In Reply to: Moore Politics posted by Happy American on June 28, 2004 at 18:20:21:
Mike Littwin
Moore's movie a prequel to election revolution
June 29, 2004
Michael Moore is serious this time. His Web site - michaelmoore.com - is devoted to debunking the debunkers, to forechecking the fact-checkers. Laugh if you want - and you will, if you're of a certain political bent - but do so at your own risk.
Fahrenheit 9/11, the runaway hit, is not just a movie to Moore or, for that matter, to the people packing the theaters.
It's a cause.
You've heard that the movie is propaganda. It is, and I mean that in the best way.
You may have heard it's unfair. And, in parts, it is, and Moore means that in the worst way.
You may have heard that its message is, shall we say, maddeningly inconsistent. Take your pick: George W. Bush went to war in order to cover up embarrassing family ties to the Saudis. Or was it to make money for the Carlyle Group? I kept waiting to hear something, anything, on the Trilateral Commission.
You may have heard all this and then wondered why Fahrenheit 9/11 is already a cultural phenomenon.
See the movie.
It's not a Kerry campaign film, as some have charged. In Moore's view, it's a prequel: the revolution follows.
What Moore wants to do is to convince you the president of the United States is a dangerous, overmatched, mendacious fraud. And to take that image with you to the voting booth.
If Moore has to run the clip of Bush on the golf course talking of a terror incident to reporters and then saying, with a smile, to watch his swing - it's funny each time I see it - that's what he'll do.
If he has to overstate the case - Moore shows a montage of carefree Iraqis just before the war, as if the Iraqi dictator were played by Chevy Chase and everyone was headed for Saddam World before the bombs fell -- he'll do that, too.
And if this movie scares some in the Bush administration, it's because they know what works. Ask Dick Cheney, who, when he isn't dropping F-bombs - this just in: Betsy Hoffman said it sounded to her like a term of endearment - is still trying to sell that Saddam-al Qaida connection. (You're already watching the sales job on the Iraqi handover. The Iraqis apparently want U.S. troops to stay. I mean, who else would they give the candy and flowers to?)
I went to the Saturday matinee. There were only three empty seats in the house. And all three remaining shows that day were sold out.
There was a buzz from the crowd, not to mention more than a few hisses -- you have to see Paul Wolfowitz in the infamous spittle scene -- throughout the movie. But the sound you took with you was the excited applause at the end.
No wonder leading Democrats, who once couldn't stay far enough away from Moore, are now standing in line with the people, well, standing in line for Moore.
Moore is funny. He's got a great eye for the absurd yet telling detail. But he's also a sloppy thinker who consistently steps on his own story. (Tip to Moore: Going to war and enriching Halliburton is not the same thing as going to war in order to enrich Halliburton.)
What came clear to me halfway through the movie is that what bothers me about Moore is exactly what others find so appealing. It's his willingness to take the evidence to its conspiratorial conclusion.
You may have noticed this trend in the political discourse. Bill Clinton can't simply be wrong on health care; he must have killed Vince Foster. George Bush can't simply be wrong on the war; he has to get the bin Ladens out of the country before they can tell the truth about the Bushes. John Ashcroft is not just a threat to the First Amendment; he's also a lousy singer. OK, he is a lousy singer.
But Moore does something else, too. He makes uncomfortable connections - fact-checked connections - that challenge the story as you may have heard it.
Moore follows the money, and you can't like where it leads. He follows Marine recruiters at work and leads you to ask who fights our wars.
He follows Lila Lipscomb, a self-described conservative Democrat who flies the flag every day and who turned against the war when her son was killed in Iraq. Her grief makes us uncomfortable. You wish at times Moore would turn the camera away. But it's war, and we should be uneasy with loss.
Moore shows footage that makes you wonder why you haven't seen it before, or, at minimum, why you haven't seen it more often. He shows Bush on 9-11 at the Florida elementary school where he was reading My Pet Goat. Moore puts the clock on him, for the seven minutes he stays in the classroom after learning of the attack.
Moore can't resist a cheap shot. In a voice-over, he asks whether Bush is wondering if he had taken too much vacation. But there was real truth in that footage: Clearly, Bush is overcome by the burden of a job that, to that point, must not have seemed to him so burdensome.
You could almost feel sorry for Bush, as Moore presented him. But only if you failed to recall how Bush has used, say, flight-suited imagery to suit his version of the story. Or if you remember - as New York Times columnist Frank Rich recently reminded those of us who missed it - how in D.C. 9/11 , a TV movie, Bush is seen saying, "If some tinhorn terrorist wants me, tell him to come on over and get me - I'll be home!"
I don't know if any terrorists tuned in. But, if someone dangerous is knocking on the White House door, it's probably a guy wearing a baseball cap and armed with a camera.