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'9/11' OMITS A FEW FINER POINTS, By Mark Memmott, USA TODAY, (June 26, 2004?)

Fahrenheit 9/11 is not intended to be objective; director Michael Moore concedes that point. But he also has said he is "presenting the truth." A look at some of the movie's controversial points:

1. President Bush's reaction to news of the Sept. 11 attacks

Moore uses video of the president as Bush learned that a second jet had hit the World Trade Center the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. The president was in a classroom in Sarasota, Fla., listening to second-graders read.

Bush sat in the classroom for seven minutes after learning of the news from his chief of staff, Andrew Card. Moore superimposes a timer on the screen to document the passage of time, then asks what was going through the president's mind. Was he, Moore wonders, regretting spending 42% of his first eight months in office on "vacation?"

Moore bases his quip on an Aug. 6, 2001, story in the Washington Post that said by the end of that month Bush would have spent 42% of his first seven months in office "at vacation spots or en route." The calculation included weekends spent at the presidential retreat in Camp David, Md., and a month-long "working vacation" at the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas. Moore doesn't say that the "vacation" days included weekends or that Bush worked part of most of those days. He met, for example, with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The other message Moore sends is that Bush was frozen, unable to do anything until he was told what to do by his aides. The independent 9/11 commission reported that Bush told its members he felt it was important to remain calm when not much was known about the attacks. Andrew Card told ABC's Good Morning America this week that Bush showed "a moment of shock, and he did stare off maybe for just a second."

2. The decision to let some Saudis leave the USA shortly after 9/11 and alleged connections among the Bush family, Saudi royalty and Osama bin Laden's family

Moore questions why the Bush administration allowed 142 Saudis, including members of bin Laden's family, to fly out of the USA Sept. 14 through Sept. 24, 2001. He suggests that business ties between oil-rich Saudi Arabia and the Bush family might have resulted in special treatment for some Saudi citizens — even though 15 of the 19 terrorists who hijacked planes on 9/11 were Saudis.

The implication: Saudis who might have had information about the attacks — or even been involved — slipped through the president's fingers.

But the movie does not point out that the FBI interviewed about 30 of the Saudis before they left the USA and that investigators say no one on board the planes has turned out to be of interest. The independent 9/11 commission has reported that "each of the flights we have studied was investigated by the FBI and dealt with in a professional manner prior to its departure."

3. An alleged connection between Bush and the Taliban that ruled Afghanistan

In December 1997, a delegation of top Taliban officials visited the USA at the invitation of officials from Unocal, a California-based oil and gas company with extensive business dealings in Texas. At the time, Unocal was pursuing a deal to construct a gas pipeline through Afghanistan. Moore notes that the delegation visited Texas while Bush was governor. He doesn't say the delegation met with Bush, but that is implied.

In fact, Bush did not meet with the Taliban representatives. What Moore also doesn't say is that Clinton administration officials at the State Department did sit down with the Taliban officials and that their visit was made with the Clinton administration's permission.

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This comes from a Freeper posting, the source of some of the best “F911” reviews:

Speaking of Europeans' love for Moore, Christopher Hitchens said last week: "They think Americans are fat, vulgar, greedy, stupid, ambitious and ignorant and so on. And they've taken as their own, as their representative American, someone who actually embodies all of those qualities."

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I don’t have the source for this observation either:

Try as he might, Moore will not get his R-rated film before the mass of American moviegoers. Instead, it will play heavily in liberal areas - places that are already likely to go strongly for Kerry. Bush voters will be few and far between.

Here's the rub: The more left-leaning the locale, the more likely that third-party candidate Ralph Nader will be a force there, too.

Indeed, as public opinion has turned against the war, support for Kerry has increased, but so has support for Nader. The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll shows Kerry besting Bush by four points. But Nader, who strongly opposed the war all along and proposes an immediate American pullout, is gaining, too. In recent months he has surged from asterisk levels to 6 percent. Almost all of those votes come out of Kerry's hide.

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This is my home grown advice – based on my experience in watching the film on Sunday:

Use some political jujitsu on the antiwar film goers: When the clapping starts as the film ends, yell "GO NADER!"