Posted on 07/03/2004 3:31:41 PM PDT by Pokey78
Excited about "Fahrenheit 9/11?" It's the Palme d'Or-winning and doubtless soon to be Oscar-winning "documentary" from average blue-collar multimillionaire Michael Moore. I saw it last weekend with an audience composed wholly of informed, intelligent sophisticates.
I knew they were informed, intelligent sophisticates because they howled with laughter at every joke about what a bozo Bush is. They split their sides during the patriotic ballad -- eagles soaring, etc. -- composed and sung by John Ashcroft, the famously sinister attorney general. Moore reveals -- and if you feel that knowing the plot would spoil the movie, please skip to the next paragraph -- that Bush is a privileged simpleton under the control of war-crazed Big Oil interests who arranged to have the 2000 election stolen for him. I hadn't heard that before, had you?
Once Moore gets past his recounting of the Florida recount, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I agreed with in the movie. For example, he's very hard on the Saudis, and the unique access to the Bush family enjoyed by their oleaginous ambassador in Washington, Prince Bandar. He's also very mocking of the absurdities of post-9/11 airport security, alighting on a poor mom forced to drink a beaker of her own breast milk in front of passengers before boarding in order to demonstrate the liquid wasn't anything incendiary.
As we left, the couple ahead of me said they thought Bush would have a hard job responding to these shocking revelations. I didn't like to point out they could have heard about all this stuff years ago just by reading yours truly. I mentioned the breast-milk incident in a column Aug. 10, 2002. I called for Prince Bandar to be booted back to Saudi Arabia in November 2002, and I've been urging the dismantling of the kingdom -- Washington's out-of-control Frankensaud monster -- for almost three years now, since within a month of 9/11.
So in theory I ought to welcome Michael Moore as a comrade in arms. But the trouble with "Fahrenheit 9/11" is that you don't come away mad at the Saudis or America's useless bureaucracy, you come away mad at Bush -- or, if not mad, feeling snobbishly superior to him. And, if feeling snobbishly superior to the president isn't your bag, what's left is an incoherent bore. Moore follows his GUT, by which I mean his Grand Universal Theory: Bush is to blame for everything. Because of Bush, the Saudis secretly run U.S. policy. Because of Bush, the Taliban were in bed with Texas energy executives. Because of Bush, the Taliban got toppled. . . .
Whoa, hold up a minute, I thought he was all pals with the Taliban. The Saudis certainly were, which is why they opposed the liberation of Afghanistan.
But by now Moore's moved on to pointing out that Bush's Afghan stooge Hamid Karzai used to work for the Texas energy company panting for that big Afghan gas pipeline.
But hang on, I thought the Texan energy guys already had the Taliban in their pockets and were funded by the Saudis . . . "Connecting the dots" is all very well, but not when you've got more dots in your picture than Seurat.
Bush has always been the issue for Moore. On Sept. 11 itself, his only gripe was that the terrorists had targeted New York and D.C. instead of Texas or, indeed, my beloved New Hampshire: "They did not deserve to die. If someone did this to get back at Bush, then they did so by killing thousands of people who DID NOT VOTE for him! Boston, New York, D.C. and the plane's destination of California -- these were places that voted AGAINST Bush!"
The fellows at the controls of those planes were training for 9/11 when Clinton was president and Gore was ahead in the polls, and they'd have still been in the cockpit had Ralph Nader been elected. Though Mohammed Atta took flying lessons in Florida, he apparently wasn't as worked up about its notorious hanging chads as Michael Moore. Mr. Moore is guilty of what I believe psychologists call "projection."
The "Why didn't you terrorists kill the Bush voters?" line is not reprised in the movie, but the strange preoccupations it betrays drive the entire picture. Here's the way it works: If Bush is wearing the blue boxer shorts, they're a suspicious personal gift from Crown Prince Abdullah. If Bush is wearing the red boxer shorts, it's a conspiracy to distract public attention from the blue ones he was given by Crown Prince Abdullah. If he's wearing no boxer shorts, it's because he's so dumb he can't find his underwear in the morning.
So, shortly after 9/11, Moore wrote that footage of one of the World Trade Center planes showed that it was being trailed by an F-16 -- i.e., the government could have shot it down but chose not to, so it could hit all those Al Gore voters. Imagine if, on Sept. 11, the U.S. Air Force had blown four passenger jets to kingdom come. Moore's film would be filled with poignant home movies of final Christmases and birthday parties and exploitative footage of anguished parents going to Washington to demand the truth about what happened that day and an end to the lame Bush spin about vague "threats" to public buildings.
Midway through the picture, a "peace" activist provides a perfect distillation of its argument. He recalls a conversation with an acquaintance, who observed, "bin Laden's a real ass---- for killing all those people." "Yeah," says the "pacifist", "but he'll never be as big an ass---- as Bush." That's who Michael Moore makes films for: those sophisticates who know that, no matter how many people bin Laden kills, in the ass---- hit parade he'll always come a distant second to Bush. Why, even Saddam Hussein, at his arraignment on Thursday, sounded awfully like he'd just seen "Fahrenheit 9/11" at the Loews Baghdad Roxy: "This is all theater. . . . The real criminal is Bush."
I can understand the point of being Michael Moore: There's a lot of money in it. What's harder to figure out is the point of being a devoted follower of Michael Moore. Apparently, the sophisticated, cynical intellectual class is so naive it'll fall for any old hooey peddled by a preening opportunist burlesque act. If the Saudis were smart, they'd have bought him up years ago, established his anti-Saudi credentials, and then used him to promote the defeat of their nemesis Bush.
Hmm. Maybe they don't need to. Stick him in a head-dress and he looks like King Fahd's brother.
All I'm saying is connect the dots . . .
Will the vanity be titled Veritatis Splendor? =)
In regard to my Freepmail, I was entirely describing my evaluation of the agitprop impact of the vignettes as a whole. My comments were not meant to address any of the substantive merits of the film.
In any case, if you do end up seeing f911 I hope my review won't overly disrupt your experience!
In any event, if I see it, I will call it as I see it, and let the chips fall where they may.
I remember a conversation I had with my brilliant MIT educated brother in 1993, during which he ranted about how evil Bush senior was. I couldn't understand why he would think that, and I argued heatedly with him. We've never been close since then.
Just go with him and use it as an exercise in reticence, an opportunity to observe the liberal wackos, and an excuse to eat popcorn.
No the beauty of it all, is that my brother and I like to argue, him more than me, believe it or not, and don't take any of it personally. I wish that more close relatives had that mind set. At the end of the day, we drink a beer, and talk about sex, or travel, or whatever.
bttt
Well, I will certainly be interested to read your review so ping me along if ever you post something!
I like to thimk of myself as a Southern Baptist who by supporting Barry Goldwater and every conservative candidate available managed to rescue the Republican Party from the RINOs who ruled it. Along the way we also managed to rescue the South from the Democrats who had ruled it completely for over a century.
We also helped elect Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and the current President Bush. If that makes us "suspect" then I am proud of being just that. By the way, you might want to look in the mirror. There may be a religious bigot staring back at you.
I don't think you understand my point of view very well. I don't think Southern Baptists or other religious fundamentalists living on our shores, are a threat to this nation, at all - nada - the null set, indeed if anything I think they are a net benefit, although I am a near atheist agnostic. That was is one of my points of disagreement with my brother. I think on that score he is too paranoid.
Oh sheesh, we have two so called conservatives, who want to be "fair" to michael moore.
A clue to you two, it isn't worth wasting your money. Your two's compulsion to see such trash makes P.T. Barnum's quote ever more true, "There is a sucker born everyday".
My MO is to try to be "fair" to everybody. It is what I think gives me some credibility, and I will keep doing it, until and such time as I die, or am disabled, or banned, or lose interest in the public square.
I think they are a net benefit, although I am a near atheist agnostic. That was is one of my points of disagreement with my brother. I think on that score he is too paranoid.
You think so?
That is the best I can do - is think. Do you have something better to do on this forum?
It might be far more informative if you consulted this:
Has michael moore ever been "fair" to those on the conservative side of politics even before his fartinghigh 9/11. The answer is no and you already know that.
Hey I can't help it that you want to go see his trash, and have a minute thrill about posting your, IMO, elitist thoughts on FR, all in the name of charade of being "fair", and boasting about your charade to your circles outside of FR and getting an "attaboy" over seeing of what you already honestly know is a piece of trash.
If I go to the movie, I will print out the screed, and give it to my brother as well as avail of it myself.
Are you suggesting I don't post my honest opinions on this forum?
Why not go? Then you can laugh out loud at the stupic assertions made in the movie, and boo when the movie makes snide comments about President Bush!
I didn't say anything about being "fair" to anyone. LOL! My MO is more of the Machiavelli stab-in-the-back while reading 'em a Sun Tzu parable style of engagement. =)
I like to keep myself hyperaware of what's shaping the public debate, however, and at the moment that definitely includes Fahrenheit 9/11.
Golden Retriever. Gentle, smart, loyal and fun loving. Great with kids.
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