July 14, 2004

• I like bashing Bush as much as the next guy, but isn't it really about time we put the arsehole out of our misery? Doesn't anyone one here have any connections to the Secret Service? If one of them could smack Dubya across the back of the head with a shovel a few times, that ought to do it.
• Well... if only GW Bush hadn't been idly standing around, coked up and drunk, while Saddam Hussein was 'gassing his own people', we could've avoided all this terrible terror. He didn't say anything about it then, did he? Yet... in Soviet Russia, Bush bashes you! I'm so sorry.
• Bushbashi.
• oooh! why I oughta! ;)
• actually I was hoping the right-leaning monkeys would give it a good going over and point out where it was wrong. This all goes back to the "we believe Bush until there's a smoking gun" argument. This is a page full of pointed accusations with references- are any of them wrong / smoking guns?
• right-leaning monkeys A contradiction in terms, methinks.
• paging pigalien! oh, and skirk, have the secret service arrived at your door yet? just askin'...
• (oh and re: skirk's "shovel to the back of the head" comment, i wonder what would happen if dozens and dozens of bloggers all got together one day to say they each wanted to kill the president. would the secret service go after each one? might be an interesting just to see what would happen...)
• quit lighting up the big board you guys . . . every time I get home, Ashcroft is going through my underwear drawer.
• Think of what we would have been spared if Chief Idiot had only landed on his head when he fell off the Segway. Or managed to de-plane smack onto the tarmac. Or actually choked on the pretzel. The man can't do anything right.
• He can steal an election and poison the concept of "debate" better than anyone else.
• actually I was hoping the right-leaning monkeys would give it a good going over and point out where it was wrong. This all goes back to the "we believe Bush until there's a smoking gun" argument. *Fes slowly, with much obvious soreness and wincing, gets up from his fire and shrugs on his dented, blood-spattered armor, his battered condottiere's helm, his gauntlets and creaking scabbard-belt. With effort he mounts his sullen destrier, mentally counting his mercenary's pay against the never-ending calls to duty on behalf of Prince George... I don't have to go over it point by point, as I've no doubt that the items that Moore outlines here are accurate on their face. it would be stupid of Moore to portray here as facts that which could be refuted, and while Moore may be many things, stupid he is not. I might counter by linking to the various websites that have sprung up, exhibiting similar format, taking Moore's assertions to task (Spinsanity, the Freepers, "moorelies.com", slate, weekly standard, etc), but *shrug*. Realistically, I think the main criticism with Moore is not the concrete factual-ness of the things he shows, but the manner in which he presents them and the insinuations he makes about them - selective editing, jumbled timelines, sly commentary about connections between events and people, that sort of thing. I used to want to scream about it, but again *shrug* It's a movie, not an assassination attempt, and unless the Secret Service handles *character* assassination these days, Moore has a perfect right to say any damn thing he wants about the President and the administration. Personally, I wish my side of the aisle hadn't throw such a hissyfit over it, to be honest. Getting apoplectic about the thing only reinforces the idea of its thematic legitimacy. What Bush *should* have said about it? "First, congratulations to Mr. Moore on his Palm d'Or! He's a great movie director, and we're proud that an American did so well at Cannes this year. As for the movie? It's very entertaining. If you enjoy Moore's work, I recommend you go see it." End of story.
• Well spake, Sir Fes. Now here's why you're wrong . . i keeeed! /triumph There's two interesting points that come from your comment: 1) It's my understanding that the insinuations that (a)the Bush administration lied to go to war, (b) gave contracts to their friends, (c) tax breaks for the rich, etc. - All those things need to be backed by concrete, proof-positive, signed & stamped documentation before Bush supporters will stop supporting the administration. Moore's content (regardless of its presentation) is not enough because it doesn't specifically catch anyone on film with their hand in the cookie jar. What drives the anti-Bush crowd crazy is how there can be such a huge, maybe overwhelming amount of circumstantial evidence and yet the country is still roughly split 50-50 on supporting the current regime. (i.e. "what, are they blind/stupid/sheep??") 2) Moore's insinuations (and I agree, he's heavy-handed and sneaky-clever) are the same or similar as the administration's "newspeak" press releases. The flight carrier photo-op, the "activist judges", the "freedom-loving", "axis of evil" (jeezus) and even the "war on terror" are not documented realities, not truths on their face but a point of view at best, a known lie and a twisted abuse of power at their worst. It would seem the "acivist filmmaker" would be allowed to use those tactics but a government by the people, for the people, and of the people should not. *hums 'battle hymn', marches off*
• What drives the anti-Bush crowd crazy is how there can be such a huge, maybe overwhelming amount of circumstantial evidence and yet the country is still roughly split 50-50 on supporting the current regime. (i.e. "what, are they blind/stupid/sheep??") Sounds like the same exact things (changing the names of the various chicaneries, of course) that used to drive the anti-Clinton people nuts. Perhaps people on both sides fail to get excised about the various ethical and moral lapses of their particular chosen Prince because (a) the mindset of "hey, he might be flawed, but he's OUR prince, dammit!" and (b) "hey, he might be flawed, but he's still doing a good job/doing the right thing/you gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet/our opponents have wildly distorted the evidence against/all of the above". even the "war on terror" are not documented realities, not truths on their face but a point of view at best, a known lie and a twisted abuse of power at their worst. It would seem the "acivist filmmaker" would be allowed to use those tactics but a government by the people, for the people, and of the people should not. And yet the argument could be made, as much as is made for Moore's assertions, that they *are* truths! It is the airy, ephemeral nature - the "points of view" argument - of both sides assertions that cause so much consternation. IF we were debating how many legs a cockroach has, we could just go catch one, count them, and the debate would be settled. When one side asserts that the US efforts in the War on Terror has been at least partially successful and the other side asserts that the War On Terror has prompted more people to flock to terrorist groups...? It is very difficult to count the legs on these cockroaches, and subsequently we fall, again, out of the realm of fact and into the realm of opinion. And yet, we continue to bandy arguments (I'm as guilty as anyone), secure in the knowledge that we are right when in fact neither side can make a claim even close to that. All we can do is present what evidence there is and keep in mind that the likely truth is always somewhere in between what you say and what I say.
• Fair enough. Wanna go score some chicks? :) The nature of political / social discourse in the last x number of years seems to have gotten way out of hand. Fragmentation of media is a prime suspect, but the "rise of the conservative media" is also ripe for comment. Moore's heavy-handed approach is a 2 hour liberal film in the vein of the daily hours-long diatribes of Rush Limbaugh. Only here we have point-by-point (mostly) reference sources, which Rush doesn't have for various reasons. Personally I think the stronger case is on the liberal side, but when the discussion focuses on technique (political style, debating style) it misses the point(s).
• I thought we'd called a halt on using ambiguous generic terms - terms like "liberal", "right-leaning", "conservative", "shit eating bumblefuck", "the", "Segway", "pete_best" ... and so on. Am I the only one here who remembers way back to YESTERDAY???
• this 'YESTERDAY', it vibrates?
• I ... I can't remember ...
• I'm on the left and I take a shot at it. This was from another lefty blogger. Moore and Fox News were both wrong about Bush's vacation days.

  Well, technically, Moore is correct. But Fox's beef with Moore's spin of the facts in F911, that Bush was on vacation for 42% of his presidency before 9/11, is that Moore implies that Bush spent all this time on his ranch in Crawford. Indeed, Moore never once mentioned Camp David in F911, and I, as a viewer, was lead to believe that Bush spent all this time on his ranch. However, Fox News is still wrong. Discounting the days spent at Camp David, Bush was either at his ranch or in Kennebunkport for 23% of his presidency before 9/11 - including all of August, 2001.

• I know nothing of this film nor of Mr Bush (well, not much), but subtracting a certain amount of rhetoric, the points made here , especially the charge of incoherence, seem convincing. Have I been deceived?
• You know, I hate to always be the one poisoning the wells, but Christopher Hitchens has an axe to grind that would make Gimli envious.
• That's it! . .. I am seeing the movie! Yeah, that's right! Just try and *stop* me! muwhAHahahahAHahaaaaa!!!
• pete_bashi.
• 'sat mean Hitchens doesn't have legitimate things to say about the film? I've got a few axes to grind about the upper management at my company--does that mean my complaints against them aren't valid? Take the rebuttal and evaluate the same way you should evaluate Moore's film.
• To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. I think if your complaints about the company are a little more coherent, they could be valid. That article is so poorly written as to be unreadable. Not that i'm trying to make "unreadable" a respectable word. A meeting with the prime minister of the United Kingdom, or at least with this prime minister, is not a goof-off. Really? Can't conceive of Bush goofing off with Blair in his proximity eh? Wow. The president is also captured in a well-worn TV news clip, on a golf course, making a boilerplate response to a question on terrorism and then asking the reporters to watch his drive. Well, that's what you get if you catch the president on a golf course. If Eisenhower had done this, as he often did, it would have been presented as calm statesmanship. The difference between Ike and Bush is enormous. This article, if it's intended to be a rebuttal, is ludicrous. I'm looking for a point-by-point refutation. If the complaint is that Moore infers an issue incorrectly, let's hear it.