So Topical!
Whether you are a liberal or a conservative, a staunch Libertarian or a dedicated anarchist, there is at least one thing we can all agree on. Michael Moore is a fat man. I was smuggled into a sneak preview of his new magnum opus, the unfortunately titled Fahrenheit 9/11 and came away with the solid realization that this man not only was fat (which is no crime in and of itself...I guess), but has a fat mouth. What that fat mouth says impresses a large number of people yet continues to enrage an endless constituency. To say that Michael Moore is a polarizing figure would not be exactly accurate. But there must be something said about comparing the standing ovation of fifteen minutes he received at the Cannes film festival to the words of some of his harsher critics. Christopher Hitchens (mostly a liberal bomb thrower motherfucker) has this to say "To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness."
Before I go too much further, I should explain where I stand. I'm to the point where I realize that politics is like the WWF. It's so fake and phony that it screams bullshit at every turn. Be that as it may, I intend to vote for John Kerry this November and urge everyone else to as well. The harm done to this country by George W. Bush and his gang should be obvious, and it pains me that this sloppy documentary is what is going to push people out of Bush's corner. He shouldn't have a corner. There is very little redeeming about this presidency, this dare I say it, "Imperial Presidency". There is an amusing scene of Bush and some of the more prominent members of his administration getting made up for the cameras. Moore spent more time focusing on them looking silly then getting to the nitty gritty reasons why they were unfit to lead. In a nutshell, I present to you my reasons.
Dick Cheney should be fired for preying on the fear of ordinary Americans and constantly falsifying information/killing hellof turkeys.
Donald Rumsfeld should resign for giving the green light to torture prisoners/being a pompous motherfucker.
Paul Wolfowitz should be fired for not even being close to knowing how many American soldiers have been killed in Iraq, a war he was a principle engineer for.
Condaleeza Rice should be fired for pretty much refusing to work a little bit extra on that "terrorism thing".
Colin Powell should resign because he sold out and went with what was best for the administration and not what was best for the country, and perhaps knowingly laid out information he knew to be false.
John Ashcroft should just resign for being a weird asshole. Yes, that's my expert advice. And that is probably what Mr. Moore would say as well.
The film, much like this review thus far, is just a rambling mess. Michael Moore throws so many things out there with little to no cohesion. The "stolen" election of 2000 goes right into 9/11 and then Saudi Arabia is kind of dealt with and then we talk about Iraq for awhile and then Michael Moore patronizes a few people and does typical Michael Moore stuff.
Lets forget about the fact that he drastically simplifies very complex matters. Lets forget that Moore's philosophy is in essence, "Chomsky for children" (The National Review came up with that zinger). The first thing that totally got on my nerves about this "documentary" is Moore's outrage about the removal of the Saudi's from the country following 9/11. Especially since as I am thinking about it, and I think that if the intelligence community had quarantined the bin Laden family in the wake of 9/11 he would be indignant about that too. I can see him defending the rights of the wrongfully detained family members, a horrible case of "guilt by association" gone awry. Moore wonders aloud who authorized these flights. Let me tell him. RICHARD CLARKE. That would be that dour former anti-terrorism czar who came out with that damning book against the Bush Administration's terrorism policy a few months ago. He's gone on record and said he did it. Many times. On TV. In print. In sign language. I don't know whether Michael Moore is just being inept or if he realized someone in his corner (essentially) contradicting him just couldn't be included in his film. I don't know and I don't really give a fuck.
He then decides to drone on and on about the close relationship between the Saudi royal family and the Bush royal family. HOLY CRAP, THIS IS NOT NEWS. If you didn't know this, why didn't you ask me? It seems a bit counter productive for him to completely demonize the Saudi populace though (I'm no Saudi apologist myself, but I am of the mind that maaaaybe some of them didn't have something to do with 9/11 or have their money invested in our banks). In Moore's eyes it almost seems like there are three types of Saudi's. The royals, the bin Laden's, and the ones who chop people's heads off in the square. The subtle machiavellian world of the House of Saud (clashes between the liberal and the conservative, the secular and the Islamist, the old world and new) are not mentioned at all. Curiously absent also is the word "PAKISTAN." If Moore is so eager to connect the already connected dots of our involvement with crooked regimes he stopped way short of the whole story.
Whatev. His movie. If he doesn't want to tell the whole story (and there isn't enough film in the world to tell the ENTIRE STORY) then that is his deal. The most blatantly laughable portion of the film comes when Moore starts talking about the "sovereign nation of Iraq" and showing images of a utopian desert kingdom, complete with laughing children and kite flying.
IRAQ WAS RULED BY SADDAM HUSSEIN WHO ALTHOUGH HARMLESS BEYOND HIS BORDERS WAS STILL A BAD MOTHERFUCKER. And not all Iraqi's are good people. And not all Iraqi's are bad people. Chemical Ali and Salam Pax have about as much in common as David Koresh and Martin Luther King. Given an opportunity to completely demolish the President's dishonesty, Moore instead offers up a different kind of deception, one just as muddled and confusing. The War In Iraq, as far as I am concerned, was a ridiculous neo-conservative venture for God knows what, and the reason it is bullshit is that it was built on lies, lies, lies. Time to tell the truth. Iraq was ruled by a horrible dictator. A lot of people died because of him. Ask anyone from the Shiite Rebellion. Ask the Marsh Arabs. Ask the Kurds. Ask any of Uday Hussein's arbitrary victims. There was a rotten dirty bad bad regime in place. Anyone who questions that is insane. But apparently, to Michael Moore, Iraq was living exactly how it wanted to live under the tyrant because he was down with kites. (The Taliban, by the way, DIDN'T allow kites, or feeding pigeons).
The War In Iraq was a big fucking disastrous mess, I agree. But Moore offers no solutions, no ideas, no vague postulations about what is to be done of this mess. Instead, finger pointing abounds. A healthy mix of finger pointing and trying to find a way out would have been appreciated. The harsh images of dead and dying Iraqi innocents (and there have been something like 10,000 so far...at least) are the most poignant and upsetting of the entire film. Even hawks should wince at the pain that this war is inflicting, and it begs the question that is asked toward the film's conclusion. "And for what?"
I wish I could say. Michael Moore can't. He is all over the place and can't find a foothold with what to say. What I came away with was that this presidency is corrupt and that the the war in Iraq was a bad idea. Well, thank you very much Professor.
If this is the propaganda that will finally galvanize people to vote against Bush then I'm all for it. If this is what it takes to ensure that no more desert countries are invaded for horseshit reasons, then I'm down. I just realized that I don't give a fuck about this movie either way. It was entertaining. It was full of a lot of crap. See it. Vote against George. And let that be the end of it.
Tommy Burma