War, Lies, and Videotape: A Viewer's Guide to Fahrenheit 9/11

War, Lies, and Videotape: A Viewer's Guide to Fahrenheit 9/11 by the Ethics & Public Policy Center.

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Michael Moore: "The New Ralph Nader"

[Michael Moore] may be a big hero to Hollywood, but the legacy of his films has been to discredit the causes he champions. Just ask John Kerry.

Fahrenheit 9/11 was timed to coincide with the 2004 presidential election for the sake of maximum interest and box office -- but its publicity and controversy was a distraction to the Democrats at the moment they were trying to get their message out. Taking a stance against the Iraq war became more difficult, not less, after the movie was released, forcing Democrats to distinguish their criticisms from those of the silver screen conspiracy theorists.

Who can forget how Gen. Wesley Clark's Democratic primary campaign had to spend several days extricating their candidate from the bear hug of the radical filmmaker? In the general election, John Kerry was likewise forced to walk the Fahrenheit tightrope -- distancing himself from Moore without alienating the party's liberal anti-war base that was turning out in droves and filling movie theatres with applause.

"The New Ralph Nader", by Collin Levey. TechCentralStation.com. January 13, 2005.

"Michael Moore Hates America" Now on DVD!

Michael Moore Hates America has just been released.

View the trailer.

reviews via RottenTomatoes.com.

Michael Graham to Michael Moore: Show some Christmas spirit!

Michael Graham's letter to Michael Moore.

December 7, 2004

Dear Mr. Moore,

No doubt about it: The American soldier has done a lot for Michael Moore.

Hundreds of thousands of them are serving right now in Afghanistan and Iraq--two wars you opposed--defending you from a terrorist threat you claim does not exist. As you frequently point out, more than 1,000 of these soldiers and Marines have died, and thousands more of them have been injured.

These soldiers have also made you quite a bit of money. The most powerful scenes in your film Fahrenheit 9/11 feature soldiers and their families, specifically those servicemen who were wounded or killed in battle. Your new book, Will They Ever Trust Us Again -- a collection of letters you've received from members of the military who served in Iraq -- will likely gross hundreds of thousands of dollars for you and your publisher.

As I said, America's soldiers have been very good to you. Most of them don't like you, but they're prepared to die attempting to protect you from terrorism so that you can continue to crank out your profitable propaganda.

They’ve done all this for you. I’m writing to give you the opportunity to do something for them.

My radio station, 630 WMAL, is leading a fundraising effort on behalf of the Fisher Houses here in the Washington, DC area and the Fisher House Foundation. Given your obsession with the costs of the War on Terror, you are no doubt familiar with the magnificent work done by the Fisher House on behalf of wounded soldiers and their families.

These families are struggling with the emotional consequences of a battlefield injury and its treatment. Fisher House helps solve some of the short-term financial and logistical challenges for the wives, children and parents who have wounded loved ones receiving treatment at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Bethesda Naval Hospital or Malcolm Grow Medical at Andrews Air Force base.

The message of your books and films is that the American soldier is a victim. The soldiers I’ve spoken with at Fisher House vehemently disagree with you, as do the majority of my active-duty military listeners. However, we all agree that the soldiers who have been the victims of Iraqi terrorist violence (I think you call them "the true patriots, the Minute Men") deserve our support.

Therefore, I am writing to challenge you to give back just a small portion of the money you have earned as a critic of their mission. Your film Fahrenheit 9/11 has grossed around $150 million. Our entire goal for the Fisher House this holiday season is a tiny percentage of that amount.

Though I am a confirmed right-winger, I believe there should be no partisan divide when it comes to standing by our troops. My fellow WMAL employees and I are dedicating our time, efforts and money to that proposition. The question, Mr. Moore, is whether or not you will do the same.

Many Americans feel that you have exploited the injuries of our soldiers for partisan purposes but have no real concern for them or their families. On behalf of the Fisher House, I would be thrilled to receive your generous donation as evidence that we are wrong.

If you feel, however, that the money can be better spent on yet another trip to France, nobody will be surprised.

You can send your check made out to the Fisher House Foundation, care of 630 WMAL, 4400 Jenifer Street NW, Washington, DC 20015.

Thank you for your time.

Michael Graham

630 WMAL

Washington, DC

Mr. Graham promises his readers he'll let us know when Mr. Moore responds to his request.

UK's Telegraph: "Moore boosted President Bush by outraging Middle America"

Not since Moby Dick has a great white whale been so bloodily harpooned. It took a shocked Michael Moore, director of Fahrenheit 9/11, until yesterday to comment on the US election result. When he did, he made a lame joke, offering "reasons not to slit your own throat". But if John Kerry's strategists feel like slitting anyone's throat right now, it is Mr Moore's.

This was supposed to be the victory that the podgy sage of Flint, Michigan, delivered for the Democrats by winding up students into paroxysms of anti-Bush rage and propelling them into the polling booths. In the event, he achieved the first but not the second objective. The proportion of young voters did not increase on Tuesday. In the gleeful words of one anti-Moore website, "pot-smoking slackers are still pot-smoking slackers": they meant to vote Kerry but, like, couldn't get out of bed in time.

In 2000, Mr Moore's support for Ralph Nader helped lose Florida for Al Gore. This time, he boosted President Bush by outraging Middle America. Take a bow, Mike: you've done it again.

Telegraph: Opinion [telegraph.co.uk]. Nov. 6, 2004.

Jeff Jarvis: "Michael Moore Lost The Election for Kerry"

Jeff Jarvis ("Buzzmachine") makes the case that Michael Moore lost the election for Kerry:

Michael Moore lost it for Kerry. He lost it by starting the mudslinging over military service when he accused Bush of being a deserter; this opened the door for the Swiftie mudmen and cut short the ability to condemn them for it.

He lost it by making unfair attacks on Bush (when he could have made fair attacks), helping Bush to rally his fans around him.

But mainly, Moore lost the race for Kerry and the Democrats by turning them, by association, into a bunch of rabid seething fringie liberal loonies, all angry and extreme and too quick to forget what the real war is and who the real enemy is. . . . READ MORE

Ich Bin Ein Jelly Donut

Thanks, Sondrak

Will Michael Moore "Document and Deter" Anti-Republican Intimidation?

Michael Moore's "videoarmy" is enlisting members around the nation, according to the following email sent to Ohio's Online Filmmaking Community:

Message from Carl at Michael Moore's office . . . "I am writing to you from the office of filmmaker Michael Moore. We are reaching out to the Ohio Filmmaking community to ask you to volunteer your time and talents to help deter election fraud, voter intimidation and vote suppression, and to document on tape any instances that may occur on November 2nd. If you interested in joining this effort, or are already planning to be present with your camera, please let us know as soon as possible. Please email a telephone number where you can be reached, and indicate what equipment and skills you could bring to bear on this effort. In the subject line of the email, please write your city name. Feel free to circulate this email to others that may be interested. They don't need to be professional filmmakers to help out. Thanks!" -- Carl videoarmy@michaelmoore.com

All very well and good, but I have one question for Mister Moore -- will his videoarmy "document and deter" incidents of anti-Republican voter intimidation as well?

Soldier Peter Damon: "You know you've lied in making this movie."

Army Specialist Peter Damon sits under a shade tree and relates his war story from Iraq. As he and his best friend, Paul Bush, worked on a tire on their vehicle, an explosion went off. Bush was killed.

The camera pulls back, and you see for the first time that Damon didn't escape the incident unharmed. The explosion that killed his friend also took his arms from the elbows down. He is a young man with a young family, all with most of their lives ahead of them. His left sleeve is empty; his right arm has been replaced by a prosthesis with a sharp metal hook on the end. Damon is angry, and his voice takes on the tones of a man who knows he has been exploited.

He is not angry at President Bush for sending him to Iraq. Specialist Damon volunteered for the Army like all of our soldiers, and he is proud of his service in Iraq. He is not even particularly angry about the explosion that killed his friend and cost him his arms. He is angry with filmmaker Michael Moore.

While lying in a hospital bed at Walter Reed Army Hospital recovering weeks after the attack, NBC's Brian Williams interviewed the wounded soldier. Though Damon's arms are gone, he experiences "phantom pain" as if they were still attached. Though Moore never visited the military hospital and never even met Damon, he somehow obtained that NBC footage and used it in his film Fahrenheit 9/11, taking Damon's words out of context to make it appear that he is angry about the war and that his "phantom pain" is the pain of a soldier abandoned by his country and betrayed by his president. Nothing could be further from the truth.

At this point, Damon looks into the camera as though he is speaking directly to Michael Moore, and says, "You know you've lied in making this movie. You know you lied in my case, you know you lied in a whole lot of other cases."

Turning Up the Heat on Moore, by Bryan Preston. National Review Online, Oct. 20, 2004.

Military wife: "Michael Moore profiting off my husbands blood"

My husband's bloody image was used on Fahrenheit 911 on scene 22 on the DVD. Michael Moore took this very personal tragedy and used it without a care about our family having to see this awful image captured on film. I bet he doesn't even know that this Marine survived and still proudly serves his country.This movie is against everything my husband believes in. He has pride in his country and despite his disability, he has no regrets in his service to our Nation. He is truly an inspiration to all who meet him. He will continue to serve just as long as he is allowed to. The footage of my husband is pretty graphic, It's amazing he survived. Ironically it was the body armour that saved his life, the body armor that Kerry voted against. He lost his right eye, hearing in his right ear, loss of sense of smell and is legally blind in his left eye. He says "Our country is still at war and I will not leave the military without a fight." I don't think this is what Michael Moore was expecting to hear from this bloody injured Marine he used for quite the opposite effect. Kerry like Moore also used this same footage of my husband. He used it and implied that he knew the father of this injured serviceman and that the father told him he did not want his son to go to war. I can't believe that the two people that we despise the most, happen to be the two people who used the blood of my husband for their own benifit.

April wife of Cee-gar Marine

Message posted on the Free Republic by April Popaditch, wife of the Cee-gar Marine - Staff Sergeant Nick Popaditch, about Michael Moore. (Credit to BLACKFIVE).

Michael Moore has never been to Iraq.

According to Steve of TheTruthAboutIraq.Org :

To me this is obvious, as it is to any civilian who was in Iraq. I only recently came to realize that this is unknown to the rest of the world. 1) Baghdad is a small town for expats. When Sean Penn showed up again, everybody knew. We tried to get him to drink with us. 2) Moore got his footage by soliciting freelance camera operators by email. I know, because he solicited a friend of mine. Note that Michael is never seen in any footage from Iraq in F 9/11. Here is the email exchange with my friend the freelancer. I've taken all identifying features out of the email, save for my name and Michael's people's names, because my friend the camera guy asked for confidentiality. As he points out, read the dialogue from bottom to top. . . .READ MORE.

Iraqi citizens: Fahrenheit 9/11 "exceedingly racist"

Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi writes:

A few weeks ago, Mamoun Fandy, a media analyst, syndicated columnist and former professor of Arab Studies at Georgetown University, was interviewed on the subject of Michael Moore. Fandy stated that Iraqis who were familiar with the film found Moore’s portrayal of them to be exceedingly racist; he went on to say that Moore’s callousness to the plight of the Iraqi people and to the unbelievable human rights devastation in Iraq was outrageous.

And that was only the verdict of the Iraqis.

I have also been asked to express the judgment of a number of Iranians who saw the film in Iran. They sent e-mails, faxes and even phoned me to ask me to report their reviews. . . .

Discover why Iranian citizens trash Fahrenheit 451 at FrontPageMag.com.

Fahrenhype vs. Fahrenheit

Dick Morris, host of the documentary Fahrenhype 911, has challenged Michael Moore to a debate:

"I challenge Michael Moore to a debate," Morris told NewsMax. "Joe Louis once said of a fighter who enters the ring with him that he can run but he can't hide. It is time for Michael Moore to come out of hiding and answer for the misrepresentations, misconceptions and mischaracterizations in his movie."

Morris noted that Moore has actually said that he believes there is no real terrorist threat and that the war on terror is just an excuse for George W. Bush and his supporters to advance some bizarre conspiracy to obtain more power and line their pockets. . . .

Whether Moore will respond to Morris' challenge remains to be seen. Newsmax has more news about the film itself:

According to Morris, "Fahrenhype 9/11" is available for sale and rental beginning Oct. 5, with Overstock.com taking pre-orders for the film.

In addition to Morris, the film features Hollywood's Ron Silver, Sen. Zell Miller, Congressman Peter King, Ed Koch, best-selling author Ann Coulter and, according to the movie poster, "many more."

JunkYardBlog responds to Michael Moore's new book

JunkYardBlog reports on Michael Moore's latest propaganda project:

Not content with making a film loved by terrorists worldwide, Michael Moore is back with another project. If it's possible, this one--a book--is his most offensive and repugnant project yet: He is using letters from disgruntled and disillusioned soldiers from the front lines to build a case against the war.

Which is awfully convenient, since he has been trying to manipulate a buildup of antiwar feeling among our troops for the better part of a year. First he made F*** 9-11, then egged people on to download it illegally, burn it to cd or dvd, then send it to troops in Iraq and Kuwait. The scheme worked, as I've written about before--our troops on the front lines have run smack into enemy propaganda endorsed by the Democrat Party.

Now that his poisonous egg has hatched, he has received (so he says) letters from the front lines from soldiers who now agree with his warped view of the war. Those letters form his new book, Will They Ever Trust Us Again?

. . . and has a plan:

Due for release on DVD on October 5th is a film called FahrenHYPE 9-11. It's a documentary that refutes F*** 9-11. I've watched the online trailer and it looks solid. The DVD is just $14.99. If we could flex the might of the blogosphere, we could buy enough of these DVDs to get one in the hands of every platoon leader in Iraq. We don't need enough for each troop--just enough so that passing them around is easy and a majority of the troops can see it. If we do this we'll be helping the troops sort out truth from Moore's lies, and help buck up their morale. I think it's important that we give our troops some basis for refuting Moore and keeping his lies as far from infecting their warfighting ability as possible. Maybe FahrenHYPE 9-11 will help.

So what do you say, blogosphere? Can we help the troops here? Can we put a big dent in Michael Moore's effort to help destroy our military and cause us to lose the war?

Celsius 41.11

Celsius 41.11 -- "the temperature at which the brain begins to die" . . . coming to theaters September 2004.

We hope.

Belgravia Dispatch: "charlatan, publicity-hound and talent-challenged fraud"

The New York Review of Books finally got around to publishing a review of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 ("Is It All Just a Dream?" Volume 51, Number 13 · August 12, 2004).

Belgravia Dispatch has an excellent review of the review:

Put differently, I suspect, for those that hate Bush, they will leave the theater still hating him--but not really anymore than before. For those that like Bush, they will leave unpersuaded and further convinced that Moore is a cheap charlatan. And for any Bush undecideds, they will leave in a blur of pop culture references, a REM song here, a 'Keep on Rocking in the Free World' riff there, a Marine recruiter plying his trade in an iconic mall parking lot there.

So they will leave bemused and entertained--but not truly interested, persuaded on the merits, advanced in knowledge, fulfilled spiritually, improved in any real way (as true art is meant to do). That such efforts are even considered art and worthy of significant prizes speaks to the cultural desert we inhabit today. It's a sad state of affairs--but at least the dangers of a Leni Riefenstahl are not presented by this faux-artist who is really an imbecilic Howard Stern type shock-jock with a camera and a bone to pick from the old Flint days.

So yes, I'm clearly deeply underwhelmed, and doubtless others will increasingly be so going forward. The emperor has no clothes (much like the Cannes jury's selection process).

And yet, like it or not, Fahrehheit 9/11 passes for compelling fare among many. Surely though, better times must beckon? Or has cultural production truly become so desparately bleak? It hasn't, I know (many talents toil in near anonymity), but critics need to yell more loudly so the boorish lout that is Michael Moore is unmasked for the charlatan, publicity-hound and talent-challenged fraud that he is.

911 Commission Criticizes Moore: "No Credible Evidence"

Fueling the Fahrenheit 9/11 controversy, members of the 9/11 Commission dispute filmmaker Michael Moore's claims that 26 members of Osama bin Laden's family were secretly shuttled out of the country while planes were grounded after the terror attacks.

"That's not what we found," commission member Jamie Gorelick said of Moore's assertion that the Saudis were snuck out on a charter flight on Sept. 13 in violation of airspace restrictions.

Gorelick told the Herald that restrictions had been lifted by the time the Saudi planes took off that day and that the FBI interviewed 22 of the 26 members. The others were cleared by the agency of any connection to the attacks, the commission found. . . . READ MORE

Source: "Moore is less than honest, panelist says"
By Dave Wedge

Sunday, August 8, 2004.

Joey Tartakovsky: "As a polemic, masterful; as a basis for informed decision-making, irresponsible."

Enthusiasts of the film have taken Moore's decision to hire a team of fact-checkers as confirmation of the film's truthfulness. The team certainly has its work cut out. But objections to various details should not cause us to miss the larger point: the real deceit lies not in his "facts," but in how he cobbles them together. There may be some evidence that four thousand Saudi princes manage U.S. foreign policy, a theory of Fahrenheit 9/11 advances, but there is substantially more evidence that they do not. Will the fact-checkers prove that the Saudis are, contrary to popular belief, thrilled with the war on terror? The bottom line is that there exists a boundless sea of "facts," and an ideologue willing to play fast and loose with them can easily manipulate them into extreme or unwarranted conclusions. You can "prove" just about anything and its opposite, and you can traduce any public figure, a President easiest of all.

No one has challenged Michael Moore's right to "reveal" the consequences of President Bush's decisions as brutally as he wants. But this is not what he does. He seeks to embarrass Bush by culling choice footage from hundreds of hours of recording, cutting-and-pasting them in unflattering ways, and then spicing it with wild innuendo and cinematic manipulation. If any one of us were on camera on a daily basis, speaking on record about a half-dozen issues, we'd have quite a blooper reel as well. Fahrenheit 9/11's unforgiving character assassination is corrosive to civil democratic culture. If everyone behaved this way towards their political opponents, and if every important issue were simplified to the point of absurdity, normal political processes would break down. Fahrenheit 9/11 thus resorts to the oldest, nastiest trick in the book: attack Bush's character, not his policies; impugn his motives, not his arguments. It's hard to ignore how relentlessly personal this movie is. All this, even as there remain few matters more in demand of partisan discretion and common decency than terrorism and war. . . .

As a polemic, Fahrenheit 9/11 is masterful; as a basis for informed decision-making, it is irresponsible. The thought that Fahrenheit 9/11's dishonorable message might actually become a basis for individuals to make decisions is the most disconcerting part of all.

Source: Joey Tartakovsky. July 28, 2004.

Saudi Prince: "we granted him a visa, but he never came"

In an exclusive interview with the Telegraph, Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal takes issue with Moore's depiction of the Saudis:

. . . 'It would have been far better if Michael Moore had been able to read the 9/11 report before he made his film. It shows that all the protocols were strictly observed.' Because Moore had not thoroughly researched the allegations levelled against Saudi Arabia, Prince Turki said that Fahrenheit 9/11 is 'grossly unfair' to the Saudis.'

In his film, Moore claims that the Bush administration helped a number of Saudi princes and members of the bin Laden family to flee the United States immediately after the attacks at a time when American air space had been closed to all commercial air traffic. Moore implies that the Saudis were smuggled out of the country to cover up their involvement in the terror attacks.

Prince Turki said these claims have now been completely refuted in the report compiled by the US commission of inquiry into the 9/11 attacks, which was published at the end of last month.

In a section headed 'Flights of Saudi Nationals Leaving the United States', the report found 'no evidence that any flights of Saudi nationals, domestic or international, took place before the reopening of national airspace on the morning of September 13, 2001'. The report also concludes that it found no evidence of political interference by the White House, and states that those Saudis who did leave the US on charter flights in the days following the attacks had been thoroughly vetted by FBI agents.

Prince Turki said Moore could have found this out for himself before he made the film, but he 'chose to speculate' rather than establish what really happened.

'Michael Moore made a request to visit Saudi Arabia and we granted him a visa, but he never came,' said Prince Turki in an interview with The Telegraph. 'He missed an important opportunity to find out key facts. In my opinion he should have made every effort to go to a country he has taken to task so heavily in his film.'

SOURCE: Saudi royal family lambasts Michael Moore for twisting the truth in his 9/11 film. Telegraph August 8, 2004.

Bloomington Newspaper: Michael Moore Faked Front Page

The (Bloomington) Pantagraph newspaper in central Illinois has sent a letter to Moore and his production company, Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., asking Moore to apologize for using what the newspaper says was a doctored front page in the film, the paper reported Friday. It also is seeking compensatory damages of $1.

A scene early in the movie that shows newspaper headlines related to the legally contested presidential election of 2000 included a shot of The Pantagraph's Dec. 19, 2001, front page, with the prominent headline: "Latest Florida recount shows Gore won election."

The paper says that headline never appeared on that day. It appeared in a Dec. 5, 2001, edition, but the headline was not used on the front page. Instead, it was found in much smaller type above a letter to the editor, which the paper says reflects "only the opinions of the letter writer."

"If (Moore) wants to 'edit' The Pantagraph, he should apply for a copy-editing job," the paper said.

SOURCE: Associated Press July 30, 2004.

U.S. Army veterans object to Moore's use of footage in 911

Army Staff Sergeant Ray Mitchell is none too pleased about Moore's using footage of him in as a patient at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington:

"I'm in it," he said. "And I didn't know until it opened."

In a brief film clip taken from an interview he did with the British television network Channel 4 in February, Mitchell appears in the physical-training room of Walter Reed, where he shared the following words about wounded soldiers:

"The ones that are covered are the KIAs - the 'Killed in Action.' I'm not taking anything away from those soldiers. They deserve that coverage. But there is also us. To say we're forgotten, that would be going just a little bit too far to say we're forgotten, but I'd say we are the missed soldiers of the Army."

Mitchell does not deny making the remarks. But he vehemently objects to filmmaker Moore's using them - without his knowledge - in a film he thinks undermines the military's mission in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he risked his life.

"The president is the commander in chief of our military," Mitchell said. "I don't want to have my face in a film that's anti-Bush, or anti-military."

Mitchell has not seen Fahrenheit 9/11 in its entirety, but he said that he's seen enough to disagree with its message and with Moore's use of his comments.

"The way they lead into my spot in the movie insinuates that I'm talking bad about the military," Mitchell said.

In the film, images of dead Iraqis precede his clip. Following it are the remarks of another Marine who vows never to return to Iraq.

Sergeant Mitchell's not the only one whose upset about Moore's manipulation of his footage:

The July 15 issue of The Enterprise, a Massachusetts newspaper, reported that Army reservist Peter Damon - also recuperating at Walter Reed after losing parts of both arms in an explosion in Iraq - was "surprised" to learn that an interview he gave to NBC this year is shown in the film.

John Gonsalves, the founder of Homes for Our Troops - a Massachusetts organization that builds homes for disabled soldiers - is constructing a new house for Damon and his wife, with whom he has talked extensively about the film.

"To do a movie that's clearly anti-war and totally against the Bush administration, and to put these guys in it without their knowledge, is morally wrong, and maybe even legally," said Gonsalves.

Source: "Soldiers decry use of footage in '9/11'" Baltimore Sun July 24, 2004.

U.S. Marines express their feelings about Michael Moore

. . . in true Vice-Presidential fashion.

Courtesy of Greg Piper.

Daniel Henninger on Moore's Smug Condescension

In today's Wall Street Journal, Daniel Henninger takes issue with Moore's condescending portrayal of lower-middle class ("Carpet-Bomb Filmmaking" July 23, 2004):

Moore's on-camera characters are invariably lower middle class and inarticulate. In fact, no one is physically attractive or stylish, which allows Moore's big-city target audience to stay inside its normal film-going comfort zone of smirking condescension.

The U.S. soldiers who speak onscreen in Iraq come across as bloodless killers with Southern accents. They sound stupidly unfeeling about the war's destruction. It wasn't clear to me that even this audience was in sync with the filmmaker's willingness to make a mockery of American soldiers. Moore's misanthropy is equal opportunity; he shows a greasy white guy in Flint, Mich., with a tattoo on his arm, whose thoughts on domestic security are that you can't trust anyone anymore, even people you know. That got a big laugh. All the people in Moore's beloved Flint--which appears in "Fahrenheit" as a few bombed-out housing blocks--are either dopey white trash or oppressed blacks. Two Marine recruiters walking around a U.S. shopping center are manipulative and opportunistic. They're made to look bad.

To make some point about domestic security, he shows a passenger's encounter at check-in with an improbable airport security guard--a befuddled, older woman in glasses, curly white hair and a Midwestern accent. Moore doesn't give this woman the courtesy of identifying where she works. She's nowhere.

Even the Iraqi victims in Baghdad are props. A baby's corpse is lifted from a dumpster, bloodied limbs are shown, people wail--but in a succession of quick frames. Moore never spends any time with these people. They just, so to speak, blow by.

In a sequence on the U.S.'s allies, Romania is depicted with a movie-stock Dracula figure (these are the people who freed themselves from Ceausescu), and Morocco is represented by monkeys scampering along the ground. That got a laugh, but not a big one. . . .

Linda Ronstadt booed offstage for praising Michael Moore

YahooNews reports that singer Linda Rondstadt was kicked out of casino for praising Michael Moore

US singer Linda Ronstadt was booed off the stage and kicked out of a Las Vegas casino after praising polemical filmmaker Michael Moore's film "Fahrenheit 9/11," the casino said.

The management of Las Vegas Aladdin Casino and Resort evicted the famed crooner from the premises after members of the audience reacted furiously to her praise of Moore, whose film bashes US President George W. Bush, during a concert on Saturday night. . . .

"She was removed from the hotel towards the end of the concert," a hotel official who declined to be identified told AFP of Ronstadt's unceremonious departure from the Aladdin.

"The company decided to remove her from the property after she dedicated a song to Michael Moore. This angered our guests who spilled their drinks and demanded their money back," the official said.

The liberal Ronstadt, 58, a 10-time Grammy Award-winner and an icon of the politically-agitated 1970s, praised Moore as a "great American patriot" who "is spreading the truth."

Michael Moore complained that his First Amendment rights were being violated, but as blogger Bill Cork ("Lincoln and Liberty") observes:

This wasn't a public place. This wasn't a political event. She was hired for a job. And in this case, it is the audience and the management who have the rights to freedom of speech, not her.

Furious soldier's mother: "[Moore] "maggot that eats off the dead"

The family of U.S. Air Force Maj. Gregory Stone was shocked to learn that video footage of the major's Arlington National Cemetery burial was included by Michael Moore in his movie "Fahrenheit 9/11."

Stone was killed in March 2003 by a grenade that officials said was thrown into his tent by Sgt. Hasan K. Akbar, who is on trial for murder.

It's been a big shock, and we are not very happy about it, to say the least," Kandi Gallagher, Stone's aunt and family spokeswoman, tells Washington Times reporter Audrey Hudson.

We are furious that Greg was in that casket and cannot defend himself, and my sister, Greg's mother, is just beside herself," Gallagher said. "She is furious. She called him a 'maggot that eats off the dead.'"

The movie, described by critics as political propaganda during an election year, shows video footage of the funeral and Stone's fiancee, Tammie Eslinger, kissing her hand and touching it to his coffin.

The family does not know how Moore obtained the video, and Gallagher said they did not give permission and are considering legal recourse.

She described her nephew as a "totally conservative Republican" and said he would have found the film to be "putrid."

"I'm sure he would have some choice words for Michael Moore," she said. "Michael Moore would have a hard time asking our family for a glass of water if he were thirsty."

Source: "Moore's Prop", by John McCaslin. Townhall.com. July 14, 2004.

Iraqi blogger: "I wonder if you've lived under dictators, extremists, terrorist rule"

Sarmad Zanga, an Iraqi blogger, has heard of Michael Moore's movie, and he's none too pleased:

his movie - I won't even call it a movie - it's like a "cut and paste" movie - I wonder what he is thinking when he shows his "cut and paste" movie: "cut and paste" for explosions and fighting, and terrorists covering their faces; statements by GWB playing golf (I didn't know playing golf in America was a crime. I know it was in Iraq before 9/4. It was only for presidents.) I wonder if it took MICHAEL MOORE hard work to produce this "cut and paste".

I wonder if you've lived under dictators, extremists, terrorist rule, or if you are just living under the gift of being free - free to say anything, free to do anything, free to make a film from "cut and paste" to win trophies and awards and $26 million. I just wanna remind you where you are, because there are brave men fighting for where you are. I wonder if you live safer and safer for all your life - safer for hope, safer for justice - and if there's fear in your life. I wonder why we always try to think of ourselves, why we evaluate hard work and achievements, and show them like dark spots. . . . READ MORE

In the interest of providing a "fair and balanced" perspective, Sarmad posts links to photographs of post-war Iraq that Moore is not likely to display in Fahrenheit 911 or any other film. Check them out.

Greg Piper: "Borenheit 911"

Greg Piper ("The Smoking Room") blogs his impressions of the film:

So I finally watched "Fahrenheit 9/11" last night with a couple friends, not in a theater and at no cost to us (!), and my primary reaction was: Boring. Full of speculation and convenient omission? Sure. But I can't believe this movie is doing so well when it's such a snoozefest. . . .

I can't add anything new from all the reviews I've previously linked, but I'm glad I read them before seeing the movie. Watching each clumsy Moore claim about the Bush-Saudi-media-business collusion with the knowledge of exactly how it was misleading was especially gratifying. But I feel sorry for all those people who don't follow foreign affairs or know the history of US involvement in the Middle East, because unless they already disliked Moore, they will probably swallow his lawyer-vetted narrative hook, line and sinker. A few technical errors, but a dump truck full of distortions, omissions and faulty insinuations. He's safe from slander claims, but just barely.

Daschle: "I never hugged Michael Moore"

Rapid City Journal reports that Tom Daschle has explicitly denied hugging Michael Moore:

"I know we senators all tend to look alike. But I arrived late, and I had to leave early for Senate votes. I didn't meet Mr. Moore," Daschle said.

In a lengthy Time magazine piece about the movie and its political effects, Richard Corliss reported Moore's criticism of Daschle's leadership and the filmmaker's account of a hug with Daschle.

"At the Washington premiere, Moore sat a few rows behind Daschle. Afterward, says Moore, ‘He gave me a hug and said he felt bad and that we were all gonna fight from now on. I thanked him for being a good sport,'" Corliss wrote.

Daschle, who was at the premiere at the invitation of producer/distributor Harvey Weinstein, said he and Moore have never met.

Moore Steps on Hollywood's Toes

Michael Moore has angered Hollywood by his expression of casual indifference to internet downloading of Fahrenheit 911.

Moore's views have not been well received by Hollywood's establishment, which is fighting a war against the online pirates it claims cost the industry 1.6 billion pounds a year in lost sales.

Jack Valenti, the outgoing president of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), said: "We are proud that American films continue to enjoy immense popularity around the world but the need for copyright protection in the digital age is crucial to the preservation of our most prized trade asset.

"Piracy is having a dramatic impact on the creators and copyright owners of this nation, and its defeat depends largely on the commit ment and resolve of the entire industry.

"File sharing causes tremendous financial loss to the movie business, untold hardship to support workers, and costs thousands of jobs."

Moore-Ism . . .

Lileks "fisks" Michael Moore's 4th of July column and points out an example of a "Moore-ism" ("an assertion thrown out with the assurance that no one will question it").

Kid Rock dismisses film as "propaganda"; Spider Man fan rebukes Moore

New York Daily News columnist Lloyd Grove reports:

Has "Spider-Man 2" pushed "Fahrenheit 9/11" director Michael Moore out of the limelight?

And is Moore having trouble coping with his predictable drop from the top spot?

Last weekend, the Tobey Maguire blockbuster dwarfed the anti-Bush polemic - with "Spider-Man 2" grossing a record $116 million compared with $21 million for "Fahrenheit 9/11."

Monday night, on the third floor of the UA Battery Park cineplex, a crowd of "Spider-Man 2" filmgoers converged in waves, all but drowning out a fat bearded man who had appeared to give an impromptu oration.

Namely, Michael Moore.

"Check out my Web site, www.michaelmoore.com," Moore exhorted as he signed ticket stubs, posed for camera phones and generally basked in the glow of his own celebrity.

Suddenly, a showing of "Spider-Man 2" ended and the exiting fans were blocked by Moore's "Fahrenheit" love-in, creating a major traffic jam.

A Lowdown spy reports that Moore droned on, oblivious to his own personal safety until a Spidey loyalist yelled, "Not everyone thinks you're God, Moore!"

The director hastily wrapped things up and wandered away dejectedly.

Apparently, musician Kid Rock knows where it's at:

It was a lazy afternoon at Russell Simmons' spread outside downtown East Hampton.

The hip-hop and fashion mogul, his younger brother Joe (aka Rev. Run, who's filming a pilot of his own reality show for the ABC Family Channel), movie director Brett Ratner and his girlfriend, Serena Williams (recovering from her defeat in the Wimbledon final), were getting a little antsy on a rainy Monday, wondering what to do with themselves.

Then Kid Rock arrived.

So they all decided to drive into town and take in a movie.

They jumped into various vehicles and headed for the United Artists East Hampton theater on Main St.

Standing in front of the box office and perusing the titles, Simmons suggested that everybody catch the 7:15 showing of "Fahrenheit 9/11."

Kid Rock balked.

"I don't want to see that, it's all propaganda," the rock star said - sparking a prolonged political debate right there on the sidewalk.

"Russell, don't you understand, everything we got in this country, we got from fighting," Kid Rock argued, according to Simmons' account. "It's just a movie. ... I'd rather go to the bar across the street."

Kid Rock refused to see the movie, and said goodbye. The others bought tickets and went into the theater.

A couple of hours later, Simmons returned to his parked car. On his windshield was a scribbled note:

"Vote Bush. Bush Rocks," apparently written by Kid Rock himself.

56 Deceits in Fahrenheit 911 (and counting)

Fifty-six Deceits in Fahrenheit 911, compiled by Dave Kopel.

This is a preliminary version of an article that will be published on National Review Online. This report was first posted on the web on the morning of July 1. Since then, I've revised several sections in response to reader requests for clarifications, and have added additional deceits which have been pointed out by readers or journalists. Astute readers will notice that the revised number of deceits now exceeds fifty-six. I will update the formal count later. . . .

In a better world, it would be incumbent on every individual in the audience to review the allegations of Fahrenheit 911, and read the investigations of those who have disputed Moore's film.

In a better world.

P.S. Mooreites might be inclined to dismiss this just another Republican rant; on the contrary, Dave Kopel (who, like Moore, voted for Nader in 2000), concludes with the admission:

Today, there are many patriotic Americans who oppose some or all aspects of the War on Terror. I am among them, in that I have strongly opposed the Patriot Act from its first days, have denounced the Bush administration for siding with corporate interests rather than with public safety by sabotaging the Armed Pilots law, and have repeatedly stated that the current Saudi tyranny should be recognized as a major part of the problem in the War on Terror--despite the tyranny's close relationship with America's foreign policy elite.

Being critical of the Bush administration, however, makes no difference when it comes to challenging the deceits of Michael Moore:

In contrast to the large number of patriots who have argued against particular wars or wartime policies, a much smaller number of Americans have hated America. They have cheered for the fighters who were killing Americans. They have belittled America’s right to protect itself, and they have produced propaganda designed to destroy American morale and to facilitate enemy victory. To advance their anti-American cause, they have sometimes feigned love for the nation they despised.

Do the many falsehoods and misrepresentations of Fahrenheit 911 suggest a film producer who just makes careless mistakes? Or does a man who calls Americans "possibly the dumbest people on the planet" believe that his audience will be too dumb to tell when he is tricking them? Viewers will have to decide for themselves whether the extremist and extremely deceptive Fahrenheit 911 is a conscientious work of patriotic dissent, or the cynical propaganda of a man who gives wartime aid to America's murderous enemies, and who accepts their aid in return.

Michael Moore in His Own Words

A blogger by the name of Bird Dog has a great roundup of all the really stupid (hateful, insulting, and anti-American) things Michael Moore has said -- and boy, are there a lot of them.

Members of the Democrat Party may want to reconsider their alignment and devotion to this filmmaker.

Moore: Bigger Than Jesus?

Michael Moore is crowing that F911 beat out The Passion of Christ.

Problem is -- as JunkYardBlog reveals -- it ain't necessarily so.

"The Temperature at which Michael Moore's Pant's Burn"

The excellent fact-checking blog Spinsanity, popular for its point-by-point disemboweling of Bowling for Columbine on repeated occasions, has directed its sights on Fahrenheit 911.

Fact-Checking Fahrenheit.

Fahrenheit Fact -- " a joint presentation . . . attempt[ing] to bring to light those "other" facts about Michael Moore's new film "Fahrenheit 9/11".

THE ANTIMOORE.

San Francisco Chronicle reports:

In an irony even Mickey Mouse would find hard to miss, America is about to weigh two wildly contrasting versions of itself in theaters this weekend as the Walt Disney Co. debuts its own foray into documentary filmmaking right alongside Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" -- which the studio refused to release.

Disney officials insist their 88-minute film, America's Heart And Soul -- stitching simple, positive vignettes of everyday Americans with sweeping vistas and up-tempo music -- is neither a response to Moore's politically charged hit nor any type of political statement itself.

But who are we kidding?

Fahrenheit 911 transcript

Want to check out the content of Fahrenheit 911 without forking over the bucks to support Moore's campaign of hate? -- Someone is working on a transcript of the entire film.

Richard Cohen: "Baloney, Moore or Less"

Richard Cohen, writing for the Washington Post, is another Democrat uneasy about the left's praise of Michael Moore:

. . . the stunning box-office success of "Fahrenheit 9/11" is not, as proclaimed, a sure sign that Bush is on his way out but is instead a warning to the Democrats to keep the loony left at a safe distance. Speaking just for myself, not only was I dismayed by how prosaic and boring the movie was -- nothing new and utterly predictable -- but I recoiled from Moore's methodology, if it can be called that. For a time, I hated his approach more than I opposed the cartoonishly portrayed Bush.

The case against Bush is too hard and too serious to turn into some sort of joke, as Moore has done. The danger of that is twofold: It can send fence-sitters moving, either out of revulsion or sympathy, the other way, and it leads to an easy and facile dismissal of arguments critical of Bush. During the Vietnam War, it seemed to me that some people supported Richard Nixon not because they thought he was right but because they loathed the war protesters. Beware history repeating itself.

Source: Baloney, Moore or Less, by Richard Cohen. Washington Post July 1, 2004.

More Distortions from Michael Moore

In an online exclusive for MSNBC/Newsweek, Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball demonstrate that Some of the main points in 'Fahrenheit 9/11' really aren't very fair at all.

Matthew Rothschild: "an odd mix between a PBS Frontline show and a Bush's Bloopers reel"

Matthew Rothschild, editor of the liberal periodical The Progressive, reviews F911 . . . and even he find Moore's Bush-bashing overbearing:

. . . he had a great movie on his hands, and he couldn't leave well enough alone.

Instead, he intruded, as is his trademark, too much into his own film. He used a sledgehammer approach when a dagger would have done the job, and he tarnished his whole enterprise with a tone that will be off-putting to all but the Moveon.org crowd.

Make no mistake: This was an in-crowd movie.

Moore has said he wants the movie to be a tool to defeat Bush. But if that's the intention, I'm afraid he's failed.

Byron York: "A political campaign disguised as a movie"

Byron York reveals the collaboration between MoveOn.Org and Michael Moore:

Last week, MoveOn asked members to sign a pledge to see Fahrenheit 9/11 during its first showings Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. Announcing the plan, [MoveOn Political Action Committee head] Pariser praised the movie, but said the real reason MoveOn wanted members to turn out during the film's first days in theaters was to create the impression that a wave of anti-Bush anger was sweeping the country. "We launched this campaign around Fahrenheit 9/11 because to the media, the pundits, and the politicians in power, the movie's success will be seen as a cultural referendum on the Bush administration and the Iraq war," Pariser told MoveOn members. "Together, we have an opportunity to knock this ball out of the park." . . .

Mark Steyn: "The Importance of Being Michael Moore"

Writing from "across the pond", Mark Steyn puzzles over Moore's audience:

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 asshole for killing all those people". "Yeah," says the "pacifist", "but he'll never be as big an asshole 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 assholian stakes he'll always come a distant second to 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.

Eric Johnson: "Michael Moore bigger than Jesus [but I won't see his film!]"

Eric Johnson concedes that Michael More is, literally, bigger than Jesus, but explains to a reader why he still won't see the film, concluding:

Anti-Americans in other countries should just give up, because Moore demonstrates our cultural superiority. We're so great, we can even do anti-Americanism better than foreigners! Everybody start chanting now: U! S! A! U! S! A!"

Andrew Sullivan: "A bar in Ptown on a Sunday night was more interesting"

Andrew Sullivan saw the film today, too -- and, like Mr. Cork, was driven away by sheer boredom:

I was expecting to be outraged, offended, maddened, etc etc. No one told me I'd be bored. The devices were so tired, the analysis worthy of something by an intern in the Nation online, the sad attempts to blame everything on Bush so strained and over-wrought even the most credulous of conspiracists would have a hard time giving them the time of day. This won the top Cannes prize? Only hatred of America can explain that. . . . I'd address the arguments, if there were any. There weren't. There was just a transparently failed attempt to construct conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory on the flimsiest of circumstantial evidence, and when the entire framework was teetering into absurdity, the occasional necessary lie. I left before the end. A bar in Ptown on a Sunday night was more interesting.

Bill Cork: "I don't remember the last time I left because a movie was so bad."

Fahrenheit 911 is inciting action, although not exactly the kind Moore anticipated. Fellow blogger Bill Cork (and several others) were compelled to head for the exits.

[Former] Mayor Ed Koch: Moore guilty of sedition?

Former New York Mayer Ed Koch lashes out at Michael Moore, practically accusing him of sedition:

Senator John Kerry in criticizing United States’ foreign policy and the incumbent president is acting responsibly, albeit I disagree with many of his views. On the other hand, Michael Moore, writer and director of the film "Fahrenheit 9/11," crosses that line regularly. The line is not set forth in the criminal statutes, but it is determined by Americans who know instinctively what actions and statements taken and uttered violate the obligations of responsibility and citizenship they deem applicable in time of war.

. . . and recalls this little exchange from a previous encounter:

A year after 9/11, I was part of a panel discussion on BBC-TV's "Question Time" show which aired live in the United Kingdom. A portion of my commentary at that time follows:

"One of the panelists was Michael Moore, writer and director of the award-winning documentary "Roger & Me." During the warm-up before the studio audience, Moore said something along the lines of "I don’t know why we are making so much of an act of terror. It is three times more likely that you will be struck by lightening than die from an act of terror." I was aghast and responded, "I think what you have said is outrageous, particularly when we are today commemorating the deaths of 3,000 people resulting from an act of terror." I mention this exchange because it was not televised, occurring as it did before the show went live. It shows where he was coming from long before he produced "Fahrenheit 9/11."

Tom McNamee: "Just the facts on 'Fahrenheit 9/11'"

Tom McNamee, reporting for the Chicago Sun-Times, demands "Just The Facts" from Fahrenheit 911. Given Moore's reputation that's a pretty tall order. He does, however, manage to present a number of facts himself, including this concerning the charge that, shortly after 9/11, the Bush administration let Saudis leave the country:

Moore is guilty of a classic game of saying one thing and implying another when he describes how members of the Saudi elite were flown out of the United States shortly after 9/11.

If you listen only to what Moore says during this segment of the movie -- and take careful notes in the dark -- you'll find he's got his facts right. He and others in the film state that 142 Saudis, including 24 members of the bin Laden family, were allowed to leave the country after Sept. 13.

The date -- Sept. 13 -- is crucial because that is when a national ban on air traffic, for security purposes, was eased.

But nonetheless, many viewers will leave the movie theater with the impression that the Saudis, thanks to special treatment from the White House, were permitted to fly away when all other planes were still grounded. This false impression is created by Moore's failure, when mentioning Sept. 13, to emphasize that the ban on flights had been eased by then. The false impression is further pushed when Moore shows the singer Ricky Martin walking around an airport and says, "Even Ricky Martin couldn't fly."

Pejman Yousefzadeh reviews Michael Moore is a Big Fat Stupid White Man.