Do you think there is some connection between HANOI JANE and HANOI JOHN? Picture this:
John Kerry introduces Michael Moore at the DHIMMICRATIC CONVENTION in Boston
http://www.iconoclast.ca/databases/images/aJOHNKERRY-MOORE.JPG
Posted on 07/06/2004 2:46:18 PM PDT by swilhelm73
June 29 (Bloomberg) -- A political activist rang me up and told me I had to see the new documentary about the president.
``It's chilling,'' he said. ``It shows what a slimeball this guy is.''
So I saw the movie, and it was -- how to put this? -- a crock. Watching it I thought: Whoever produced this slanderous mess deserves to be run out of polite society.
That was 10 years ago, and the documentary was a slapdash confection of lies and innuendo called ``The Clinton Chronicles.''
It accused Bill Clinton -- slyly and indirectly -- of drug- running and worse. There was no evidence but lots of insinuation, a series of meaningless coincidences presented in breathless tones so the weak-minded might connect dots that weren't there.
Now the U.S. is being treated to the same kind of exercise, on a much grander scale, with Michael Moore's scabrous ``Fahrenheit 9/11.'' And once again weak-minded ideologues are lapping it up like hungry pups.
Big Difference
There's a big difference, though. Polite society, especially the mainstream press, recognized the producers of ``The Clinton Chronicles,'' a California-based group called Citizens for Honest Government, as the fools they were. After hawking the film on his TV show, the televangelist Jerry Falwell never quite recovered what little reputation he had once enjoyed. Years later, he was still apologizing in TV appearances for associating himself with the movie.
Now, however, the paranoid strain has so thoroughly saturated U.S. politics that Moore's cinematic slander can be feted and extolled -- not only by mainstream movie reviewers but, more ominously, by the same Democratic Party establishment that Moore accuses of colluding with President George W. Bush.
At the Washington premiere of ``Fahrenheit 9/11'' last week, Moore was conspicuously greeted for the cameras by Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
``There might be half the Democratic Senate here,'' Senator Bob Graham of Florida told the New York Times.
Unlike the Democratic Party, Moore has always prided himself on his radicalism. So who's changed -- Moore or the Democratic Party?
Surprised by Surprise
I saw the movie at an early showing on Saturday afternoon in a packed theater in my heavily liberal Washington suburb. As the film unspooled, the audience laughed, fell silent, and tut-tutted to Moore's heavy-handed cues with Pavlovian discipline.
I, on the other hand, was unmoved. (Maybe you've noticed.) But I was surprised by the movie -- and surprised by my surprise.
Shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Moore posted this on his Web site: ``We, the United States of America, are culpable in committing so many acts of terror and bloodshed that we had better get a clue about the culture of violence in which we have been active participants.''
So I wasn't surprised that Moore is, um, skeptical about U.S. motives for invading Iraq. To the extent he has an explicit thesis at all, it's that the invasion was a scheme to divert attention from the Bush family's involvement with the family of Osama bin Laden.
Shadings of Fact
And having followed Moore's career, I wasn't surprised by his shadings of fact. When he says that ``many studies'' showed Al Gore won the vote in Florida, for example, he neglects to mention that many more, including recounts by the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post, say Gore did not.
And I wasn't surprised that when he ridicules Bush for sitting passively in front of a classroom of schoolchildren directly after learning of the attacks, he omits the reaction of the school principal.
``I don't think anyone could have handled it better'' than Bush did, the principal, Gwendolyn Tose-Rigell, told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
And I wasn't surprised that Moore accuses -- if ``accuse'' is a synonym for ``insinuate'' -- Bush of approving the flight of the bin Laden family from the U.S. after Sept. 11. Why, the family's passports weren't even checked, Moore says, even though ``that's what would happen to you or I.''
I wasn't surprised that they don't teach grammar in film school.
Moore's Method
What did surprise me, though, was the crudity of Moore's method. Moore calls his movie an ``op-ed,'' but it is written in Crayola, with a heavy grip.
He mostly avoids straightforward factual assertions -- which makes the movie harder to confront and argue with -- in favor of ellipsis and misdirection. The music is alternately creepy (that's how you know he's being serious) and chipper (that's how you know he's being sarcastic). His cultural allusions show the depth of the Baby Boomer satirist, ranging from TV reruns like ``Dragnet'' to TV reruns like ``Bonanza.''
The movie's only powerful moments -- of soldiers in Iraq, of the immediate aftermath of the Twin Towers' collapse -- come in footage Moore has acquired from other sources.
Party Embrace
Will anyone care that the movie, viewed as either art or journalism, is a mess? ``Fahrenheit 9/11'' has a Palme d'Or from the Cannes film festival -- and now the implicit endorsement of the Democratic Party establishment.
This embrace of Moore's crackpottery is great news for Moore, very bad news for Democrats -- just as the GOP's kooky flirtations under Clinton did damage it has yet to recover from.
By the way, I eventually lost track of my political-activist friend, but I heard about him the other day. Apparently he's urging people to boycott ``Fahrenheit 9/11.'' It's the work of an extremist, he says. And who would know better?
To contact the writer of this column: Andrew Ferguson in Washington aferguson2@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this column: Bill Ahearn in New York bahearn@bloomberg.net.
My only disagreement with this article is that the Rats and the press really haven't changed much in ten years. If, ten years ago, a movie had been made about Reagan that was similar to the Clinton Chronicles, the press and Rats would have eaten it up, just like they're doing with F911. The big difference is that the Clinton Chronicles was about a Rat.
And Yazzir Arafat has a Nobel Peace Prize.
Unlike the Democratic Party, Moore has always prided himself on his radicalism. So who's changed -- Moore or the Democratic Party?
The Clinton Chronicles were far more credible because of the fact Clinton was and still is a pathological liar.
Clinton Chronicles?
must have been straight to VHS.
even having never heard of it, it seems to be far different than moore's Goebles propaganda stylings.
I was essentilly apolitical until I made a trip to Arkansas several years ago. After dinnner, my host said. "You folks who get your news from the mainstream press don't know the Bill Clinton we folks here in Arkansas know." Then he pointed off into the distance, and said, "Over yonder are some railroad tracks..." And he launched into a tale of murder, corrupt police, and drug-running -- and linked it to Bill Clinton.
When I responded with stunned disbelief, he excused himself, and came back in a few minutes with three rented videotapes:
After watching them, my response was:
==========================
Then, I began to hear -- via the MSP -- about Gennifer Flowers, Web Hubble, The Rose Law firm, Vince Foster, Whitewater, etc., etc., etc....
So -- I guess I owe my Arkansas host -- and those tapes -- for the fact that I'm here on FR...
And I still stand by statements 1 & 2 above...
Think I'll go re-view those tapes -- through the microscope of several years of history...
The most distinctive difference between "Clinton Chronicles" and Moore's two-hour bumper sticker is that, with very, very few exceptions, the left made no effort to refute any of the charges made against Clinton in the previous film (the exception being a few who challenged, with some degree of legitimacy, the excesses of the "death list"). In general, refutation amounted to sweeping ad hominem attacks against those making the accusations; a kind of innocence-by-accusation.
Dorothy Rabinowitz wrote a long editorial for the Wall Street Journal about the mysterious death of those two boys that was published in around January of 1995, I believe. In addition to the boys whose decapitated bodies were found on the railroad tracks near Mena, there were several other deaths connected to these murders--people who knew something and then died violently.
Look at all of Hollyweird praising Moore to high heaven-he could very well get an Oscar. So take note of the nuts who join Moore-the Demonrat party has embraced him openly, Billy Crystal and most of Hollyweird and music crowd, Dale Earnhardt Jr. ought to lose fans too since he's obviously in the extreme. It tells you how whacked out people really are.
Hamas gave it a two-thumb-activated-detonators-up rating...
bookmark bump
For many years now, I have corresponded with Linda Ives, mother of one of the boys, who is still fighting for the truth to come out, and with Jean Duffey, the drug investigator who had to flee Arekansas for her life...
Here is the first part of the story -- as told right here on FR...
And here is the second part on FR: The Boys on the Tracks, Part II: A Witness Speaks Out From Prison
If you are intersted in the entire saga -- as seen by Linda Ives and Jean Duffey in person, their web site has a massive amount of documentation.
I have lots more links, etc. -- if anyone here is interested...
I visit several messageboards that are non-political but there have been OT posts concerning Farenheit and I cannot believe how stupid people can be. Then again, yes I can! Then, when you challenge them with the lies in this mockumentary they resort to name calling of me and Bush, lol. Idiots.
Well, you have to remember that many people are never exposed to anything other then leftist propaganda. This is especially true in Europe and Canada. So it is hardly surprising that they would fall for Moore's lies and deceptions.
Even my daughter agrees that Moore is the Hanoi Jane of the terrorists.
The Clinton Chronicles, for obvious reasons never made it beyond VHS. It's been a while since I have viewed the tape, but I seemed to remember nothing but a clinical account of various facts from Clinton scandals.
Do you think there is some connection between HANOI JANE and HANOI JOHN? Picture this:
http://www.iconoclast.ca/databases/images/aJOHNKERRY-MOORE.JPG
seemed=seem.... Jeeze.
hmm...even in photo-shopped images, there is still a ring of truth.
John Kerry was one of the main reasons my husband, when returning from Viet Nam, was told NOT to wear his uniform, in order to avoid harassment from antiwar protesters.
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