trail."

That is admission of intent. Intent to cause harm to someone through what he is doing.

Propaganda:
1.The systematic propagation of a doctrine or cause or of information reflecting the views and interests of those advocating such a doctrine or cause.

Further excert:

Lauer: "The Weinstein brothers of Miramax bought the film back. And now Harvey Weinstein is a Democratic organizer. He does fund-raisers for John Kerry."

Moore: "Yeah."

Lauer: "And you've hired a couple of seasoned Clinton politicos to handle publicity and marketing for the film. So at this stage on, will you concede, it is now a sharply political movie with a very definitive point of view."

Moore: "It definitely has a point of view, that's absolutely correct. But I'm not a member of the Democratic Party. If you know anything about me, anybody who's followed me, I'm the anti-Democrat. I have railed against the Democrats for a long time. They have been a weak-kneed, wimpy party that hasn't stood up to the Republicans. They let the working people down across this country. I rallied against Clinton when he was in office. I didn't vote for him in ‘96. I didn't vote for Gore in 2000. This is not a partisan issue with me, this is not me trying to –"

Lauer: "Not a personal attack on the Bush family."

Moore: "Oh yeah. It's that. If you'd asked the question that way."


A personal attack on the Bush Family.

Lets take a look at a cliam or two then within the frame work of this interview:


Yes, the attack is personal and Moore doesn't hold back, criticizing President Bush's work habits in the months leading up to September 11. Moore also questions the Bush family's relationship with the Saudis, suggesting that because of close business and personal ties, special treatment was given to members of the bin Laden family after the September 11 attacks. In his film, Moore claims that those bin Laden relatives living in the United States were allowed to leave the country without being properly interviewed by authorities.

Moore: "They were asked for their passports. They were asked a couple of questions and that's it."

Lauer: "The 9/11 Commission perhaps disputes that."

Moore: "No they don't."

Lauer: "They say 22 of 26 people on those flights were interviewed."

Moore: "They have not issued a final report on that."

Lauer: "It's not final, but let me read you what it says: ‘The Saudi flights were screened by law enforcement officials, primarily the FBI, to ensure that people on these flights did not pose a threat to national security.’ It goes on to say 22 of the 26 people on the bin Laden flight were interviewed. This information was released in April. Your final cut of the movie doesn't have that in it."

Oops.

Moore: "Well, just they way you just edited that. Why don't you read there were over 140 Saudis that were allowed to leave the country in these days after 9/11 and of the 140, only 30 were interviewed? They got special help. They were put first in line because of this relationship between the Bush family and the Saudi royal family and I wish somebody would just say that."


But the bipartisan 9/11 Commission supports the FBI's conclusion that, "Nobody was allowed to depart on these six flights who the FBI wanted to interview in connection with the 9/11 attacks, or who the FBI later concluded had any involvement in those attacks." The Commission report states that: "To date we have uncovered no evidence to contradict this conclusion."

And former counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke, one of President Bush's most outspoken critics, says authorizing the Saudi flights was the right decision, and it came from him.

Lauer: "He's quoted as saying, 'I take responsibility for it. I don't think it was a mistake and I'd do it again.' He called the furor over the flights a tempest in a teapot."

Moore: "That's his position."

Lauer: "OK, but you didn't put those comments in the movie."

Moore: "Well, he didn't say that. He wrote that in his book."

Lauer: "Well, that has been out for a couple of months."

Moore: "Look, he took the word of the FBI. He took the word of the FBI in those days after 9/11. And he thinks he didn't make a mistake is what he said."

oops again?

continuing:

Lauer: "There's a disturbing sequence in the film that shows U.S. soldiers, casualties, it has interviews with U.S. soldiers in battle. How did you get that footage?"

Moore: "From a variety of sources. I also made arrangements with freelancers who were already embedded. I made arrangements."

Lauer: "I mean, knowing how hard it was to get embedding privileges prior to the war, under what circumstances did you gain those privileges? Did you misrepresent?"

Moore: "I'm not going to say how we got in there."

Lauer: "Do you think that the soldiers thought they were talking to a film crew that was working with –"

Moore: "Some of them did and some of them didn't."

Misrepresented? Hmmmm.

The previous isn't a conservative blog. It's from a Dateline interview. His own words. Admission up front the movie is an attack on the Bush administration. Admission in his own words that it's a personal attack on the Bush Family. Admission that facts were left out. Tacit admission that interviews were conducted under false pretense. Admission that the company distributing it is half owned by a DNC member. Admission that Clinton era spin doctors are on the payroll to deflect critiscism.

It's a piece of political propaganda, purely and simply. As with most propaganda, it probably dosen't contain an outright lie, but there is probably considerable distortion of fact. Moore is rather well versed at distorting fact.

From Bowling :

We see Moore interviewing the teary-eyed principal of a Flint, Michigan, school where a six-year-old girl, Kayla Rolland, was shot to death by a six-year-old boy. Once again, we immediately hear Heston say "From my cold dead hands!" Then says Moore, again ominously:

"Just as he did after the Columbine shootings, Charlton Heston showed up in Flint to have a big pro-gun rally."

There's a considerable distortion here. Kayla Rowland was killed on February 29, 2000. Heston appeared the Bush campaign rally in Flint over half a year later, in mid October.

As Heston accurately notes in his interview with Michael Moore in reference to this event, Bush and Gore were then both in the Flint area, trying to gather votes. Actually, Moore himself had been hosting rallies for Green Party candidate Nader in Flint a few weeks before. So what's the problem? 2 presidential candidates and 2 candidate supporters gathered in an area to discuss why you should vote for who they think you should vote for.

Pure distortion of fact, not quite slander or libel, but damned close.

Of course you may argue that distortion is only part of spin. It isn't factually incorrect. Granted.

How bout a true factual misrepresentation?

Let's try Bowling again. Photo montage, picture of a B-52. Moore's voice over:

"The plaque underneath it proudly proclaims that this plane killed Vietnamese people on Christmas Eve 1972."

Um no. It dosen't.

Actual inscription on the plaque:

"B-52D Stratofortress. 'Diamond Lil.' Dedicated to the men and women of the Strategic Air Command who flew and maintained the B-52D throughout its 26-year history in the command. Aircraft 55-083, with over 15,000 flying hours, is one of two B-52Ds credited with a confirmed MIG kill during the Vietnam Conflict Flying out of U-Tapao Royal Thai Naval Airfield in southern Thailand, the crew of 'Diamond Lil' shot down a MIG northeast of Hanoi during 'Linebacker II' action on Christmas Eve, 1972."

Creative liscence? A minor misrepresentation? A complete lie? Probably deprends on your political persuasion. However, in a factual sense, it's incorrect. That isn't what the plaque says, and without noting that you are paraphraseing, it's a factual error.



I could go on for days. Googling till I was sick of it and then cross referencing what the blogs say with the facts from other sources. Some of them are bigger misrepresentations of the truth than Moore's own work, some of them are spot on. The majority fall into how you want to interpret the facts within your political ideology.

For my purpose I need only show he is playing fast & loose with the facts. His own words in the Dateline interview verify that. I'm not an expert on Moore, in all honesty if you weren't being such a hardass I wouldn't have wasted this much of my time & energy on him. Even Sher, who likes him, has no trouble admitting he doctors what he presents.

In summation. He isn't presenting the literal turth. He isn't presenting the factual truth. He has an agenda. He uses his movies to carry out that agenda. That agenda, by his own words, is to hurt someone. His work, does not qualify as documentary, since he is distorting some facts, ignoring others, misrepresenting others and just plain making up others as he goes along. It's propaganda and he is a propagandist.

The only question that remains, to my mind, is how good a propagandist he is. Is he among the all time greats, like Leni R. and Griffeth or is he just good, like Geobbles or Pierce, or is he just your run of the mill hate monger like Julies Stricher or David Duke? I'll have to wait for Dita's opinion on the artistic quality of his work. As it stands, I can tell you propaganda when I see it, but I am not a good judge of its quality.

-Colly

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Sigh, why can't people get into long debates like this about filmmakers like Kubrick?

Moore is a leftist. His movies come from his personal viewpoints of course. Just as Peter Jackson's trilogy came from his love of the books and Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket came from an anti-war position. These things are incontestable. Yes, he uses a documentary style so his clips at least are real. You can see in the way it goes where he's making a leap of judgement and where he is not and where he's proposing a theory. These demarcations are clear. Is Moore anti-bush? Hell yes, he's a leftist. Does that mean that his clips of Bush are not real? No, it doesn't mean that. Politics aside, what is the movie? A mere documentary style piece with a leftist political viewpoint. Nothing more. It's not glorious unadulterated truth with apolitical beauty, but it's not true propaganda either.

In essence, what's the political point? The right will avoid it because Moore is a leftist and may grow to hate him more and the left will watch it and merely end up hating Bush more. At the end of the day, nothing changes but people getting pissed.

Those who watch it, great. Those who don't, great. It doesn't matter how many see it or don't. It really doesn't. Now pass over the popcorn, Full Metal Jacket is in the DVD.