Book: 'Michael Moore Is A Big Fat Stupid White Man'
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Thursday, June 24, 2004A just released book takes on Michael Moore as never before. Its title screams: 'Michael Moore Is A Big Fat Stupid White Man.'
And surprisingly, this book has been published by the same publisher who gave us Michael Moore's own runaway bestseller Stupid White Men.?
Check out NewsMax's Free Offer for this book -- Click Here
Apparently, more than a few people want to take revenge on Michael Moore and the timing couldn?t be better with the release this week of his 'documentary' attack piece on George Bush - Fahrenheit 9/11.
Moore is so terrified by his detractors he claims that he has already hired a cabal of lawyers. He says he will sue Bush supporters who he thinks may be preparing to slander him.
Moore's hypocrisy is obvious. Slate editor Jack Shafer says "Moore's hysterical, empty threats" to sue critics of his latest schlockumentary shows that he "appears to believe in free speech only for himself."
One possible target for Moore's lawyers may be the publisher of his own book.
Moore's one time publisher, ReganBooks, is out with a disturbing yet comical book that dismantles every cog of that propaganda machine marketed as Michael Moore.
David T. Hardy and Jason Clarke's "Michael Moore Is A Big Fat Stupid White Man" begins by unearthing his phony roots and goes right up to his latest "documentary." Check out NewsMax's Free Offer for this book -- Click Here
Meet the Flint-drone: Everybody knows Moore is a blue-collar guy from Flint, Mich., right? That's how he always sells himself.
In reality, he was born and raised in the wealthy, lily-white town of Davison, Mich, the authors reveal. No wonder the clown prince of self-loathing developed such a complex about hating rich, stupid white males.
In a letter to Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times last year, Moore still listed his town as Flint. In fact, despite his proclamations that "capitalism is a sin" and "an evil system," he lives in a $1.9 million apartment in Manhattan and enjoys a $1.2 million summer home on Torch Lake in Michigan.
Does not play well with others: Moore can't get along even with his fellow travelers.
Hardy and Clarke disclose how the radical magazine Mother Jones fired the "arbitrary" and "suspicious" Moore; how he started his feud with his replacement, David Talbot, who later founded Salon; how Ralph Nader's organization fired Moore; how he attacked Pauline Kael, Harlan Jacobson and other prominent critics who exposed the deceits of his schlockumentaries; how he lost a lawsuit for betraying fellow lefty activist Larry Stecco in "Roger & Me," etc.
Nor can the elitist Moore tolerate those lowly working classes and students he claims to represent.
"Big Fat Stupid White Man" gives details of how he abused the staff during a speaking engagement at London's Roundhouse Theater; how he castigated a student who dared question his hefty speaking fee; how he attacked a young documentary maker who had the nerve to give him a taste of the "Roger & Me" treatment, and so forth.
And don't forget his amusingly shrill denunciation of those awful blue-collar crewmen who, unlike his fellow multimillionaires in Hollywood's left, booed him during his tirade at the Oscars.
The book presents one example after another, alternating between frightening and hilarious, to make a brilliant case for Moore having Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
Then there's his feud with his former publisher, HarperCollins subsidiary ReganBooks, which gave us his best seller 'Stupid White Men' and now brings us 'Michael Moore Is A Big Fat Stupid White Man.'
ReganBooks, he claims, tried "to censor me and the things I wanted to say. They insisted I rewrite up to 50 percent of the book and that I remove sections that they found offensive to our leader, Mr. Bush." The company plotted "to 'pulp' and recycle all 50,000 copies of my book that were gathering dust in a warehouse," he insists.
However, ReganBooks issued a statement to NewsMax.com contradicting these allegations:
"Originally scheduled for release on September 11, 2001, the book was delayed by mutual agreement between author and publisher after the events of that day. Despite erroneous reports that have appeared in the press, the publisher never attempted to censor the book on partisan grounds, though the publisher and author did discuss replacing the original version of the book with an updated version to address the post-9/11 world. Ultimately, the decision was made to release the book in its original form, and it went on to become a huge success for both the publisher and the author. ReganBooks has since declined to exercise its option to publish another book by Mr. Moore."
After all, Moore and other members of the left-wing thought police can't bear a commitment to diversity of ideas.
Judith Regan, president and publisher of ReganBooks, noted that her company had produced books by Howard Stern and Moore as well as Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh.
"As publishers, we have an obligation to publish a wide range of ideas, opinions, and perspectives," she said in a statement issued to NewsMax. "Our job is to publish voices on the left, on the right, and everywhere in between to provide a broad range of opinion.
"We agree with Michael Moore that free expression is one of our most important human rights," Regan said, "and publishing widely and freely is the only way to honor that tradition."
Unfortunately, Moore fights his critics' right to free expression, as Slate's Shafer noted and as Hardy and Clarke document at length.
Howlers in 'Columbine': Some of the distortions and falsehoods that plague the movie "Bowling for Columbine" are already well known, but Hardy and Clarke add details and reveal new whoppers.
Moore claims that National Rifle Association taunted the Denver area and the nation by holding "a large pro-gun rally" only days after the killings at Columbine High School.
In reality, the annual meeting had been planned well in advance, was required by law, could not have been changed in time to another city, and was stripped of all rallies and ceremony in deference to the community.
The movie depicts Charlton Heston as making his famous "cold, dead hands speech" in Denver. In reality, the remarks came a year later in Charlotte, N.C., and Moore spliced bits of footage from that and another speech for maximum distortion. "It is a lie, a fraud, and a few other things," Hardy and Clarke write.
The fantasy film claims that Heston exploited a school shooting in Mount Morris, Mich., by staging another "big pro-gun rally" in October 2002. In reality, Heston's appearance came eight months after the shooting, at a get-out-the-vote event in nearby Flint. Others campaigning in the area around that time included Al Gore, George W. Bush and Moore himself, touting Ralph Nader.
The authors conclude: "Bowling for Columbine has less documentary value than the average Bugs Bunny cartoon. You see Heston giving a speech but it's doctored. You see history but unconnected facts are given a particular Moorewellian spin. You hear that a factory is making weapons of mass destruction actually, it's building satellite launch platforms. You're led to believe that a rally was a response to a shooting, but it turns out it was eight months later, in anticipation of an election. You watch a Bush-Quayle campaign ad, but in reality it was an ad Moore himself assembled."
'Stupid' is as stupid does: Hardy and Clarke dissect "Stupid White Men" and "Dude, Where's My Country?" along with the latter's celluloid ugly stepchild, Fahrenheit 9/11, to delve into the heart of Moore's pathology. A few highlights:
Moore harps on his portrayal of America as a "nation of idiots" (i.e., people who disagree with him) and illiterates. In reality, the "statistics" he offers indicating widespread illiteracy include two sizeable groups: immigrants who are often fluent in other languages but not English, and the blind and visually impaired.
Moore, who after all graduated from high school, delights in ridiculing his countrymen's poor grasp of geography. "The dumbest Brit here is smarter than the smartest American," he snickers to an audience in London. But Moore chooses not to add an important fact: young adults worldwide performed badly on the National Geographic survey he so selectively cites.
He claims that Florida wrongly disenfranchised thousands of pro-Democrat criminals in the 2000 election. "Thirty-one percent of all black men in Florida" are felons, in his paranoid fantasy world. (No wonder this limousine liberal travels in such exclusive circles.) In reality, the Miami Herald showed that Democrat-run counties violated state law and let the overwhelmingly Democrat felons vote illegally more than 2,000 votes, most of which went to Gore.
Most importantly, "Michael Moore Is a Big Fat Stupid White Man" refutes Moore's wild attempts to implicate the president in 9/11. Every American should read these chapters. They are too detailed to summarize here, but one example will demonstrate this book's importance. Moore claims President Bush invaded Afghanistan and toppled the Taliban so he could get an oil pipeline built. You've probably heard others parrot this allegation. A master of propaganda knows that if you repeat a lie often enough, people start to believe it.
In reality, Bush had supported Enron's plan to run pipes under the Caspian Sea and avoid Afghanistan. "Clinton was the one backing the rival Unocal plan to put them through Afghanistan," Hardy and Clarke observe.
Inspiration to terrorists: Moore's favorite claim: 'THERE IS NO TERRORIST THREAT!" If so, why do terrorists take succor from him?
The most damning indictment of Moore in "Big Fat Stupid White Man": the salute offered by Imam Samudra, leader of the Muslim terrorist bombers who murdered 202 people, mostly Australians and other tourists, two years ago at Paddy's nightclub in Bali.
"I saw lots of whiteys dancing and lots of whiteys drinking there," Samudra told Indonesian police. The authors note, "It was 'Kill Whitey' (to quote a chapter heading in Stupid White Men) with a vengeance."
Samudra's attorney Qaidar Faisal concluded his defense by praising the Taliban and quoting from "anti-western texts" including Moore's "Stupid White Men."
Despite all the appalling revelations in "Michael Moore Is A Big Fat Stupid White Man," it's hard to finish the book without feeling pity for this man.
Had he used his talents to make actual documentaries and write books devoid of distortion and mendacity, he could have offered a useful critique of the Bush administration's flaws.
Instead, fueled by a narcissism that springs from hatred of self and others, he mangles reality to dupe the uninformed, delight the blame-America-first crowd and even inspire terrorists.
He concentrates his venom on one politician and one party but damages a nation.
"Michael Moore Is A Big Fat Stupid White Man" marks a confident step in undoing his damage.
Editor's note:
Free Offer ? get "Michael Moore Is A Big Fat Stupid White Man" and $47 in bonus items with NewsMax Magazine ? Click Here Now
More on Moore and Fahrenheit 9/11
It's clear that Michael Moore has gone off the deep end when even Democrats compare him to the Nazis' master of propaganda:
"Hollywood agent and Kerry supporter Tom Baer told me, 'Kerry should flee Moore's movie. It's Goebbels all over again." This quotation comes not from Ann Coulter or Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh but from a column in the Washington Post by Tina Brown, a queen of the liberal media establishment.
Christopher Hitchens, a contributor to such partisan publications as New Left Review and The Nation, writes for Slate: "Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of 'dissenting' bravery." Andrew Sullivan, a former editor at the liberal New Republic: "Moore is beneath contempt." Editor's note:
Free Offer ? get "Michael Moore Is A Big Fat Stupid White Man" and $47 in free bonus items with NewsMax Magazine ? Click Here Now Michael Moore Caught With Multiple Election Registrations
Monday, June 28, 2004The Smoking Gun reveals that Michael Moore is registered to vote in two states: New York and Michigan.
Although he has claimed to be an "independent" and not a Democrat, records from the New York City Board of Elections show that in reality he registered as a Democrat, the Web site reported.
"Now here's the good part: Moore is simultaneously registered to vote in Michigan, where registrants aren't even given the option of party affiliation (so he's not an Independent there either)."
And there's more: "as a New York City voter, TSG can tell you it's hard not to realize you are registered, since a voter's mailbox is regularly bombarded with candidate mail, official voter guides, and Board of Election notices about upcoming elections and reminders about the location of your polling place."
Editor's note:
Michael Moore Exposed in `Michael Moore Is A Big Fat Stupid White Man FREE Offer Click Here NowBy Richard Cohen
Thursday, July 1, 2004; Page A23I brought a notebook with me when I went to see Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" and in the dark made notes before I gave up, defeated by the utter stupidity of the movie. One of my notes says "John Ellis," who is a cousin of George W. Bush and the fellow who called the election for Fox News that dark and infamous night when the presidency -- or so the myth goes -- was stolen from Al Gore, delivering the nation to Halliburton, the Carlyle Group and Saudi Arabia, and plunging it into war. A better synopsis of the movie you're not likely to read.
Ellis appears early in the film, which is not only appropriate but inevitable. He is the personification of the Moore method, which combines guilt by association with the stunning revelation of a stunning fact that has already been revealed countless times before. If, for instance, you did a Lexis-Nexis database search for "John Ellis" and "election," you would be told: "This search has been interrupted because it will return more than 1,000 documents." The Ellis story is no secret.
But more than that, what does it mean? Ellis is a Bush cousin, Moore tells us. A close cousin? We are not told. A cousin from the side of the family that did not get invited to Aunt Rivka's wedding? Could be. A cousin who has not forgiven his relative for a slight at a family gathering -- the cheap gift, the tardy entrance, the seat next to a deaf uncle? No info. And even if Ellis loved Bush truly and passionately, as a cousin should, how did he manage to change the election results? To quote the King of Siam, is a puzzlement.
I go on about Moore and Ellis because 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.
Moore's depiction of why Bush went to war is so silly and so incomprehensible that it is easily dismissed. As far as I can tell, it is a farrago of conspiracy theories. But nothing is said about multiple U.N. resolutions violated by Iraq or the depredations of Saddam Hussein. In fact, prewar Iraq is depicted as some sort of Arab folk festival -- lots of happy, smiling, indigenous people. Was there no footage of a Kurdish village that had been gassed? This is obscenity by omission.
The case against Bush need not and should not rest on guilt by association or half-baked conspiracy theories, which collapse at the first double take but reinforce the fervor of those already convinced. The success of Moore's movie, though, suggests this is happening -- a dialogue in which anti-Bush forces talk to themselves and do so in a way that puts off others. I found that happening to me in the run-up to the war, when I spent more time and energy arguing with those who said the war was about oil (no!) or Israel (no!) or something just as silly than I did questioning the stated reasons for invading Iraq -- weapons of mass destruction and Hussein's links to Osama bin Laden. This was stupid of me, but human nature nonetheless.
Some of that old feeling returned while watching Moore's assault on the documentary form. It is so juvenile in its approach, so awful in its journalism, such an inside joke for people who already hate Bush, that I found myself feeling a bit sorry for a president who is depicted mostly as a befuddled dope. I fear how it will play to the undecided.
For them, I recommend "Spider-Man 2."
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
If Michael Moore Explained July 4th to Children
Jewish World Review
July 2, 2004 / 13 Tamuz, 5764
Tom Purcellhttp://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | Q: Dear Mr. Moore, why do we celebrate the Fourth? (Billy Johnson, Cleveland, Ohio)
A: Dear Billy, we celebrate the Fourth because it was one of the first wars in which rich white colonists actually defeated other white people, as opposed to the mindless slaughter of the Indigenous Americans.
Q: But Mr. Moore, I thought the Fourth had to do with our successful fight for independence from Great Britain? (Bobby Smith, Pittsburgh, PA)
A: Hey, Bobby, you're partly right. The colonists fought a series of bloody battles with Great Britain because they didn't like paying taxes. But high taxes didn't affect average Joes like you and me, Billy. They affected the rich, so the rich sold a big lie to the people to get us into a war with the British, who only wanted more money to take care of the poor. And when we fought the Brits, it was the poor who died, while the rich relaxed in their mansions. Just like today.
Q: But Mr. Moore, I thought the fight for American independence was the result of most every American longing to be free? Isn't that why we created the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776? (Suzy Long, Omaha, Nebraska)
A: Dear, Suzy, your father is a Republican, isn't he. Look, it was the rich white people who fabricated the need for this war. They paid off their Congressmen, a bunch of other rich white men, to push it along. Then Thomas Jefferson, a rich slave owner, drafted a document now called the Declaration of Independence. This document helped the rich white men lie to the people and convince them that war was necessary.
Q: But Mr. Moore, I thought the Declaration of Independence was a great symbol of American freedom? Weren't these rich people you talk about were willing to risk everything they owned in order to gain freedom for all the colonists? (Amy Moore, Madison, Wisconsin)
A: Amy, Amy, Amy. You've been listening to too much Rush Limbaugh. Such alleged "patriots" advance the lie that the Declaration of Independence was created to give the people a document that spelled out what was and was not important to America's values. Let me say it again: it was a tool of rich white men designed to get the poor to fight and die for their wealth.
Q: But Mr. Moore, aren't there some very powerful words in the Declaration? It says this: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." No document in the history of man ever said such a thing. (Jarrod Planitzer, Slippery Rock, PA)
A: Jarrod, Jarrod, Jarrod, equality my eye! Most of the wealth was, and is, concentrated in the hands of a few. And you really think we have liberty in America, what with the government pulling our rights out from under us faster than you can say help? What rights are there for those people who are fighting in Iraq because our leaders lied to get us into yet another war to advance the interests of the rich? Give me a break, Jarrod.
Q: Gee, Mr. Moore, I thought the Fourth of July was a time to celebrate our patriotism, to celebrate the overwhelming success of the American experiment. Sure, we have a lot of problems still. But isn't it obvious to you that freedom works and that we ought to encourage its spread to every corner of the earth for the benefit of everyone? (Mary Hyde, Baltimore, MD)
A: Mary, Mary, Mary. The job of a true patriot is to exploit every perceived weakness of his president during wartime in order to defeat him (even if it emboldens our enemies and causes more of our own to die). I can't believe the malarkey they are teaching you in school these days.
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Comment on JWR Contributor Tom Purcell's column, by clicking here. To visit his web site, click here.© 2004 Tom Purcell
Christopher Ruddy
Monday, July 5, 2004I just drank a cup of Democratic Hate Soup cooked up by its new propaganda chef, Michael Moore.
After watching his Fahrenheit 9/11, one has to have a certain admiration for Michael Moore.
It takes a definite genius to be able to manipulate well-educated people.
Of course, I was shocked by Moore's film and his blatant disregard for truth.
But even more startling was the reaction I have heard this week from other people who saw the 'documentary' and who are Republicans, conservatives or political moderates but all well-educated.
All of them were overwhelmed by Moore's ?Fahrenheit 9/11 and said they already have decided to vote against Bush and for John Kerry. I count now about a dozen people that I would not have believed could be so affected, including one of my doctors.
Clearly, the Republicans and supporters of George Bush must take this movie with the utmost seriousness.
NewsMax predicted that this movie would be part of the media offensive against Bush.
In NewsMax Magazine's June cover story, 'The Media War On Bush,' we detailed the $2 billion our estimate that will be spent with 'in kind' media coverage to defeat Bush this November.
This in-kind donation comes in the form of slanted nightly news coverage, the print media, books and even Hollywood's efforts.
We noted that Michael Moore's film would be a major contribution for Kerry, as it was being shown in theatres nationwide. Of the $2 billion media war against Bush which we believe to be a conservative estimate we calculated that Michael Moore's 'documentary' would be an in-kind contribution of approximately $20 million for the Kerry campaign.
As it turned out, that figure was way too conservative.
The Moore film raked in over $20 million on its opening day.
It is now evident that the Moore film will have a value of at least $250 million for the Kerry effort to win the White House.
Moore's concoction of Hate Soup is being completely swallowed. This November it will sway independent voters, completely energize the Democratic base and lead to increased donations to the Kerry coffers.
Moore's Hate Soup can be countered, but only if we can regurgitate chunk by chunk the propaganda that has been so willingly swallowed.
'The Real Intent'
Moore claims that this is a movie about Bush's failure to handle the events that led up to 9/11.
But the opening of the documentary reveals that his real intent was to inflict as much political damage on Bush as possible.
He does so by having viewers relive his version of the 2000 election crisis in an effort to show that George Bush a) is an illegitimate president and b) stole the election from Al Gore.
I?m not sure what the election controversy has to do with Sept. 11.
But in discussing this event, Moore uses the same old arguments that somehow Bush stole the election and squeaked through in Florida.
In a sequence of footage he shows news clips of the 2000 Election Night where the major news anchors flip-flopped their prediction that Al Gore had won Florida.
But he could just as easily have shown clips of the networks declaring Gore the winner of Florida an hour before all the polls in the state had closed.
As Republicans have pointed out, this had the effect of lowering Republican turnout by as many as 50,000 votes in Florida?s Panhandle.
As it turned out, Bush won Florida by a squeaker but there is little dispute that had the media not acted deviously in calling the election early in Florida, Bush would have won quite handily.
I might add that Moore could have noted that the major networks had been asked not to call Florida before the polls closed as they customarily do for every other state because it could skew the results.
But Moore did not even mention that issue. His intent is not to get to the truth behind Sept. 11. It is instead to remind people that Bush is an illegitimate president and to stir up Democratic ranks to come out on Election Day.
'The Saudi Stuff'
My doctor pointed out to me that he was so bothered by ?the Saudi stuff' meaning the Bush family connections with the Saudi Arabians revealed by Moore he will not vote for Bush.
Moore claims that Bush never really held the Saudis accountable for their ties to al-Qaida because of these 'family connections.'
As I asked my doctor, 'Why, then, are the Saudis trying to defeat Bush this election year'?
He looked shocked. If the Saudis really wanted Bush re-elected this year, gas would be selling for $1.25 a gallon today. Gasoline is still closer to $2 a gallon and even if the price drops, it will only marginally help Bush. Clearly the Saudis could have made a major contribution to Bush by revving the U.S. economy this year with low oil prices.
The Saudi Arabians may like the Bush family on a personal level. But they are clearly afraid of him and his national security team, which has held Saudi Arabia accountable as never before.
Gone are the Clinton-Gore days when the Saudis could walk all over the United States, pay lip service to us and give huge amounts of money to al-Qaida front groups and other terrorists around the world.
Remember the Khobar Towers bombing? During the Clinton years, the Saudis would not even cooperate with the FBI's investigation.
The Saudis did not want Bush to be so vigorous in his war on terror. That is clear.
But by showing a montage of pictures of George Bush and his father shaking hands and smiling with Saudi princes, Moore tries to prove? that somehow the relationship was improper.
The Moore 'evidence' sounded like something out of a Lyndon Larouche propaganda flyer: a photograph of the queen of England smiling with the president of the United States. Aha! This proves Larouche?s contention that the British monarchy secretly controls the White House.
So much for conspiracy theories created out of 'guilt by association' techniques. Saudi Arabia is a major country in the Middle East and one of the most vitally important for the United States. It is smart and good politics for the Bush family and other American leaders to have close and developing ties with the Saudis.
Nor did I buy the claim that Michael Moore uncovered some huge smoking gun, as he suggests in his film.
As it turned out, one of the men who served with George Bush in the National Guard during the 1970s was James R. Bath.
Bath has gone on to have ties with the Saudi Arabians. So what? Moore also implies that Bath funded George Bush?s business enterprises with Saudi money, a claim already categorically denied.
9/11: Bush Did Nothing to Stop It?
It's interesting that Michael Moore never focuses on the Clinton administration's culpability in Sept. 11.
The Sept. 11 Commission and other intelligence reports say that the plot to bomb the World Trade Center began in the mid 1990s as early as 1996.
During the same time, numerous U.S. targets were hit, with very little retaliation from the U.S.
For five years the terrorists plotted, with many entering and training in the U.S. during the period Bill Clinton was president.
Yet there is almost no discussion of this in Michael Moore's film. Why?
On Sept. 11, 2001, Bush had been in office for less than eight months.
Anyone who knows how the federal government functions would know that the president, in such a short time, would have limited influence over the government and its policies.
For instance, only three political appointments had been made to the Pentagon by Sept. 11; one of those was Donald Rumsfeld.
At the time of 9/11, most of the government was still staffed by the appointments Bill Clinton had made including at the CIA and FBI and almost every other federal agency. Certainly President Bush has some culpability in the events of Sept. 11, but reasonable people should wonder why he receives all the blame while his predecessors receive none.
'But Bush Knew They Were Going to Hijack Planes'
As the 9/11 Commission report has revealed, Bush was informed in a memo in August 2001 that al-Qaida was intent on hitting targets within the U.S. and was even considering hijacking planes.
Moore uses this information again as a smoking gun that Bush should have done more and that somehow he should have taken steps to stop the hijackers.
Perhaps.
But I also have a feeling that the president gets warnings of this type ? some real, some not so real every day.
Recently, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said that a day did not go by that his police commissioner or some other agency chief called him about a potential threat to the city.
Obviously, almost all such threats never materialize. What was Bush supposed to have done had he known there were potential hijackings under way?
He could have notified the public about that threat and every other threat the U.S. gets.
Criticism of the administration since Sept. 11 has led the administration to regularly reveal 'chatter' that suggests threats.
Moore, of course, doesn't applaud the administration for doing so. He suggests in his film that the terror warnings are just an effort to scare and manipulate the public.
In the Moorewellian world we live in, Bush is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.
And the CIA intelligence report warning of hijackings never informed the president that that terrorists were planning to use commercial jets as flying bombs.
This was a significant failure of our intelligence agencies, particularly the CIA and FBI, which failed to take into account available intelligence that hijackers were preparing to attack the U.S. and not alerting the president to previous intelligence showing that al-Qaida and other terrorist groups had plotted to use jets as human flying bombs.
Had that possibility been mentioned in that August memo, I would agree that Bush would be more culpable for not having been more proactive. But that possibility was never mentioned, and I don't believe it was Bush?s role dream up what the hijackers might do.
'Weapons of Mass Destruction'
The pretext of the war was that Saddam Hussein was a threat to the U.S. primarily because he was developing weapons of mass destruction.
The U.S. cited some evidence that appears now to have been faulty. But what is clear is that Saddam Hussein refused to abide by numerous U.N. resolutions and treaty obligations he had signed that required full inspections.
Is it our fault that we held this rogue leader accountable to international law?
Weapons of mass destruction include biological, chemical and nuclear weapons. We now know that Saddam had a biological and chemical program and was trying to develop nuclear programs.
Can we fault the president for acting on the best of intentions? What would have happened if Bush had not acted and five years later Saddam had killed 250,000 Americans with an anthrax attack?
Also missing from Moore's film are the serious statements that Clinton and many of his top officials made about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.
In one warning, Clinton said that Saddam Hussein was developing such weapons and that he could use them if he was not stopped.
Had Moore, in fairness, showed just one of these Clinton clips, the claims of his ?documentary? would have been eviscerated.
No, in Moore's Hate Soup, Bill Clinton is not an ingredient.
'Blacks and the War'
Michael Moore is very clever.
He is working on behalf of the Democratic Party for this year's election.
He offers some passing criticism of the Democrats, but he is still rooting for them.
In his film, a maimed soldier from Iraq says that he's voting Democrat this year and doing everything he can to help the Democrats. (Funny, that's what Michael Moore's also doing!)
Moore knows that the African-American constituency is a key component of the Democratic Party. The Democrats need the African-American vote to win.
Typically, they've been getting 90 percent of the vote. But in a close election, every percent counts. They can't have blacks go off the reservation, so to speak not this year.
So Moore cleverly begins his film with the Congressional Black Caucus' efforts to stop the Electoral College procedures. (I am baffled as to what this has to do with Sept. 11.)
And again, Moore implies throughout his film that somehow young black men are being used as cannon fodder for Bush's war on terror. It is they, not white young people, being sent to Iraq to die.
Moore never makes this claim outright because he knows that statistical evidence shows blacks are not dying in Iraq in any disproportionate number to their percentage of the U.S. population. (A similar myth was created by the media during the Vietnam War. The statistics show that blacks died in Vietnam at about the same percentage as their population.)
The clear impression from Moore is that Bush is an elitist white racist, along with many congressmen who don't have their sons or daughters in the U.S. military.
Moore conveniently fails to note that a very large number of congressmen and senators have served in the military and risked their lives for their country.
He also fails to inform his audience that there is probably a very small number of congressmen and senators with children of recruiting age.
On so many points and in so many ways, Michael Moore is extremely manipulative.
I was shocked at the end of the film when people clapped thunderously. It looked like an audience that was sophisticated and educated.
But they apparently don't even know the basic facts of what's happening in the world today.
I do believe that the Bush administration made mistakes in the Iraq war. Mistakes are made in all wars.
But I do not believe that Bush was wrong in going after Saddam Hussein or had a malevolent intention as Moore suggests.
The Real Michael Moore
I remember when I first watched Moore?s first blockbuster documentary, 'Roger and Me.'
I knew it had a liberal bias but I sort of liked Michael Moore.
How can you not like an average guy going against a corporate giant such as GM's chairman, Roger Smith?
It is human nature to like to see David take on Goliath.
So it is easy to understand the cheers as Moore takes on the president, vice president and leadership of the country and shows apparent hypocrisy.
I understand the positive reaction Moore's film has received by many.
But who is Michael Moore?
When Michael Moore's TV series (which turned out to be a very big flop) came out in the 1980s, I tuned in.
I thought it would be as interesting as his 'Roger and Me' documentary.
But instead of taking on the rich and powerful, the typical show demonstrated time and time again Moore's belief that the average American is stupid, ignorant, dumb.
It's no contradiction that Moore went to Europe recently and said that Americans were 'stupid.'
In 'Fahrenheit 9/11,' he hits a nerve again, because he takes on what appear to be the rich and the powerful and the elite. But what he doesn't reveal is that he hates the rest of us too.
Take, for example, the grieving mother in the film who lost her son in Iraq.
She talks of her love for Jesus and how she has relied on Him during this period.
It was a touching moment, especially for anyone who is a Christian. But one wonders why Moore would use that footage, because he is like a lot of other liberal elitists who don?t exactly have a history of attending Billy Graham crusades.
In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if his next documentary is about 'Jesus Freaks.'
So that's the bottom line: Michael Moore is not interested in truth, he's interested in political action, achieving goals and manipulating people. He can do 'whatever it takes' to achieve the objectives.
It's a dangerous pot of soup Michael Moore has concocted, and it is sad that so many people haven't discovered that it is a deceptive potion.
Editor's note:
Michael Moore exposed in `Michael Moore Is a Big Fat Stupid White Man` FREE offer click here Now
Find out about the $2 billion media war against President Bush Click HereMichael Moore Is A Large Bloated Moron and Other Observations
Lynn Woolley
Friday, July 2, 2004The working title for this piece is 'Michael Moore Is A Large Bloated Moron and Other Observations.' Since newspapers routinely change the author's original headline, it was necessary to work that in so that you, Dear Reader, will perfectly understand where this piece is going.
First, you will notice that the title is similar to that of a book written by a 'comic' and now talk show host named Al Franken. We thought it would be all right to lift Mr. Franken's title since he's a political soul mate of Moore's and since Mr. Moore lifted the title of his new movie from Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. Besides, it seems logical to use this title for Mr. Moore since 'big' and 'fat' are no longer accurate descriptions for the slimmed-up Rush Limbaugh.That Mr. Moore is large and bloated is not in question here; that is simply an observation based on the long tradition of the Left of attacking their political opponents' physical features. However, there may be some question as to whether Mr. Moore is a moron ? and that all depends on how you look at it.
After all Michael Moore has parlayed the hoopla over Fahrenheit 9/11 into a media frenzy that pushed the movie to a record-breaking opening weekend in which Mr. Moore raked in a $21.8 million dollar haul. So from the standpoint of making some big bucks, maybe Mr. Moore is a shrewd customer.
But hold on!
In his book about Mr. Limbaugh, Al Franken didn't use the term 'idiot' because Rush was a financial failure. Indeed, Rush Limbaugh has the richest contract in all of talk radio. Mr. Franken's contention that Mr. Limbaugh was an idiot rested mainly on two items:
First, that Mr. Limbaugh was big and fat.
Second, that Mr. Limbaugh was not telling the truth on his radio show. (Mr. Franken refers to Rush as 'the world's biggest hypocrite and includes a contrived interview with his so-called fact checker.')
So let's use just those two criteria to see if a similar case can be made with regard to Mr. Moore.
The big and fat argument or in our case, large and bloated (so as not to risk a lawsuit by Mr. Franken) is not in question. Mr. Moore's clothes look like they come from Tent City and his actual weight would probably make a decent batting average. Not being privy to the secret sources that Mr. Franken used when revealing Rush's weight fluctuations, we can simply say that from a pure observation standpoint, Mr. Moore most likely purchases two airline seats when he's traveling alone. And the plane likely tilts in flight.
So what about the truth argument?
It?s generally conceded that Fahrenheit 9/11 has little to do with truth.
The Dallas Morning News ran an editorial showing the now-famous poster of Moore and President Bush holding hands and placed a circle with a slash over it. The News was simply pointing out that there's not enough truth in the movie to even refer to it as a documentary.
Christopher Hitchens of Vanity Fair wrote on Slate.com that to describe [the film] as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. Mr. Hitchens goes on to say that not even Al-Jazeera, on a bad day, would have broadcast this type of propaganda.
Meanwhile, those who despise George W. Bush are attending Fahrenheit 9/11 in droves and are cheering wildly. This is difficult to understand and seems to be in spite of the fact that, since President Clinton left office, the Left has suddenly stopped liking liars.
So can we expect a book from David Corn of The Nation entitled 'The Lies of Michael Moore?' Will Joe Conason write a book called 'Big Lies: Michael Moore?s Left Wing Propaganda Machine?' Will Mr. Franken write a book called 'Lies and the Liberal Lying Liars Who Make Documentaries?'
Or Mr. Franken could simply write a sequel to his Rush Limbaugh book and call it 'Michael Moore is a Large Bloated Moron and Other Observations.' You go for it, Al. And even though it's our title, you're quite welcome to use it.
Lynn Woolley's new book 'Clear Moral Objectives' is now available. He did not steal the title from Ray Bradbury. E-mail lynn@belogical.com.
Connect the dots when you watch 'Fahrenheit'
www.suntimes.com
http://www.suntimes.com/output/steyn/cst-edt-steyn04.htmlJuly 4, 2004
BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
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 . . .
Copyright © The Sun-Times Company
Today's Bleat about Michael Moore
July 8, 2004
http://www.lileks.com/bleats/index.htmlHello! Today will be gruesome for those on the F911 side of the audience, alas. Those disinclined to endure a screed are advised to head over to this week’s addition: Laff mag from 1952, a worthy addition to the dank treasures of Stagworld.
You’ve been warned.
Still here? Okay.
Believing in Bush’s perfidy gives some people the same comfort and emotional nourishment others get from believing in Jesus. It validates them, cements their view of the world – venal, conspiratorial, run by capering chimps who are somehow ten times less intelligent than Usenet posters but somehow able to yank strings on a global scale. A commenter on a Fark thread called Bush “The Unelected Murder Monkey,” for heaven’s sake. Not all the opponents are unhinged, of course. Of course. There are many levels of opposition, from the serene and reasonable to the char-broiled nutburgers who haunt the comments sections of my favorite blogs. Or my favorite talk shows. Today I heard a caller describe how “Fahrenheit 9/11” affected him; now he believed that the Bush administration attacked the Taliban and Iraq because the Saudis wanted it. The host pointed out that the Saudis didn’t want it. The caller said “well, that’s your opinion.” Movies are facts, you see. Facts are just opinions.
Ooooh! You’re really spooked by F911, musta struck a nerve, eh? Scared that Chimpy McDeath is gonna go down? I love that: Moore’s on the cover of Entertainment Weekly and Time and who knows what else; he's the big magilla of the month. But respond to his assertions and you’re acting out of frantic panic. Right. I admit, I don’t like Mr. Moore; I don’t share his contempt for the American people, and I think he’s a dishonest polemicist. Exhibit A:
It unpacks the assertions made by his books and movies. It’s not a flame-throwing rant. It’s the brief for the defense - the client in the dock being America. Fans of Mr. Moore would be advised to read it, if only to get a head start on refuting its innumerable refutations. Plus, it has an essay by Tim Blair, who is crueler and funnier than Moore can ever hope to be. If Moore had Blair’s talent, Ralph Nader would not only be elected president but elevated to Global Pope-Emperor by a deafening national voice-vote.
Which brings us to Moore’s 4th of July piece for the LA Times.
As a young boy, I loved the American flag. I'd lead my younger sisters in patriotic parades up and down the sidewalk, waving the flag, blowing a whistle and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance over and over until my sisters begged me to let them go back to their Easy-Bake Oven.
I’ll take his word for that.
I loved singing the national anthem. I won an essay contest on "What the Flag Means to Me." I decorated my bicycle with little American flags for a Fourth of July parade and won a prize for that too. I became an Eagle Scout and proudly promised to do my duty to God and country. And every year I asked to be the one who planted the flag on the grave of my uncle, a paratrooper who was killed in World War II. I was taught to admire his sacrifice, and I hoped to grow up and do my part, as he had, to keep us free.
His patriotic bona fides thus established, he says this:
But, in high school, things changed. Nine boys from my school came back home from Vietnam in boxes. Draped over each coffin was the American flag. I knew that they also had made a sacrifice. But their sacrifice wasn't for their country: They were sent to die by men who lied to them.
For some reason that intrigued me: nine boys from my school. So I googled around, and found the Casualty list for the Vietnam War. There were six casualties from Davison, Michigan. (He didn’t go to high school in Flint. He didn’t live in Flint. You knew that, right? He lived in a suburb.) They weren’t boys. They were men. The earliest was killed in 1967, and there were two casualties in that year. Two in 1969, one in 1968, and one in 1970. Moore was born in 1954, so he would have entered high school in 1969, after which there were four casualties. (One of which died of a heart attack.) Two were drafted, incidentally. The rest – if I’m reading the site correctly – appeared to have enlisted.
Just so we’re not throwing them around as props, we should give their names. They were Gary Thompson, Martin Scott, David Bonesteel, Howard Doyle, David Ex, and Lowell Holden.
Why bother? Because it has the ring of a Mooreism – an assertion thrown out with the assurance that no one will question it. Sounds right. And if it's not exactly right on the micro level it's true on the macro level - hey, 50 thousand boys died for Nixon's war, and you're quibbling about whether they came from Davison or Flint or wherever? Tell you what: I'll grant him the nine if he grants me yellowcake.
For too long now we have abandoned our flag to those who see it as a symbol of war and dominance, as a way to crush dissent at home. Flags are flying from the back of SUVs, rising high above car dealerships, plastering the windows of businesses and adorning paper bags from fast-food restaurants. But these flags are intended to send a message: "You're either with us or you're against us," "Bring it on!" or "Watch what you say, watch what you do."
I knew a paranoid schizophrenic once. He believed that the New York Times was sending him personal messages through its front-page headlines. He might also have believed that car-dealership flags were telling him to watch what he said.
If flying the flag is intended to crush dissent at home (as opposed to abroad) it’s not doing a very good job, is it? Personally, I fly my flag on holidays because I love this country. If you asked for secondary reasons, I’d say it’s to show support for the troops and their mission. I gave my daughter a flag to wave on the Fourth as part of a long careful education in what sets the American experiment apart from the general nature of human history. (Details to follow.)
Those who absconded with our flag now use it as a weapon against those who question America's course. They remind me of that famous 1976 photo of an anti-busing demonstrator in Boston thrusting a large American flag on a pole into the stomach of the first black man he encountered.
That could be what’s happening here, although whether this is “the first black man he encountered” isn’t clear from the picture. Interesting side note: the man who was being attacked was named Ted Landsmark. He spent part of his youth in Harlem. He later went on to Yale, to get a BA in Political Science, then got a PhD at Boston U. He is presently the president and CEO of the Boston Architectural Center, and has received fellowships from the National Science Foundation. (The Bush administration requested a three percent increase in their funding in the last budget.) The man in the photo wielding the flag was Joseph Rakes, who when last heard from was a laborer on the Big Dig in Boston. Ted Landsmark is writing opinion pieces for the Globe about the nature of the art and landscaping that will go on top of the tunnel.
What a horrible country, eh? But that’s not Michael Moore’s America. Michael Moore’s America is the dirtball shoving the flag at a black man, because that says it all.
These so-called patriots hold the flag tightly in their grip and, in a threatening pose, demand that no one ask questions. Those who speak out find themselves shunned at work, harassed at school, booed off Oscar stages. The flag has become a muzzle, a piece of cloth stuffed into the mouths of those who dare to ask questions.
Or draped backwards on the broad trunk of brave dissenters who manage to schedule in a photo shoot before they’re carted off to the lime pits. You know, this is just so old. So tired. It would be old and tired if it ran in a high school newspaper. Shunned at work? Oh, I can’t tell you the number of times around the newspaper office I’ve been told to avoid someone because he was critical of the Shrub Regime. Harassed at school? I’ve heard of such things, yes. Booed off an Oscar stage?
But I thought that didn’t happen. According to that mouthpiece of the Jackboot set, CNN, Moore said the following after the Oscars:
Moore expanded on his comments with the press backstage.
"I'm an American," he said. "You don't leave your citizenship behind when you enter the doors of the Kodak Theatre." He added that expressing opinions is "what I do. I do that in my filmmaking."
Asked what he thought of the catcalls, he said, "Don't report that there was a split decision in the hall because five loud people booed."
One of these positions would appear to be a fictition. The Kodak theater, incidentally, seats 3400; is Moore saying that the catcalls of less than half a dozen people is a sign that the smothering glove of fascism is clamped over the wide-eyed face of America?
We continue with the LATimes piece:
I think it's time for those of us who love this country — and everything it should stand for — to reclaim our flag from those who would use it to crush rights and freedoms, both here at home and overseas. We need to redefine what it means to be a proud American.
Again with the crushed rights. It’s a standard trope, a talisman worn smooth with obsessive rubbing, and people of Moore’s stripe won’t let it go until the Patriot act is rescinded and we can go back to the good old days of petitioning judges for separate wiretaps for a suspected terrorists’s individual cell phones and land lines. Fine. But let’s talk about the rights and freedoms we’ve crushed abroad. Leave aside Western Europe, which is still reeling from the decision by the Bush adminstration to use Warthogs to strafe all those street protests. Two questions:
Afghanistan had more / less freedoms under the Taliban
Iraq had more / less freedoms under Saddam
I’ll grant you that we surely put the screws to the Iraqi press. Moore himself has famously decried the shutting of Al-Sadr’s paper. Here’s the legal basis for that:
Prohibited Activities: Media organizations are prohibited from broadcasting or publishing original, re-broadcast, re-printed or syndicated material that:
a) incites violence against any individual or group, including racial, ethnic or religious groups and women;
b) incites civil disorder, rioting or damage to property;
c) incites violence against Coalition Forces or CPA personnel;
d) advocates alterations to Iraq's borders by violent means;
e) advocates the return to power of the Iraqi Ba'ath Party or makes statements that purport to be on behalf of the Iraqi Ba'ath Party.
You read that right, friend: in the early days of occupation, before the country had settled down, the OCCUPIERS forbade people to publish newspapers that advocated rape, rioting, and the reinstallation of the fascist regime.
We continue:
If you are one of those who love what President Bush has done for this country and believe you must blindly follow the president to deserve to fly the flag,
Stop. This is a perfect example of prose from someone who either does not understand his opposition, or chooses not to grant that they have a legitimate basis for opposition. Or, it’s just bad sophomoric writing. If you are one of those who love what President Bush has done for this country and believe you must blindly follow the president to deserve to fly the flag. Yes, that’s me. Me deserve fly flag! Me blindly follow! Hulk smash!
you should ask yourself some difficult questions about just how proud you are of the America we now inhabit:
Oh, no: not the difficult questions! Biggles, stab him with the leaden accusation.
Are you proud that one in six children lives in poverty in America?
No. I’m ashamed. I think we should be more like British Columbia, where one in six children lives in poverty. No – wait. Er - next question.
But before we move along, I’d like to echo what Dennis Prager said about this today: child poverty is closely tied to unwed motherhood. You want a poor kid, have one when you’re young and the father’s contribution consists of bimonthly Pamper drops. If Mr. Moore wishes to lead society back to a place where unwed motherhood is frowned upon and men are expected to marry the women they impregnate, I’ll be right there with him.
Are you proud that 40 million adult Americans are functional illiterates?
This is addressed in “Michael Moore is a Big Fat Stupid White Man.” As the authors note: the survey to which Moore refers also says (quoting MMIABFSWM) “in the next paragraph, [the survey] goes on to note that 25 percent of those people who scored in the lowest literacy category were immigrants who have learned little or no English. And in classic Moore fashion, he also fails to disclose that nearly 19 percent of the group he includes in the uneducated masses are actually people who have ‘visual difficulties that affect their ability to read print.’”
The authors also note that when it comes to the highest level of literacy skills, “the US figure is 21.1 percent, compared to 16.6 percent in the UK and only 13.4 percent in Germany.” I’m sure there are those who find calamity in those numbers, too, some sort of gap in the distribution of literacy skills. The rich get wordier while the poor are unable to afford the new, longer words, and have to make do with hand-me-down single-syllable slang.
There’s more Damning Stats of this ilk, and it’s too late for me to slog through them. Basic point: we dumb, and it’s everyone’s fault but the educational system. Then this:
Are you proud that the rest of the world, which poured out its heart to us after Sept. 11, now looks at us with disdain and disgust?
Let me see if I can find the right way to put this:
No.
Again, the high-school-level thinking: “the rest of the world.” It’s simplistic to identify Iran, Iraq and North Korea as evil. It’s simplistic to state in the immediate wake of 9/11 that nations are either with the terrorists, or the United States. But it’s a sign of complex nuanced thinking to say that “the rest of the world . . . looks at us with disdain and disgust.” Yes, the world poured out its heart; it cost them nothing. Hearts are easily tipped and just as easily refilled. When the French newspaper said “We are all Americans now” it sounded nice, and I suppose it was, but in retrospect it looks as if there was an undercurrent of appeasement and surrender: we are all Americans because we are all victims in a sense, non? We ceased to earn the precious coin of French approval when we fired the chief procurer for their favorite customer, Iraq. C’est dommage. We can live with it.
Wait until France gets a hard shot in the nose. Wait until France reacts with some nasty work. They’ll get a golf-clap from the chattering class over here and a you-go-girl from Red America. France could nuke an Algerian terrorist camp and the rest of the world would tut-tut for a day, then ask if the missiles France used were for sale. And of course the answer would be oui.
Are you proud that nearly 3 billion people on this planet do not have access to clean drinking water when we have the resources and technology to remedy this immediately?
Immediately! Right now! The entire purpose of the American economy must be turned to the task of building sanitary water systems in rural Peru, old Soviet industrial sites in the Urals, and the Chinese hinterlands! Immediately! We are not only obligated to step in and help poor Robert Mugabe upgrade the pipes of urban Zimbabwe, we must issue bonds to ensure that these systems work until the sun sputters out. Because that is the first obligation of the government, as set forth in the Constitution: ensure that someone in the Sudan can drink tap water without getting the squirts.
I support helping struggling countries that aren’t run by kleptocrats upgrade their utilities; really, I do. It’s a good thing to do. But look how Moore sets the bar: if we don’t help 3 billion people, we can’t be proud.
And who might profit from this global project?
Are you proud of the fact that our president sent our soldiers off to a war that had nothing to do with the self-defense of this country?
Hello:
This is the true state of disgrace we are living in. I hope we can make it up someday to these brave kids (and older men and women in our reserves and National Guard). They deserve an apology, they deserve our thanks — and a raise — and they deserve a big parade with lots of flags.
Draped over their coffins, that is. As Moore wrote elsewhere:
There is a lot of talk amongst Bush's opponents that we should turn this war over to the United Nations. Why should the other countries of this world, countries who tried to talk us out of this folly, now have to clean up our mess? I oppose the U.N. or anyone else risking the lives of their citizens to extract us from our debacle. I'm sorry, but the majority of Americans supported this war once it began and, sadly, that majority must now sacrifice their children until enough blood has been let that maybe -- just maybe -- God and the Iraqi people will forgive us in the end.
Moore did not tell us how many American deaths would be sufficient to earn God’s forgiveness. I can’t tell you. It's not something I think about. I don't have my soldier-death / God-placating abacus handy. I didn’t know God was rooting for Saddam. The things you learn on the internet!
Back to his opinion piece:
Let's create a world in which, when people see the Stars and Stripes, they will think of us as the people who brought peace to the world, who brought good-paying jobs to all citizens and clean water for the world to drink.
In anticipation of that day, I am putting my flag out today, with hope and with pride.
There you have it. He wants the flag to stand for clean water. This from a man who waddles up to the deep well of American freedom, fumbles with his zipper, and pisses in it.Saudi royal family lambasts Michael Moore for twisting the truth in his 9/11 film
(Filed: 01/08/2004)In an exclusive interview, Prince Turki al-Faisal tells Con Coughlin why the US film-maker is so wrong
The Saudi royal family has launched a bitter attack on the American film-maker Michael Moore over his claims that the Bush administration secretly smuggled a number of high-ranking Saudi nationals out of the US in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks.
In the first official comment by the Saudi royal family on Moore's controversial film Fahrenheit 9/11, a leading member of the family said his country has been fully exonerated of any complicity in the attacks by the report of the 9/11 commission.
Prince Turki al-Faisal, the Saudi Arabian ambassador to London and a half-brother of Crown Prince Abdullah, was in charge of Saudi intelligence at the time of the 2001 terror attacks. He said that Moore had failed to carry out adequate research into his controversial claims that the Saudis were involved with Osama bin Laden, the al-Qa'eda leader, in the build-up to the 9/11 atrocity.
'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.'
Prince Turki said there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for the decision to fly home a number of prominent Saudis in the days following the attacks.
'They were allowed to leave because everyone recognised that anyone with the name bin Laden might have a hard time with the American public after the terror attacks,' he said.
Far from assisting al-Qa'eda, Prince Turki said that the Saudis thought they were the most likely target of a devastating terrorist attack by bin Laden's organisation, and the country had been placed on its highest state of alert since the summer of 2001.
'We thought that bin Laden was planning to attack us, not America. Therefore it was not exactly in our interests for us to support bin Laden's organisation.'
Prince Turki insisted that Saudi Arabia has been a key ally in Washington's long-running campaign against bin Laden's organisation.
In 1998 he travelled to Afghanistan to meet Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, to persuade him to evict bin Laden. At first Mullah Omar agreed, but later reneged on his promise.
'The second time I saw him our meeting ended in something of a shouting match,' said Prince Turki.
The Saudi security forces are currently involved in an intensive operation to track down the last remnants of an al-Qa'eda cell that has been responsible for a number of devastating terror attacks in the kingdom.
'We have made significant progress in fighting al-Qa'eda in Saudi Arabia,' he said. 'Of the 26 known al-Qa'eda hardliners in the kingdom, we have killed or captured more than half of them.'
Prince Turki said that the Saudis were also keen to help stabilise the situation in Iraq. 'Much of the equipment we have seized during raids on al-Qa'eda cells has come from Iraq,' he said.
'There is no doubt that as a result of the Iraq war it is easier for al-Qa'eda to sell their point of view to potential recruits. Al-Qa'eda has become stronger and more active since the Iraq conflict.'
To counter this the Saudi government last week proposed setting up a Muslim peacekeeping force that would assist the interim Iraqi government to defeat the insurgents.
'We are making every effort to assist the new Iraqi government to establish itself. We want Iraq to be a positive influence on the region. We do not want it to be disruptive and negative as it was under Saddam Hussein.'
Information appearing on telegraph.co.uk is the copyright of Telegraph Group Limited
Michael Moore Slimes Cuban Americans
Reprinted from NewsMax.com
Humberto Fontova
Thursday, Aug. 12, 2004The Democrats' pet hippopotamus is fouling the waters for them in south Florida. Seems that Michael Moore dumped on Cuban Americans big time – not in his latest masterpiece, but in a previous gem, "Downsize This." Lately the porcine producer's slanders and slurs are getting much press in south Florida.
Cuban Americans are all "Terrorists! Gangsters! Dope Smugglers! Burglars!" and – worst of all – "Wimps!" rails the rotund documentarian. Perhaps some Democratic operatives are wincing and cursing?
"And just when the mainstream media were headlining 'Bush's eroding support among Cuban Americans!'" they wail. "Now this hippo waddles up and tramples everything!"
Allow me to allay your fears, Democratic National Committee. Regarding the presidential election, you people needn't worry. You hadn't a prayer with Cuban Americans to begin with. So please lighten up on your pet hippo. He knows what he's doing, believe me.
It's an old song, really. Ask Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart. He heard it almost daily during his 2002 campaign for a congressional seat against another Cuban American, Annie Betancourt. In that race the mainstream media assured us (almost daily) that the issues were crystal clear, a veritable "referendum" was forthcoming. To wit:
The judicious, enlightened (and Democratic) Mrs. Betancourt favored "dialogue" and "engagement" with "President" Castro. The pig-headed "hard-liner" (and Republican) Mario Diaz-Balart favored the beastly and archaic "embargo." When he finally woke up, the pink media assured us, Rip Van Winkle was hipper to his surroundings than the hapless, blundering blockhead Mario Diaz-Balart was to his.
"Where has that yo-yo BEEN!?" they snickered. Didn't he know all that cranky "hard-line" stuff was finished, old-hat, kaput? Didn't he sense the enlightened "moderate" views of second-generation Cuban Americans? This highly educated, judicious – and, especially, "hip" – generation of Cuban Americans called the shots in south Florida nowadays. And here's Mario, that doofus, making the very embargo the linchpin of his campaign!
Actually, pinks were delighted. Come Mario's certain trouncing, a new era would finally dawn in south Florida politics. They rubbed their hands, smacked their lips and snickered. The word "referendum" appeared almost daily in their editorials. Mrs. Betancourt was riding the new wave, they assured us. She was definitely "with it!" by forsaking those noisy "hard-liners" and by denouncing that tacky "embargo."
Pink political soothsayers assure us that on matters Castroite, second-generation Cuban Americans are much more "realistic" and "open-minded" than their absolutely insufferable parents, uncles and aunts. Editorial wizards, from the Miami Herald to the Orlando Sentinel to the Washington Post, were adamant on the topic, the whole while snickering softly to themselves, "Those Cuban-exile hard-line blockheads!" They nudged each other. "At long last, these cranks and hotheads will get the drubbing they so richly deserve!"
Well, the day of the election finally arrived. Mario is much too decent and humane a person to belabor the details of his victory. "Mrs. Betancourt was highly respected in the community, especially by me. I'm happy to have won." A true gentleman, Mario Diaz-Balart.
That leaves me to tell it like it was. So, regarding the enlightened Mrs. Betancourt's showing in the race ... Anyone remember the boxer Duane "The Great White Hope" Bobick? ... Anyone remember when he got in the ring with Ken Norton in '77?
Wasn't it all of 50 SECONDS that he lasted? I'll never forget that "fight" – or the "Saturday Night Live" skit about it (and back in its heyday, too!) It topped even SNL's "Raid on Nicosia!" skit. Priceless. Johnny Carson quipped about it for months.
But compared to the Diaz-Balart / Betancourt race, the Bobick / Norton fight was a close-run thing, a veritable nail-biter. So ghastly a stomping, so hideous a rout, so complete and overwhelming a victory as "hard-liner" Mario achieved over "progressive" Annie had not been seen since Hitler's (outnumbered, by the way) Wehrmacht invaded France. The Florida Democrat got a stomping that makes George Mcgovern's ghastly stomping in '72 look like a squeaker.
Not only did Mario Diaz-Balart stomp Mrs. Betancourt 2 to 1 overall – but Mario also got 95 PERCENT of the Cuban American vote in his district. That's 95, as in 9x10+5. Even Republicans gaped.
Those young, hip and enlightened Cuban American voters (this district had the youngest Cuban American voters in south Florida. The pinks got THAT part right) trounced Mrs. Betancourt by a margin so enormous that even Florida Democrats forsook a recount. The Democrat Mrs. Betancourt made Duane Bobick look like Rocky Balboa.
Then YIKES! Democratic political wizards and soothsayers went into Ralph Kramden mode. Remember when Ralph got nervous in front of a camera, etc., and froze up? ... MA-HA-MA-HA-MA-HA. Right after Mario's victory, many a pink political prognosticator was a ringer for Ralphie-boy
Other pinks cringed and started snuffling. Some wailed. Many wept openly. And wouldn't you know it? The word "referendum" VANISHED from south Florida's mainstream political discourse as completely as the words "Johnny Huang" vanished from the Beltway's political discourse during the '96 campaign. You couldn't find it on Page One, or page 57 – not in the Miami Herald's editorials, not in the Washington Post, not behind the refrigerator, not between the mattresses – or under the sofa, or behind the TV. You couldn't hear it on NPR, or see it on CNN. Come Mario's landslide victory and that doggone "referendum" pulled an Andy Kaufman on us.
So please proceed, Mr. Moore. Carry on with your slanders. Your party and mentors have nothing to lose, I assure you. George Bush is singing the same campaign song in south Florida as he did in 2000. And he's right up there with Ronald Reagan in popularity among Cuban Americans. Mario Diaz-Balart sang it again to resounding victory in 2002. It's quite a catchy tune down there, Mr. Moore.
As for Moore's actual oinkings against Cuban Americans? I hesitate to take them on. Their stupidity staggers, even by the standards of a contemporary Oscar winner for "Best Documentary."
But a few of his oinkings tempt rebuttal with a powerful lure, almost a suction. "These Cuban exiles," Moore snorts, after pulling his snout from the slop, "for all their chest-thumping and terrorism, are really just a bunch of wimps. That's right. Wimps! When you don't like the oppressor in your country, you stay there and try to overthrow him. You don't just turn tail and run like these Cubans. Imagine if the American colonists had all run to Canada – and then insisted the Canadians had a responsibility to overthrow the British down in the States! ... So the Cubans crybabies came here expecting us to fight their fight for them. And, like morons, we have."
Here you want to mention that Moore dropped out of college after one semester. But, honestly, his bovine ignorance has deeper sources. And, overall, I'd say a college education is WAY overated. In the liberal arts, especially, it generally magnifies and spreads stupidity. America would be much better off with more mechanics and welders and fewer poli sci majors.
I heard Moore's Cuban idiocy almost word for word from my college professor. His name was Dr. Stephen Ambrose, and he went on to become America's best-selling historian. Thunderous stupidity on matters Cuban appears downright congenital in Democratic circles.
For details of the Cuban Freedom Fight, and for highlights of the most protracted guerrilla war fought on this continent (hint: it was fought not BY Fidel and Che but AGAINST Fidel and Che), please see "The Bay of Pigs – The Truth" and "Cuba's REAL Rebels – and Dunces" – some real "wimps" show up here.
Here's a better analogy, Mr. Moore. And for simplicity's sake, let's go ahead and equate the level of repression and police control of British Colonial rule with that of Stalinism. Let's say that France, rather than backing George Washington's rebels (over twice as many French troops served and died at Yorktown as Colonial troops. To his last days Cornwallis blamed the French fleet for his defeat in the Colonies).
Anyway, let's say France not only yanked the rug out from under Washington's rebels, but also then turned around and signed a deal with King George (he was the British king at the time, Mr. Moore) pledging France to prevent, by force of arms or political blackmail, any other power – say, Spain or Holland (these are nations in Europe that at the time did not get along with King George, Mr. Moore) – from aiding the rebels in any way, shape or form. What might the prospects for a successful Colonial rebellion have been THEN? Hmmmmm?
A solid ally (by which I mean Republicans, ask Nicaragua's Contras) for Cuba's freedom-fighters in '61-'62 and Miami jukeboxes today would feature Shania Twain rather than Gloria Estefan. Some "Fidel Castro" fellow would merit a quarter-page in a Time-Life book on "Those Fabulous Fifties!"
And given Cuba's economic record in her brief 50 years as an independent republic (not to mention her expatriates' record in Florida), Cuba would today be a Caribbean Singapore or Japan rather than a sister to Haiti and Zimbabwe – economically speaking, that is, because Haiti, pesthole that it is, allows tons more personal freedom than Castro's Cuba. Let Charlie Rangel and Maxine Waters snivel otherwise.
Also, all those bilingual signs would be in Havana. "Will you people PLEASE SPEAK SPANISH!" we'd yell in exasperation at all the yuppies working in Havana's thriving stock exchange. It always seems like y'all are talking about us when you get together and speak English! Caramba!"
And that was YOUR party, Mr. Moore that strangled the Cuban Freedom Fight. Here's Gen. Alexander Haig, who saw it from up close. Haig was aide to JFK's secretary of the Army in 1962, Cyrus Vance (honest!) and dealt personally with many of Cuba's betrayed Freedom Fighters.
"A soldier to the bone," Gen. Haig writes about Brigada 2506's second in command, Erneido Oliva. "One of the most fiercely honorable men I have ever known." Regarding the Kennedy-Khrushchev swindle that saved Castro's hide: "A deplorable error resulting in political havoc and untold human suffering in Cuba and throughout Central America," writes Gen. Haig.
Those were YOUR mentors – YOUR hosts at the Boston convention – who strangled the Cuban Freedom Fight, Mr. Moore. But so what, right? After all, looks like the beneficiary of their bloody sellout REALLY likes your movies!
Do I hear Michael Moore fans sniveling out there?......Yes I do!
"Uh-UNH!" They snivel. "Where do you get your history, you crackpot Cuban-exile fascist! That's not what I saw in 'Thirteen Days'! Or in 'The Missiles of October'! Or in Oliver Stone's 'JFK'! Or even on MTV's Rock the Vote! I never heard Janeane Garofalo mention that on Al Franken's show! I didn't read about it in Entertainment Tonight or People magazine, or in MoveOn.org's chat room either! So how can it be true, HUNH?!"
Try Gen. Alexander Haig's "Inner Circles: How America Changed the World," for starters.
One final gem about Cuban Americans from the Democrats' official historian and pet manatee: "These Cubans have not slept a wink since they GRABBED THEIR ASSETS (capitalization mine) and headed to Florida to live high off the hog!"
"Grabbed their assets," folks. Let that sink in for a second. Michael Moore was a main draw at the Democratic convention. His brilliance and wisdom won him deafening applause and Elvis-like adulation from Cannes to London, from Boston to Hollywood. So let's look at it again to make sure: "grabbed their assets." Yep, he actually said it.
Does he mean the clothes Cuban refugees wore on their backs? The few crumbs they stuffed in their pockets? Does this imbecile realize that Castro stole all "their assets"? Does this moron know that no one could leave Cuba with anything? Does this obese idiot know that women had their very earrings yanked off their ears by Castroite guards at the airport?
One elderly lady insisted on wearing a small crucifix. "Take it off!" snarled the Castroite guard at the airport. "You can't take it. That pendant belongs to La Revolucion!"
"The hell it does!" She yelled back in tears. This crucifix belonged to my son – who you swine MURDERED by the firing squad! I'll die before I give it to you Communist scum!"
She was dragged off.
Such was the"grabbing of assets" as we left Cuba, Mr. Moore.
Did someone mention "Stupid White Men"? * * * * * *
Humberto Fontova is the author of "The Hellpig Hunt," described as "Powerful and compelling!" by Publisher's Weekly, as "Fascinating and Fun!" by the New Orleans Times Picauyune and as "Just what the doctor ordered!" by Ted Nugent. You may reach Mr. Fontova by e-mail at hfontova@earthlink.net
