MICHAEL AND ME

I can't wait for the movie Farenheit/911 to open. I'm not kidding. Because I figure once the movie opens, maybe, just maybe, we won't have to hear so much from and about Michael Moore.

Take the New York Times. The movie hasn't even opened yet, and it's getting the kind of attention normally reserved for prison abuse scandals.

Today, Michael Moore, and his little film, are back in the pages of the Times, on the front page of the Sunday Arts section.

The Times notes that, "Mr. Moore's previous films generated a cottage industry of conservative commentators eager to prove sloppiness and exaggeration in his films; a handful of mainstream critics have also found flaws." You know, this really bugs me. It's a move that's often made by the Times, but they aren't the only ones by any stretch who do this. If you complain about what's in the media because you want to point out problems in the media, that often means it looks as if you're carrying water for the conservative side. You may not have a dog in a particular hunt besides wanting to point out media strategies, but you end up looking like you're defending the conservative side because of the way the media tilts on a lot of stories, so one way the media tries to undermine or discredit its critics, right out of the gate, before a single argumentative shot has been fired, is to pre-label them "conservative."

The Times is the institutional master of this strategy. They always note that they're the target of "conservatives," which is true, but by saying so they try and imply that if you're arguing against the Times it must therefore be because you have a conservative agenda.

Now, I clearly make arguments here that go beyond media critiques. I have an obvious agenda on the war, and you can decide that's one war or two. But I don't trumpet any other political views I have, yet people who don't know me or anything about me determine from my attacks on the media that ipso facto, qed, I myself must be a conservative.

The Times also notes that:

After all, White House officials and the Bush family began impugning the film even before any of them had seen it.

This is supposed to be another way of discreditng the flim's critics. After all, normally it would be absurd to make comments about a movie you hadn't yet seen. Yet just a few paragraphs earlier, the reporter notes:

The movie's indictment of the president is nothing if not sprawling. Mr. Moore suggests that Mr. Bush and his administration jeopardized national security in an effort to placate Bush family cronies in Saudi Arabia, that the White House helped members of Mr. bin Laden's family to flee the United States after Sept. 11 and that the administration manipulated terrorism alert levels in order to scare Americans into supporting the invasion of Iraq.

If this movie is, as the Moore camp describes, an "oped" then it is a movie with an argument. And that argument is being repeated and described all over the press. Should the White House not comment when those arguments are circulating through the media, when they are getting maximum attention and coverage, but instead wait until it's actually released?

Later in the piece the reporter oohs and aahs over the fact checking promises of the Moore machinery:

Mr. Moore charges that President Bush and his aides paid too little attention to warnings in the summer of 2001 that Al Qaeda was about to attack, including a detailed Aug. 6, 2001, C.I.A. briefing that warned of terrorism within the country's borders. In its final report next month, the Sept. 11 commission can be expected to offer support to this assertion. Mr. Moore says that instead of focusing on Al Qaeda, the president spent 42 percent of his first eight months in office on vacation; the figure came not from a conspiracy-hungry Web site but from a calculation by The Washington Post.

You know, facts are very tricky things. What does "detailed" mean in the context of the Aug. 6 PDB? And what does "on vacation" mean when you're the President of the United States? These are not self-evident things.

Bin Ladens Leaving American Air Space

Then of course there's the controversy over whether or not the administration snuck plane loads of bin Ladens out of the country while American air space was shut down. This is buried fairly deep in the article, but the reporter does note:

. . . the Sept. 11 commission said in a report this April that there was "no credible evidence that any chartered flights of Saudi Arabian nationals departed the United States before the reopening of national airspace" and that the F.B.I. had concluded that no one aboard the flights was involved in Sept. 11.

Now, this is just pure entertainment:

"I don't want to get lost in the forest because of a single tree," Mr. Moore said. "The main point I want people to go away with is that these people got special treatment because they were bin Ladens or Saudi royals, and you and I would never have been given that treatment."

Yup, me and Michael Moore, millionaire filmmaker. I'm sure that whereever we go we'd be treated exactly, I mean exactly the same way. Now, the reporter does note that the White House hasn't provided full documentation on the flights. If that's true, it would have helped the Times' readers if the reporter had pointed out who it was, exactly, who's being protected by that gap.

I keep seeing Moore interviewed, and I keep seeing this topic come up, and not once does that admission ever get mentioned. I have yet to see Moore questioned about it and what it means for the claims made in his film.

Update: As to Moore's attempt at implying that he's just like you and me, Jeff Jarvis is looking at a new book, Michael Moore is a Big, Fat, Stupid, White, Man, and let me just tell you this: I hate to shatter your illusions, but I don't get $30,000 a speech!

Comments

[IceCold]

Moore feeds off a public so ignorant and unsophisticated it won't of course recognize his absurd mischaracterization of the August 6 PDB (which only requires reading the relevant pages, made public months ago). Crude propagandists and conspiracy-mongers always have a market, sadly, but how much bigger is Moore's thanks to the level of misinformation and distortion now the norm in American media?

[Mara]

The Times also notes that:

After all, White House officials and the Bush family began impugning the film even before any of them had seen it.

Isn't that what Frank Rich did to "The Passion" movie?

[Media Hound]

Moore's education: Dropped out of college in the
first year.

Also, maroon apparently hasn't heard that Richard
Clarke authorized the flights out of the US after
Sept 11th:

The Hill
May 26, 2004

Clarke claims responsibility
Ex-counterterrorism czar approved post-9-11 flights for bin Laden family

By Alexander Bolton

Richard Clarke, who served as President Bush's chief of
counterterrorism, has claimed sole responsibility for approving
flights of Saudi Arabian citizens, including members of Osama bin
Laden's family, from the United States immediately after the attacks
of Sept. 11, 2001.

In an interview with The Hill yesterday, Clarke said, "I take
responsibility for it. I don't think it was a mistake, and I'd do it
again."

http://www.hillnews.com/news/052604/clarke.aspx

[Media Hound]

Just fully read your post now, didn't see you
had already linked to The Hill piece on Richard
Clarke.

Apologies for double-posting that info.

[Media Hound]

FYI, Christopher Hitchens eviscerates Moore in a new article. A small taste:

Unfairenheit 9/11
The lies of Michael Moore.

A short word of advice: In general, it's highly unwise to quote
Orwell if you are already way out of your depth on the question
of moral equivalence. It's also incautious to remind people of
Orwell if you are engaged in a sophomoric celluloid rewriting of
recent history.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2102723/

[Bryguy]

Media Hound:

Bill Gates dropped out of college too. Lots of people who go on to be successful do it. You may hate Moore's politics but his filmcraft is testament to the fact that you shouldn't let college get in the way of your education.

Dauber:
He is just like us- I wouldn't turn down $30k for a speech, would you?