More Distortions From Michael Moore

Newsweek ^ | June 30, 2004 | Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball

[mkj6080]

June 30 - In his new movie, “Fahrenheit 9/11,” film-maker Michael Moore makes the eye-popping claim that Saudi Arabian interests “have given” $1.4 billion to firms connected to the family and friends of President George W. Bush. This, Moore suggests, helps explain one of the principal themes of the film: that the Bush White House has shown remarkable solicitude to the Saudi royals, even to the point of compromising the war on terror. When you and your associates get money like that, Moore says at one point in the movie, “who you gonna like? Who’s your Daddy?”

But a cursory examination of the claim reveals some flaws in Moore’s arithmetic—not to mention his logic. Moore derives the $1.4 billion figure from journalist Craig Unger’s book, “House of Bush, House of Saud.” Nearly 90 percent of that amount, $1.18 billion, comes from just one source: contracts in the early to mid-1990’s that the Saudi Arabian government awarded to a U.S. defense contractor, BDM, for training the country’s military and National Guard. What’s the significance of BDM? The firm at the time was owned by the Carlyle Group, the powerhouse private-equity firm whose Asian-affiliate advisory board has included the president’s father, George H.W. Bush...

[ClaireSolt]

It is almost imposible and probably counterprodsuctive to sue. Public figures are in a different category when it comes to slander and libel. It's pretty much anything goes.

[monkeyman81]

Yep. I don't know how much it will hurt Kerry- there seem to be a lot of people who don't follow the news very much and don't know how to think critically and might be convinced by Moore's arguments.
If our side gets info out about Moore, that's another matter. As liberal as Kerry is, Moore is much further left.
Moore claims that the war in Afghanistan was about a gas pipeline and not about overthrowing the Taliban. I don't think Kerry would say that; hell, I don't even think Dean would have said that.
On the other hand, a lot of Dems are embracing this guy because he is anti-Bush; never mind his anti-American rants to European audiences, or his conspiracy theories and bogus claims. If it becomes widely known what kind of guy Moore is, and that a lot of Democrats have embraced his movie, then that definitely has the potential to hurt the Dems. But on the other hand, Moore may well embarrass himself. I think/hope he is in the process of doing so through this movie.

[Republic_of_Secession.]

Here is an even more interesting excerpt.

It is true that there are still some in the FBI who had questions about the flights-and wish more care had been taken to examine the passengers. But the film’s basic point—that the flights represented perhaps the supreme example of the Saudi government’s influence in the Bush White House-is almost impossible to defend. Why? Because while the film claims—correctly—that the “White House” approved the flights, it fails to note who exactly in the White House did so. It wasn’t the president, or the vice president or anybody else supposedly corrupted by Saudi oil money. It was Richard Clarke, the counter-terrorism czar who was a holdover from the Clinton administration and who has since turned into a fierce Bush critic. Clarke has publicly testified that he gave the greenlight—conditioned on FBI clearance.

Moore has been really hyping up the assertion that Bush gave the order to let the Bin Laden family go, but it was in fact Richard Clarke: a Clinton hold over & fellow traveler who approved of the plan.

[FITZ]

That's too bad --- it seems there should be something that limits this kind of thing --- if all voters were smart enough to understand that what they see in movies isn't necessarily true --- but too many people are completely gullible, the see soap operas and believe it's reality.