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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (33412)	7/3/2004 11:37:52 PM
From: American Spirit	Respond to of 81568

Bush is so unpopular that Bushies are considering running ads with Laura Bush starring in them. I'm not kidding. Since it's impossible to dislike the demure laura, she's their best asset. You can already see her right behind GW on every Bush ad's disclaimer "I'm GW Bush and I support these outright lies and innuendos". gg

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (33412)	7/3/2004 11:50:45 PM
From: Ann Corrigan	Respond to of 81568

The temperature at which Michael Moore's pants burn By Brendan Nyhan (Chinu, quiz games are boring, here's something more productive for you to do: Michael Moore's career as a rabble-rousing populist has been marked by a frequent pattern of dissembling and factual inaccuracy. He distorted the chronology of his first movie, repeatedly peddled the myth that the Bush administration gave $43 million to the Taliban; published two books that were riddled with factual errors and distortions; and won an Academy Award for "Bowling for Columbine," a documentary based on a confused and often contradictory argument that features altered footage of a Bush-Quayle campaign ad, a misleading presentation of a speech by National Rifle Association president Charlton Heston, and other factual distortions. With his new documentary Moore has surged to new prominence -- and has come under increasing scrutiny. "Fahrenheit 9/11" is filled with a series of deceptive half-truths and carefully phrased insinuations that Moore does not adequately back up. The 2000 Florida recount The recount conducted by a consortium of media organizations found something quite different than Moore, as Newsday recently pointed out. If the statewide recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court had gone ahead, the consortium found that Bush would have won the election under two different scenarios: counting only "undervotes," or taking into account the reported intentions of some county electoral officials to include "overvotes" as well. The Saudi flights In another scene, Moore suggests that members of Osama Bin Laden's family and other Saudis were able to fly out of the country while air traffic was grounded after September 11. After an initial report in Newsweek inaccurately characterized the scene, saying it had made a direct claim to that effect, Moore's staff replied with a legalistic parsing. The film does accurately date the Saudi flights out of the country to "after September 13" as they claim (flights leaving the country resumed on the 14th), but Moore does not take the important step of explaining the meaning of this date in the film. Moore leaves viewers with the distinct impression that the Bin Ladens left the country before others were allowed to, which is not true. Saudi investments and business relationships Moore also uses the power of insinuation to play on the relationship between the Bush family and the Bin Ladens. The facts are thin, but that doesn't stop him from making ominous suggestions about the connections between the two. Moore drops a big number - $1.4 billion - claiming "That's how much the Saudi royals and their associates have given the Bush family, their friends and their related businesses in the past three decades," adding that "$1.4 billion doesn't just buy a lot of flights out of the country. It buys a lot of love." But Newsweek's Isikoff and Hosenball show that nearly 90% of that total comes from contracts awarded by the Saudi government to BDM, a defense contractor. As usual, the connections are loose and circumstantial at best. Letterman Refutes What's Said in the Film During a recent interview on "Late Show with David Letterman," the host identified the problems with the circumstantial argument of the film in a series of probing questions to Moore: When you look at the film in total, are there things there - if I were smarter, could I refute some of these points? Shall I believe you that everything means exactly what it looks like? I mean, the presentation is impressive, but could a smarter man than me come in and say, "Yes, this happened, but it means nothing," "Yes, that happened but it means nothing"? But put together in a puzzle it creates one inarguable, compelling circumstance. Moore's response to Letterman (after a joking aside) sums up the problem with his work. Despite proclamations that the film is satirical and represents his opinion, Moore still makes strong claims about its veracity: "You can't refute what's said in the film. It's all there, the facts are all there, the footage is all there." Sadly, as with most of Moore's work, this is simply not true.