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Friday, July 2, 2004

Commentary

Moore fuel to the fire

Commentary by MICHAEL AMES

Michael Ames, former publisher of The Street, is concerned by Michael Moore’s weight problem.


Michael Moore, satirist, crock-umentarian, America’s Liberal Everyman, or whatever you wish to call him, wants your vote and, regardless of your political persuasion, his new "Fahrenheit 9/11" is a must see event.

Conservatives will be slow to line up for tickets; most won’t even bother. But without experiencing Moore’s movie first hand, they will have no basis on which to dismiss him.

For the liberal choir to which he preaches, however, ingestion of Moore’s rhetoric should be accompanied by a large pile of salt.

The polemic, as it winds its way through various scattered reasons to fear and loathe George W. Bush, spins propaganda as skillfully as the administration it lambastes.

Granted, if one were completely unaware of recent governmental malfeasance, "Fahrenheit 9/11" may bring a new perspective. Footage of a scared and startled Bush (helpless on the morning of Sept. 11) or a smug and arrogant Bush (calling his supporters "the haves and the haves-more"), never stales. Time and again, the president comes off as the good-time drinking-golfing-fishing-buddy and, in a deeply unsettling way, the callow leader of the free world.

Like the president he attacks, however, Moore proves to be an incurious thinker—his vision never more than a two-toned tableau. The subtler shades of truth in documentary journalism are nowhere to be found.

In his recent Slate.com article, "Unfairenheit 9/11," journalist and documentarian Christopher Hitchens reminds Moore that "when you leave out absolutely everything that gives your narrative a problem … and when you give no chance to those who might differ, then you have betrayed your craft."

Moore’s film is at its worst when presenting idyllic scenes of pre-war life in the "sovereign nation of Iraq." Children flying kites, women laughing carefree, businesses flourishing in the desert sunshine. Ah … life under Saddam was so good. Not only was life in Iraq dandy, but apparently "Iraq never attacked or killed or even threatened any American," he gravely intones. Even for the unkempt Moore, this is some sloppy research.

What of the Iraqi Secret Police’s assassination attempt on President George H.W. Bush? What of the first Gulf War and Scud missiles launched, willy-nilly into Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, all housing American citizens? Moore’s inane rationale—that Iraq was a model of peace and beauty suddenly and undeservedly engulfed in American firepower—is a fallacy impossible to ignore.

The contradictions pile up (the war in Afghanistan is a reckless, Bonanza-like adventure in one scene, but an under-staffed failure in the next) and the Left finds its own bombastic mouthpiece. Moore is Rush Limbaugh’s slovenly doppelganger.

And like Limbaugh, Moore relies on sensation. What "Fahrenheit 9/11" lacks in substance, it makes up for in vitriol and Tourret-like finger pointing. It offers few positive messages, relying instead on the very tactic Moore so often decries: fear mongering.

But this is also the film at its best. The fear Moore elicits is no mistake. The movie leaves one feeling discouraged, hopeless, and overwhelmed by the struggles we face and Bush’s inadequacy in facing them.

The only possible hope left, then, is Moore’s stated aim: removing this foolish man from office. Scared witless, the country will drop Bush faster than a nest of Texas fire ants and the fat man from Flint wins another round.


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The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week's issue.





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