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.