Posted on 05/22/2004 3:49:48 PM PDT by areafiftyone
CANNES, France (Reuters) - After winning the top prize at Cannes for his anti-Bush documentary, American filmmaker Michael Moore said he hoped the President had not been eating a pretzel when he heard the news.
Moore admitted to one regret after accepting the Palme d'Or on Saturday -- he forgot to thank George W. Bush for providing the funniest lines in "Fahrenheit 9/11", a blistering attack on Bush's handling of Iraq and the war on terror.
Moore hopes to release the film this summer and spark heated political debate with his searing diatribe in the run-up to November's presidential election.
Asked what he thought Bush's reaction might be to the award, he told a packed news conference: "He is probably choking on a pretzel or something. I hope nobody tells him that I have won this award while he is eating a pretzel."
Bush fainted in 2002 after choking on a pretzel while watching a football game on television.
"He has the funniest lines in the film. I am eternally grateful to him," Moore said.
The Oscar-winning director mocked leading members of the Bush administration, saying: "I believe them to be actors.
"I forgot out there on the stage to thank my cast. So if I could do that now, I want to thank Mr Bush, Mr Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld. I thought the love scene between Cheney and Rumsfeld brought a tear to my eye."
Moore predicted that some right-wing media in the United States would portray the award as being given by France, one of the staunchest opponents of America's war in Iraq.
"The jury was not a French jury. This was an international jury dominated by Americans," he said.
Angered by the way Americans had reacted against the French over its resistance to the conflict in Iraq, he said: "We owe the people of this country an apology for the way they were debased in our media."
Moore, who won an Oscar for his anti-gun lobby film "Bowling for Columbine", was fiercely proud that a documentary had now won the Palme d'Or, one of cinema's greatest accolades.
"Non-fiction is taking itself out of its own ghetto," he said.
And then he proudly quoted what cult director Quentin Tarantino -- the Cannes jury president -- had told him.
"He said: 'We want you to know that the politics of your film had nothing to do with the award. You were given the award because you made a great film.'"
Not with this POC.
Mike...you're really not supposed to eat lard out of the carton.
Moore better watch out for Big Macs.
GAWD, I wish this pig would get a heart attack and die...NOW!!!
Moore should s*it in his baseball cap and pull it over his ears.
One thing at a time. First, don't eat the carton.
The overrated lies to the overweighted.
He's that impressive.
ROFL!!
Megalomania is a sad thing.
I read a review of the film which basically said it was lousy, and not from the sense of being anti-Bush but just a plain crappily made film.
Obviously, Jabba, your country's across the channel from England....
Okay, eating is not a subject that Michael Moore should get into. There are children starving in Africa because Moore has returned to the buffet one too many times.
NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams just gave this film a free commercial-they devoted more time to showing clips of Moore's film, than they did to anything positive about the economy, etc.
What Brian Williams wanted to get out, was Moore showing clips of the President fishing and playing golf and Moore saying that in the period before 9/11, " Bush was on vacation 42 % of the time."
At some point, the FEC should force the national news shows to give the President equal time, even the most partisan observer must acknowledge that the nightly news shows have become nothing more than anti Bush propaganda pieces.
Michael Moore should be extra careful while crossing streets.
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