# Farenheit 9/11 **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 16, 2004, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farenheit-9-11/250723 "2004-06-16T20:04:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![BoringDad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ad7895/32.png) [@BoringDad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BoringDad)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2004, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farenheit-9-11/250723/221 "2004-07-01T03:24:46Z")
> [@Jack Batty](#): > > To tell the truth, I haven’t read this entire thread, but I just saw the film this morning and I felt like commenting. > > My take on that whole seven (or whatever) minutes is of a man completely freaked out. Sitting there contemplating the fate of the nation he just took over leading. Thinking about the loss of life and the direction on which he was about to embark. At the current 5 pages, it’s understandable you didn’t read the whole thred. So I’ll repeat my previous comment on this. YOU might have sat there freaked out for 7 mintues. That is why YOU are not president. We hire people to run the country who we expect will NOT be freaked out and paralyzed at crucial points. “Mr. President, the Chinese have launched a nuclear strike at us. What should we do?” Sitting paralyzed for 7 minutes is not an acceptable answer. ---
**Author:** ![Snag](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Snag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snag)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2004, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farenheit-9-11/250723/222 "2004-07-01T04:07:11Z")
A friend heard Moore state that Bush spent another half hour on the school grounds. Moore said something like, “If the nation is under attack, shouldn’t the president consider himself a target? Why was he hanging around an elementary school for another half hour?” He should have at least gotten on the road and made himself a moving target. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2004, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farenheit-9-11/250723/223 "2004-07-01T07:01:25Z")
> [@Jack Batty](#): > > My take on that whole seven (or whatever) minutes is of a man completely freaked out. Exactly. All plans by Bush-Cheney to promote George as a capable “war leader” are derailed– _TV commercial:_ “George W. Bush. A bold American leader in the face of terrorism.” _Viewer:_ “Yeah, **right!** I _saw_ him, sitting like a stunned rabbit! Bold leader my ass!” > [@Jack Batty](#): > > Sitting there contemplating the fate of the nation he just took over leading. Thinking about the loss of life and the direction on which he was about to embark. Except **Fahrenheit 9/11** dismantled all of that, as well. ---
**Author:** ![olanv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3ec8ea/32.png) [@olanv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/olanv)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2004, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farenheit-9-11/250723/224 "2004-07-02T02:13:53Z")
> [@wisernow](#): > > Michael Moore’s Farenheit 9/11 is slated for release this Friday. It is definitely not kind to the current government. What effect, if any, will it have on the re-election bid of GWB? It doesn’t matter. The film was made by the defense department as part of the propoganda machinery. Your votes are NOT counted. Nobody in the the US who casts an election ballot is having their vote processed for election results. The film only pacifies the population into thinking that transparency and activism are occurring. They pick up some gossip algorithms to get sex and move along. ---
**Author:** ![Mehitabel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@Mehitabel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mehitabel)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2004, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farenheit-9-11/250723/225 "2004-07-02T03:35:50Z")
Um. OK. Michael Moore is coming on Charlie Rose’s show NOW. Charlie’s a great interviewer; should be great. ---
**Author:** ![SnakeSpirit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snakespirit/32/7271_2.png) [@SnakeSpirit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SnakeSpirit)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2004, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farenheit-9-11/250723/226 "2004-07-02T04:47:42Z")
I think I’ll stay home if it’s all the same to you all. Ted Koppel isn’t my most favorite newsguy, but he’s outdonehimself this time. Check out [this review of MM’s film](http://www.davekopel.com/Terror/Fiftysix-Deceits-in-Fahrenheit-911.htm) and see what you think… ---
**Author:** ![Calliope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Calliope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Calliope)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2004, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farenheit-9-11/250723/227 "2004-07-02T05:06:23Z")
Um…that “review” was done by someone named Dave Kopel, not Ted Koppel. ---
**Author:** ![SnakeSpirit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snakespirit/32/7271_2.png) [@SnakeSpirit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SnakeSpirit)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2004, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farenheit-9-11/250723/228 "2004-07-02T05:12:34Z")
> [@Calliope](#): > > Um…that “review” was done by someone named Dave Kopel, not Ted Koppel. blush :o no excuse… ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2004, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farenheit-9-11/250723/229 "2004-07-02T07:35:52Z")
And in a related vein, the mainstream media is apparently out to get Moore for making them look like a bunch of cowardly lapdogs: > [@](#): > > [**Mauling Michael Moore:**](http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0426/goldstein.php) > The attack on Fahrenheit 9/11: Fox lays back while ABC and NBC pile on > > …Note that none of the facts in _Fahrenheit 9/11_ are in dispute. What ABC and NBC called into question is Moore’s extrapolation and interpretation of information; in other words, his slant. But by using loaded phrases like “truth squad” and “fact or fiction,” and by omitting Moore’s answers to key questions, these networks did the very thing they accuse him of doing. I would argue that this sort of distortion is far more dangerous in the context of a news broadcast than in a clearly opinionated film. > > Why did NBC and ABC take the administration’s line? Well, NBC is owned by General Electric, a prime defense contractor. ABC is owned by Disney, which has no need of Pentagon largesse—but Disney is dependent on the kindness of federal regulators, and to the Bush administration those mouse ears have a lot to answer for. After all, it was Disney subsidiary Miramax that initially planned to distribute _Fahrenheit 9/11,_ and even after the studio pulled out under pressure from the parent company, Miramax chief Harvey Weinstein formed a consortium of companies to release the film. ---
**Author:** ![Mehitabel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@Mehitabel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mehitabel)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2004, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farenheit-9-11/250723/230 "2004-07-02T18:20:35Z")
Welp, just got my ticket online for a bargain matinee (7.50) at the Bronxville Cinema, a lovely little semi-indie house in bucolic and Westchester-liberal Bronxville, NY, for the 4:50 show. Sorta dreading it and looking forward to it at the same time. I’ve watched enough interviews with Moore to understand what he’s getting at, I think. I like how he claims he is not out to be fair and has an agenda, and as a Dem I agree with it anyway; but my BS detector will be set on high and internally I’ll be yelling “CITE?!” every five minutes, I’ll bet. But I don’t feel I can reasonably follow politics, here and elsewhere, without having seen this movie. And the man is entertaining at least. Gulp. Report later. ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farenheit-9-11/250723/231 "2004-07-03T01:01:38Z")
I think Paul Krugman hits just the right note in his [op-ed](http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/02/opinion/02KRUG.html) today about “Fahrenheit 9/11”: > [@](#): > > There has been much tut-tutting by pundits who complain that the movie, though it has yet to be caught in any major factual errors, uses association and innuendo to create false impressions. Many of these same pundits consider it bad form to make a big fuss about the Bush administration’s use of association and innuendo to link the Iraq war to 9/11. Why hold a self-proclaimed polemicist to a higher standard than you hold the president of the United States? > > And for all its flaws, “Fahrenheit 9/11” performs an essential service. It would be a better movie if it didn’t promote a few unproven conspiracy theories, but those theories aren’t the reason why millions of people who aren’t die-hard Bush-haters are flocking to see it. These people see the film to learn true stories they should have heard elsewhere, but didn’t. Mr. Moore may not be considered respectable, but his film is a hit because the respectable media haven’t been doing their job. > > … > > Viewers may come away from Mr. Moore’s movie believing some things that probably aren’t true. For example, the film talks a lot about Unocal’s plans for a pipeline across Afghanistan, which I doubt had much impact on the course of the Afghan war. Someday, when the crisis of American democracy is over, I’ll probably find myself berating Mr. Moore, who supported Ralph Nader in 2000, for his simplistic antiglobalization views. > > But not now. “Fahrenheit 9/11” is a tendentious, flawed movie, but it tells essential truths about leaders who exploited a national tragedy for political gain, and the ordinary Americans who paid the price. ---
**Author:** ![Zagadka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zagadka/32/7272_2.png) [@Zagadka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zagadka)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farenheit-9-11/250723/232 "2004-07-03T01:16:42Z")
[And for all of you whining about how Mr. Moore is “getting rich off his lies”…](http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/business/index.ssf?/newsflash/get_story.ssf?/cgi-free/getstory_ssf.cgi?f0040_BC_WSJ--Fahrenheit9/11&&news&newsflash-financial) ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farenheit-9-11/250723/233 "2004-07-03T01:24:37Z")
[http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20040702.html](http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20040702.html) Spinsanity does a fair vetting of the innuendo in the film, though I think they are mistaken about what Moore is implying in some cases, most of their criticisms are dead on. ---
**Author:** ![SnakeSpirit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snakespirit/32/7271_2.png) [@SnakeSpirit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SnakeSpirit)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farenheit-9-11/250723/234 "2004-07-03T01:55:51Z")
> [@Zagadka](#): > > [And for all of you whining about how Mr. Moore is “getting rich off his lies”…](http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/business/index.ssf?/newsflash/get_story.ssf?/cgi-free/getstory_ssf.cgi?f0040_BC_WSJ--Fahrenheit9/11&&news&newsflash-financial) And for all of you falling for a link with a pointed comment: " One wild card is how much Mr. Moore himself will make via his own profit participation in the movie, which people close to the matter describe as generous. That amountwill be deducted from the take before the Weinsteins and the charities divvy up the rest. " From that article - it looks like MM won’t be suffering at all. However, who cares? This _is_ America, and MM _is_ a capitalist, and if he makes a movie that people pay to go see, he _is_ entitled to profit! If you don’t like that, well, become a liberal! ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farenheit-9-11/250723/235 "2004-07-03T01:55:55Z")
I just saw it. I promised my older daughter to wait to see it with her. I don’t have much to add, except that I saw it 2:20 on a Friday afternoon, and the theater was 70% full. Not as many as were in the Spiderman show that got out at the same time - but probably more people of voting age. My favorite part not mentioned before - how the Secret Service protected the Saudis from Michael. Oh, and the missing seven minutes - Bush looked just like the kind of person who is stuck waiting at a doctor’s office without a book, and who seems to be staring into space with his mind in neutral. Moore didn’t assume he was thinking anything, he had some maybes as a rhetorical device. The waiting until someone told him what to do hypothesis seems most likely to me. ---
**Author:** ![Mehitabel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@Mehitabel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mehitabel)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farenheit-9-11/250723/236 "2004-07-03T03:19:14Z")
I’m baaaaack! \ Well. I was both over-and-underwhelmed. The theater was about 2/3 full (not the biggest theater of the three there but pretty large, in a commuter suburb on a holiday weekend). Mostly retirees, some of whom were already discussing the merits of the film in the line. Pretty partisan Dem crowd, lots of uh-huhs and gasps and laughing and a little sobbing at the plight of Mrs. Liscomb. About ten people left during the movie, a couple of ancients during the dead children scenes, some younger types during the Marine scenes, a few more during the Mrs. Liscomb at the WH scenes. Big thoughtful applause at the end. I’m glad I was spoiled for some of the dead children and soldier scenes, and the death of Michael Lipscomb, because they were really disturbing, and the more egregious errors had already been pointed out so I didn’t yell Cite?! once. Although I did mutter a few "Come ON!!"s. I liked the passion. I liked the candid footage of officials before and after interviews, although probably everybody goofs a little self-consciously during the boring light n’ makeup stuff. I was amazed at some the links he found between the various companies in Bush’s career and the forces in Middle East, although I’m not quite sure most of them MEAN something. I esp. liked the interviews with the soldiers; hope they don’t get into too much trouble, although I think they were breaking a few regs with their candor. Might have been nice of Moore to at least blur their faces. I also wished he hadn’t lingered for so long on the face of Liscomb and her family, but it made the point. She is a brave woman and sums up the conflict the country has in her tortured love of both country and son. The 9/11 scenes were well-done. I could feel everybody’s minds around me filling in the awful video to go with the audio (esp. since we’re in the NYC area; I had passed Bronxville’s own 9/11 plaque with their dead’s names on it on the way to the theater from the train station). The editing was sometimes silly (the whole Iraq! Al-Qaeda! random quote thing, film-student 101 stuff) but usually excellent. Things that made me go hmmmm: Doesn’t the miltary always send a special detail of military chaplins to announce a death to the family? I don’t want to doubt a grieving mother, but why did she just get a phone call? If it was a screw-up, I hope heads rolled. The prisoner who was abused by–uh–having his delicates touched for a sec had been caught looting; the soldiers were calling him ‘Ali Baba’, which is what the angry Iraqis themselves called these jerks. Wish Moore had mentioned the looting and how it complicates the reconstruction efforts; the portrayal of happy bucolic Iraq pre-war also bugged me, but he’s explained on talk shows that he assumes everybody knows about the dark side of Iraq so it didn’t bother me TOO much. As for the business connections: the Canadians, I believe, are the folks who “own the most of America” in the aggregate; granted, their government is a little less despotic. 😉 As for the rest, well, $1.3 billion made for “the Bush family and companies they were associated with” _over thirty years_ does not strike me as really excessive. The James Bath connection is interesting but all it proves to me is that the Bush family does business with people it knows, as do most businesses. As for the cousin working for Fox News and Kathleen Harris being the FL Secretary of State, well, they’d been elected or appointed presumably by people who had no idea of their connection to the Bush family. It would be some plot to put them in place years before the election randomly hinged on Florida. As for Prince Bandar, Moore practically was playing the Darth Vader theme every time he appeared. I have no love for the Saudis in general but Bandar is an civilized and complex man trying to straddle two cultures; IMO he deserved better treatment. Great article on Bandar from [The New Yorker](http://www.saudiembassy.net/StatementLink/03-ST-Bandar-0324-NewYorker.pdf) here (warning: PDF, but worth it). This ties into the thing that bothered me the most: guilt-by-association. Fact: Bin Ladins (sic) were flown out of America (and I did know that the FBI cleared them thanks to this board, but that wasn’t Moore’s point I guess). Fact: Some bin Ladins attended Osama’s sons wedding. Uhm…were they the SAME bin Ladens as the ones (mostly students) that were in America? Isn’t that kind of important? Do they all think alike, or are there fractures like my (considerably smaller) family? Their real estate firm is the second-largest in the world, so how many businesses that interact with the ME have NOT worked with them? Salem binLadin is Osama’s half brother–well, he has about 35 others, I believe; if I was shunned in business because of the actions of an estranged half-brother, I’d think it pretty unfair. And the constant shots of Bush Sr. and Jr. meeting and shaking hands with various Saudis in their national costume in ornate settings started to feel to me like Moore was trying to awake any xenophobia the audience might have at their ‘exoticism’. I have a few other quibbles, but overall, though, I’m very glad I saw it. I’m glad I saw for myself what all the fuss was about. And although I didn’t learn much I didn’t already know, I could tell by the gasps and the “Nooo!”'s and the “Wow!”'s all around me that people who do not frequent the Dope were learning things they hadn’t known. In that case, Moore was very successful. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farenheit-9-11/250723/237 "2004-07-03T07:53:17Z")
> [@Mehitabel](#): > > This ties into the thing that bothered me the most: guilt-by-association. Fact: Bin Ladins (sic) were flown out of America (and I did know that the FBI cleared them thanks to this board, but that wasn’t Moore’s point I guess). Fact: Some bin Ladins attended Osama’s sons wedding. Uhm…were they the SAME bin Ladens as the ones (mostly students) that were in America? Isn’t that kind of important? Do they all think alike, or are there fractures like my (considerably smaller) family? To be strictly accurate, Moore doesn’t draw any conclusions about this either – he just tosses out the data and leaves it to each individual to be as suspicious as they want to be. In part, I think it’s because he doesn’t _genuinely_ know how close Osama is with the rest of the family, or how much influence the Carlyle/Saudi ties had on Bush’s policies. But as you mentioned, a lot of people didn’t even know these data points _at all_ until they saw the movie, so just having more people aware of the situation and raising questions is a good thing. In a related vein, [this page](http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=99415) seems at first blush to be a comprehensive primer on the ties between the Bush family and the Saudis. I’ll leave it to someone with more financial expertise than myself to poke it further and see if it stands up. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farenheit-9-11/250723.md?page=11)