Asymmetrical Information

So, how do you really feel?

I have no desire to defend Michael Moore or to see his movie. And I don't think that Bush's fun and games with the truth make Moore's OK. On the other hand, Moore is a propagandist and Bush is president of the United States, so I do care a whole lot more about Bush's truthfulness than Moore's. Yes, politicians lie. But some lie more than others, and lie about more important stuff than others. Bush's war is not the equivalent of Clinton's blow job. And I'm not sure why you're so worked up about a propaganda movie. If you can handle the idea that politicians lie, surely you can tolerate the idea that propagandists do too.

Well put, Jane.

Please name the Democrats who have been saying that Michael Moore's new movie is "misleading drivel".

Please provide examples of the many lies you accuse Moore of perpetrating in Fahrenheit 9-11.

Also, please explain why "everybody does it" is an acceptable defense for George W. Bush. While you're at it, please name the other US Presidents who lied to Congress and the American people in order to manufacture a pretext to invade a country which posed no threat to the United States.

Orbitron

What time are you due back at the mother ship?

Well, Orbitron, how about we start off with FDR, with his fictitious secret German plans, and his deliberate provocation of Japan in order to get us into a war with Germany, which posed no threat to the US?

Oh, why not.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Morocco.

But more to the point, I don't think Bush lied. I think he believed there were WMD. He didn't omit the fact that, whatever the evidence of meetings between Saddam and Al-Qaeda, there was no evidence they collaborated on 9-11.

Bush manipulated our fears of something bad happening to get us to support his policies? That's the definition of politics. Clinton manipulated middle-class fears of being uninsured, something that was unlikely to happen to most Americans, in an attempt to get them to support a massive health care system that would, in order to keep the expansion of coverage affordable, dramatically restrict the options of the vast majority of Americans who were already satisfied with their health coverage, and repeatedly misled both them and congress about what would be involved. Said health care plan would have had more impact on most American's wallets and lives than the Iraq war. Are you mad yet?

Didn't think so. This sort of outrage is thoroughly selective, which is why I don't indulge in it. Democrats are willing to countenance Clinton's . . . ahem . . . exorbitant exaggerations . . . because they see them as being in the service of a higher good. They seem emotionally incapable of grasping that Republicans feel the exact same way about Bush's . . . ahem . . . irrational exuberance. And vice versa. I've seen no evidence that this president is any more of a liar than those previous (Carter excepted). I'm willing to listen to arguments that he's incompetent, but whining that he's a big fat liar leaves me utterly cold unless you're willing to work up a similar rage about the large policy lies of the Clinton administration and the Kerry campaign, which so far none of my oh-so-indigant interlocutors have been willing to do.

I'll Bite Orbitron, I thought the whole first half of Moore's movie was drivel. Fun, (since I lean left), but drivil none the less. It's not a lie, but it's all innuendo and inferences and all sorts of really crappy things. Fun, but it's just Democratic masterbation to me.

The second half of that movie is the part I feel was powerful. And not the stupid part where Moore went off an tried to get Senators to sign their kids up for the armed services. The part about what the soldiers have to do, the part about the quiet desperation. It's old news, there is nothing new to see. But I think it is valuable that it is seen.

But I agree with you. All politicians lie, but at least most of them have the respect for the American people to lie convincingly. Bush doesn't even have the respect for the American people to do that. I wouldn't even say he's lying. I'd say the administration lies and twists and turns. I think Bush is given information that he honestly believes it's the truth.

While you may venture to disagree with me I would say Coulter and Derbyshire and Limbaugh and all those right of right pundits are just as bad as Moore. They just don't have movie cameras.

I agree with you that Coulter is just as bad; I don't have an opinion about Rush's veracity, only his style, which I loathe. But you won't catch me saying that we need an Ann Coulter or a Rush Limbaugh because -- waaaaaaaaaaa!!!!! -- those meanies on the left are telling lies!

No, I agree, I don't think we "need" any of them. But they have the right to say whatever stupid thing comes out of their mouth. And it is our responsibility to acknowledge when it is hogwash. Oh, and YOUR responsiblity as a journalist to debunk it without looking like either Coulter OR Moore.

I'm a Lawyer. It is my job to sit on the sidelines and hand people my card in case they want to sue over something. What fun it is to be a bottom-feeder!

JohnL:
"Bush's war is not the equivalent of Clinton's blow job."

It wasn't Clinton's blow job; it was Clinton's lying under oath about his blow job.

JohnL:
"Bush's war is not the equivalent of Clinton's blow job."

It wasn't Clinton's blow job; it was Clinton's lying under oath about his blow job.

Jane, it may be selective outrage, but for me it's a recent development. I generally leaned Republican, disliked Clinton, and voted for Bush in 2000. I strongly oppose him now because I'm disgusted by his administration, not because I'm a died-in-the-wool Democrat. I may be wrong about Bush, but you're just changing the subject with the "OK, if you're not going to defend Moore, defend Clinton" stuff.

IMO, Ray Bradbury's assessment of Michael Moore was dead on target. I believe the translation chain (English to Swedish then back to English; I'm presuming the original interview with Bradbury was in English) gets something just a bit off - but I'm pretty sure the main ideas survive.

Swedish article:
http://www.dagensnyheter.se/DNet/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=1058&a=272062

Partial English translation:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38776

I also think it's quite telling that Moore never even had the common courtesy to ask Bradbury if he minded if Moore appropriated the title of Bradbury's meisterwork before the fact - and apparently is avoiding speaking to him about the matter.

Professional propagandists deserve far MORE scorn than professional politicians. People know that politicans will stretch the truth and can (if they aren't wearing partisan blinders) pretty much detect the BS. A skilled propagandist, however, is more skilled; his or her lies are generally far less detectable. Without professional propagandists in their employ, politicians would be able to mislead FAR fewer people.

Damn. Next to last sentence of my previous post should have started "A skilled propagandist, however, is much more dangerous; his or her lies . . . ."

Okay, politicians lie. Is there anything we can do about it, other than getting rid of them? If I were to pick one thing that I think the Founding Fathers would be most upset about that we've done with their creation, I think career politicians would be it. My reading of their writings suggests that they almost all felt strongly that holding office was a burden, but that leading citizens would do a term or two out of a sense of obligation.

The arguments that some make that you need people with 30 years of experience because only they understand the complexities of the government seem to me to be wrong-way round -- the solution is not career politicians, the solution is to make things simpler.

But what do I know?

It is interesting to note that Mr. Moore considers F9/11 to be a documentary work, but when he is pressed personally regarding it's veracity, he refers to himself as an entertainer.

When did Jane start with the "y'all" tick?

Jane, poor example. In the long run, Nazi Germany certainly was a threat. The Europeasers were suffering the consequences of not scotching Hitler when a couple of divisions could have done it, and it would have been worse policy to wait while he integrated most of Europe into the Wehrmacht, forced some kind of peace on England, and developed nukes with jets and long range missiles to deliver them, and while Hitler's Japanese allies cut us out of a good part of the resources of the Orient. So FDR exaggerated the immediate danger and cut off Japan's supply of scrap metal? My, that's so terrible I could almost forgive him for his disastrous economic policies and embrace of socialism...

Better examples:

1) Johnson, Tonkin Gulf Resolution, using the overactive imagination of one Navy captain as the excuse to send armies to Vietnam.

2) McKinley(?), Spanish American War, interpreting the explosion of the battleship Maine as an attack (it was really internal and accidental).

OK, Johnson and McKinley didn't absolutely know these incidents were bogus - but they happily latched onto the first excuse without much investigation, and it wouldn't have hurt the USA to walk away from both conflicts. OTOH, it seems like most everyone, including Saddam, thought Saddam had large chemical weapon stockpiles and was actively working on nukes and biological weapons, although there were conflicting reports. And reports that were written with a definite slant - Wilson finding that the Nigerians had rejected informal approaches from Iraqis to buy yellowcake, but writing that Iraq had not tried to buy yellowcake at all... Considering that Saddam was blatantly trying to hide something, I doubt that any unbiased analyst could have reasonably concluded anything but that Saddam probably had a lot of chemical weapons left and was trying to acquire nukes. Hans Blix (of the UN inspectors), for example, repeatedly said that he couldn't find everything.

So what was in disagreement was mainly whether to let Blix bumble around until either he stumbled onto something the Iraqis forgot to hide, or something like a nuke explosion off Manhattan Island removed all doubt. Bush decided to err on the side of caution and take the one way of being sure Iraq never completed a nuke. To sell his war, he selected a few items to make public out of the entire mess of conflicting intelligence assessments. That is, he turned "probably" into "certainly". This was misleading, but as political whoppers go, it's a tiny one.

A wonderful rant, thank you. Let me present a different take.

Our government is not a static entity. Over time, it is evolving. I would hope that it is evolving such that people are becoming more and more empowered by information gathered using information age technology. I am concerned that it is evolving to the point where the political class manipulates the proles with dribs and drabs of information; it is the political class that uses information age technology to know how to mislead the proles (i.e. Clinton's reliance of polls to select policies).

People are animals that think. We think best when we have accurate information. Further institutionalizing lying is taking a step down the wrong evolutionary path.

John -- you are absolutely right. This is the thing that drives me nuts more than anything about Michael Moore: is he a documentarian or a satirist?

When he is pushed to defend claims against Bush, he says that he's a satirist. When he's belittled, he'll shoot back with the "truth" of his documentaries.

Jane:

Let me see if I have this straight: (a) politicians lie, and they offset, so they don't count, (b) news organizations lie (or mislead), and they offset, so they don't count, and (c) Moore misleads, and he has no wingnut counterpart, so THAT's a problem?

First, of course all politician lie. Who cares, as long as we can check it in other ways. I don't recall Clinton's rhetoric about healthcare being particularly disingenous (IIRC, part of the argument was that people would change jobs more often in the "knowledge economy," so they had a greater chance in the future of being briefly without insurance), but let's assume he did. We could check his facts - look to the enormous number of organizations that study HC policy, and ask what they thought, depend on interested parties (insurers, doctors, etc.) to present the opposite view. IIRC, nothing happened on HC for exactly that reason (although Clinton's case (though not his solution) was better than you're admitting).

War is a special case - the Executive tells us "there are things we can't tell you," and we buy it. We're supposed to - it's national security, and it's one of the arenas in which the Executive is meant to be strongest. This is particularly true when you have an Executive that's as secretive about everything as this one. We commit ourselves to actions outside the US that effect others that don't have a voice in the US. (Why does this matter - b/c brokering a compromise after everything's gone to hell is harder when one side isn't particularly represented in US politics). I guess there's no "politics stop at water's edge" nostrom for you. If you want to argue that war is the same as any other large action an Administration might take, do so. But say it Loud and say it Proud.

And if other President's have lied to get us into (or keep us in) war (also LBJ, IIRC) - well, then, they've made a bet on which we should judge them. We forgive FDR b/c we were right to get into WWII. We don't forgive LBJ, b/c we had little business in Vietnam. We have less in Iraq, and Bush should be held to account. Even by you, and even if it's mildly embarassing.

Second, if you're seriously arguing that the wingnut media is only as biased as the mainstream media, you've gone completely around the bend. Are you telling me that, even with the all of its scandals, you don't trust the NY Times any more than you trust the NY Post? You don't think that the WP is a better, more accurate newspaper than the Moonie Times? Is this a joke? Tell your employers from now on, when citing to or relying on other media, you'd like to reference the NY Post instead of the Times; then stand back and watch the tears of laughter roll down their cheeks. (For the record - I LOVE the NY Post, b/c its funny).

Fox News is different from Michael Moore? How? Even after the President came out and said there was no evidence to link Saddam to 9/11, IIRC, half of the Fox News viewers believed he was connected to it. Have you ever watched the Bill O'Reilly show? Are you kidding me?

Finally, as referenced above, sometimes we're willing to depart from principles like honesty for the protection of something more valuable. I think you made roughly the same argument about terrorism last year (I just looked at the post, but I don't know how to link). That, it seems to me, is what most people who accept the Moore propaganda are saying. Of course you don't see it this way - protests to the contrary, you seem to suggest that Bush is no worse than most Presidents. A lot of us (more and more every day), think this Administration is an abomination without any recent parallels. That's why you're seeing so many center-right bloggers deserting the Pubs. Your boys in the WH aren't just occassionally wrong on the merits. Whether through incompetence or malice (I vote incompetence), they are, almost across the board on important matters, an object lesson in Garbage In, Garbage Out.

But let's not fight on this day when Kerry did the right thing and picked Edwards. At a minimum, we can all at least hope that, next January, we'll get a chance to start putting things aright.

Bush's illegal war. Lied to make war on a country that didn't iummediately threaten us. blah-blah-blah

Out here in the real world, people watched the WTC fall to the ground. And remembered that this was the second time that muslim/arabs tried to knock it down.

Out here in the real world, we don't want to find out if a threat is immediate or not the hard way. We'd rather take care of an incipient threat now, rather than after Boston or San Francisco have a new, glowing shoreline.

And we want a President who thinks the same way.

Kate, even in the second part, he is playing with bs. Take the congressman he shows. Mike Castle is presented one of the Congressmen who would not sacrifice his children. Mike Castle (on the cell) has no kids. He interviewed Mark Kennedy who had one son on the way to afghanistan and currently has one in Iraq. He cut the interview so as to show that Kennedy is another a**hole. Take the congress. There are 102 veterans there. Isn't that a message in itself.

Take for example the greiving mother. He sounds so compassionate. What did he write in April 14 this year, " I’m sorry, but the majority of Americans supported this war once it began and, sadly, that majority must now sacrifice their children until enough blood has been let that maybe -- just maybe -- God and the Iraqi people will forgive us in the end."

He viewpoint is that families deserve the deaths they suffer. Moore is a sad, sad, fat man. No wonder the new term for Moore afficinados is Moore-on.

"Our results show a very significant liberal bias. All of the news outlets except Fox News’ Special Report received a score to the left of the average member of Congress. Moreover, by one of our measures all but three of these media outlets (Special Report, the Drudge Report, and ABC’s World News Tonight) were closer to the average Democrat in Congress than to the median member of the House of Representatives."

Imagine that!

The paper linked below was published last October by Yale Univ and the paper was prepared by researchers from UCLA/Stanford and Univ of Chicago. Read the whole thing here:

http://www.yale.edu/isps/seminars/american_pol/groseclose.pdf

Check your premises, Tim. The British media is vehemently, unabashedly partisan. Personally, I don't cite either the Village Voice or the NY Post, but I would if they had a scoop. But my employers don't cite much of anyone; our style book doesn't even like direct quotes unless absolutely unavoidable.

I don't like the Moores, Coulters, etc. of the world. My problem is not that they exist -- they have a right to be [expletive deleted]s if they want, and I wouldn't want to do anything to shut that right down. My problem is that people who are willing to give Moore a pass, would not give the same pass to a Moore of the right. Their claims that Bush is a unique brand of liar are transparently silly. War is special? HEalth care is pretty [censored] special too, my friend, and a lot more people will die from a botched health care plan than the war in Iraq. Everything's special to someone, and crafting these ultra-fine distinctions about what we will or will not tolerate in order to write your own side a pass while slamming the other guy is just as transparent to others when you do it as it is to you when the other side does. You also generally eventually get hung up, as when NOW et. al. had to explain how behaviour that they had advocated making illegal for CEO's was actually laudable when performed by someone they liked--and Clinton had to explain why a law that he himself had advocated and signed didn't apply to the Chief Executive of the US, even though he clearly thought it should apply to the Chief Executive of GM.

Am I okay with the fact that politicians lie? No, but they all do. Unless I'm willing to hop up and down all the time, screaming "he's lying!", I have to give most of them a pass. When the candidates stop calling each other big fat poopyheads and actually publish some, y'know, policies, I shall endeavor to point out their egregious exaggerations. But I'm not going to get all morally outraged about it, because I just don't have the energy to spend my entire life being morally outraged -- nor the hypocrisy to pretend that the folks I like aren't every bit as guilty of it as the folks I don't.

Ray:

You watched the WTC fall down - that's your justification for the current idiocy in Iraq? That the world is uncertain and scary, so we should go beat the hell out of any country that doesn't like us and might be able to scrape together enough cash to buy a nuke and a delivery system? We're going to be busy for a long, long time.

Here's a cheaper alternative solution (which should warm your Republican heart). Take five bucks and go down to the local Safeway. Buy two Superballs and packet of tape. Use the tape to affix the Superballs between your legs. Realize that the world is an uncertain and dangerous place. Then practice walking like you've got a pair.

(Any invective in above paragraph not meant, Ray. The image just occurred to me when I read your post, and, well...the meter of the matter made me do it).

Tomorrowist:

The McKinley example re: the Spanish-American War may not be a very good one. McKinley bent over backwards to keep us out of that war; public pressure literally forced his hand. The Maine was widely thought at the time to have been mined by the Spanish. It was only recently shown likely to have been a coal bunker explosion that sank the Maine. (However, McKinley does seem to have engineered us taking possession of the Philippines as a Pacific colony.)

Orbitron:

Regarding examples of US presidents misleading the public to get (or keep) us involved in a conflict with a country that didn't pose a threat to the US: it really depends on whether you define "threat" as short-term or long-term.

If you require a threat warranting use of military force to be "an immediate threat of attack on the US homeland", here's a list:

1. Polk and Mexico
2. McKinley and Spain
3. Wilson and Germany
4. FDR and Germany/Italy
5. Truman and Korea
6. Eisenhower and Lebanon
7. JFK and Cuba (Bay of Pigs)
8. JFK/LBJ/Nixon and Vietnam
9. LBJ and the Dominican Republic
10. Reagan and Grenada
11. Bush pere and Panama
12. Bush pere and Iraq
13. Clinton and Somalia
14. Clinton and Haiti
15. Bush fis and Iraq
(And yes, I know Bush pere began the Somalia intervention - as a humanitarian operation intended to end a famine. Under Clinton, it became a military operation intended to support the UN and restore Somalia as a state.)

There are probably also some others I can't think of off the top of my head. None of these foreign nations at the time posed an immediate threat of attack on the US homeland. With sufficient research, I believe we could find at least one example of each of the presidents listed above making misleading statements concerning the above conflict(s) occurring on their watch.

If you require an immediate threat of attack on the US homeland to justify use of force, since the American Revolution we've had precisely three conflicts with foreign nations that qualify: the War of 1812 (Britain still wanted her colonies back), World War II (Japan only), and Afghanistan (al Qaeda and their Taliban hosts/protectors).

However, if you take a longer-term view of threat - that is, that these nations and/or instability in them posed a long-term threat to US security - then nearly all of the above conflicts were/are arguably justifiable. (I won't make that argument for some of these conflicts - but one can argue that they were justified.)

Using “immediate threat of attack on the US homeland” would IMO be an incredibly shortsighted and foolish criteria for deciding when to use military force. Using this criteria, we would NOT have become involved in World War I or the European part of World War II. Moreover, war is incredibly destructive. I'm selfish; I think it infinitely preferable that wars be fought on someone else's homeland vice allowing an enemy to become strong enough to bring war to me.

Sometimes it’s also better to deal with a threat early on vice later when it’s become a worse threat. It’s easier to remove a splinter than deal with blood poisoning.

SomeCallMeTim:

"Kerry did the right thing"? What, he withdrew from the race and endorsed Lieberman as his replacement?

Damn, I knew I should have checked the news sites more often today . . . .

Tim: I hope for your soul's sake that you're not telling me what I think you're telling me: that you've decided to prove your own manhood by bragging about how impassively you can watch while your own countrymen are killed.

capt joe wrote:

Kate, even in the second part, he is playing with bs. Take the congressman he shows. Mike Castle is presented one of the Congressmen who would not sacrifice his children. Mike Castle (on the cell) has no kids. He interviewed Mark Kennedy who had one son on the way to afghanistan and currently has one in Iraq. He cut the interview so as to show that Kennedy is another a**hole. Take the congress. There are 102 veterans there. Isn't that a message in itself.

somecallmetim

Buddy, there are alot of people that view international relations as a Hobbesian state of nature, not one of morality. Just as tribes on the steppe only survived if they went and kicked ass if they perceived a possible threat, nations only survive as long as they are aggressive and pre-emptive in their own defence. Because the US (and France and UK) was passive in the 30s, we had to fight WWII and it was a damn close run thing. Because the US folded its tent after the defeat of Germany rather than rearming the Germans and driving to Moscow (or else just nuking it) we had the Cold War, which was also a close run thing.

I don't like close run things, I much prefer the Pax Romana, Pax Britannica, and Pax Americana. So, when the Islamists showed that they were serious about their war between the west and their vision of Islam, well that was enough for me. The islamists (i.e. those that want to impose Wahabbi Islam by main force on the world) must be eliminated. It won't be pretty, short, or cheap, but it has to happen.

Now you apparently don't believe the same thing. Be thankful that your forefathers and their neighbours and countrymen thought like me, for it is the only reason you exist.

It's a war to the knife, and their is no place or time for morality. Kill or be killed, and if you're not willing to be part of it, move to Saudi.

Jane and Others:
Here is an article that discusses the movie The Clinton Chronicles, which Jane mentions in her post, and compares it to Fahrenheit 9/11. The article is not particularly partisan, is well written, and is fun to read, so I recommend it for your information and enjoyment. A point of the article is that while the movies are similarly tendentious, The Clinton Chronicles was rejected by all except a small group of nutcases, whereas Fahrenheit 9/11 has been embraced by many establishment figures.

The author's point echos a concern of mine. In the 1990's the hatred of Clinton lead to some truly crazy rantings on the right, but these rantings were never mainstream. I lived in the Washington D.C. area at the time and most of the Republicans that I knew had not even heard of The Clinton Chronicles. Now the hatred of Bush has lead to some truly crazy rantings on the left, and something like half the Democrats in Congress attended the first day screenings of Fahrenheit 9/11. Among much the mainstream left the sane, healthy criticism of a Republican President has been replaced by an insane, unhealthy hatred which I normally associate with extremists. This mainstreaming of intense poltical hatred is recent and frightens me.

Jane:

(Quick aside - I think I'm actually starting to be fond of you launching into me. I've grown accustomed to your screeds, the way they tend to make me bleed...).

1. You're referencing the British press? Have you moved? Just because you spell like'em doesn't mean you live over there. But if NYC is now a part of the British Isles, I think this supports my argument that we shouldn't be wasting military time in Iraq.

2. Yeah, I suspected such a sourcing rule, but I was inflamed, dammit. Put it to you this way, and answer honestly: if for the rest of your life you could only get your news from Group A (NY Times, WP) or Group B (NY Post, Wash Times), which would you choose? I think I know the answer, but maybe I'm wrong.

3. Point me to your rants about Limbaugh or Coulter and their various lies ("libs are traitors", etc.) and let me at 'em. I only want to read and learn.

4. List the hearings and commissions that Hillary had to go for before prior to HC reform passing (it wasn't?) beside those that the Bush Administration had to go before prior to invading Iraq. Include information about time spent answering questions; if possible, include time answering non-fawning questions.

Do you really think we had the same sort of thorough debate about going into Iraq that we did about HC reform? Really? No, seriously, really?

I note also that, for the longest time, foreign policy was where the big guns went in the Executive, b/c that was where the Executive had freedom to act. (See books on Acheson, et. al., McGeorge Bundy, et. al., Kissinger, etc.). Congress interfered a lot on the domestic side, but much less so on foreign policy. So yeah, where we can't count on Congress to check the Executive (partly out of cowardice, but partly structurally), the Executive has a special responsibility to be responsible. The idea's a bit like "personal responsibility." You guys used to at least pay lip service to that idea.

5. I don't remember arguing that politicians don't lie. I don't think I've ever accused you of being too cynical - too naive a number of times, but never too cynical.

6. I'm not sure you responded to the "more extreme times allow more extreme measures" argument, unless it was by inference (specifically, Bush isn't particularly bad, just part of the normal lot of politicians). Did I miss something? (Not snarky).

Ooh, what fun! I love this fight!

Jane, you act as if lying is a binary condition: liar/not liar. By this test, yes, of course, all politicians fail. But we have to be able to make judgements based on degree and frequency. Now, we can (and I'm sure this thread will continue to) hash out just who and why is the worst liar, but the reasoning "All politicians lie, therefore Bush is not the worst in recent memory" doesn't stand.

But what's so extraordinary about Bush is that, despite a couple of verifiable whoppers, he's too smart to lie. That's right, George W. Bush is too smart to lie. This administration has crafted hundreds of dissembling, misleading un-lies that, on semantic examination, turn out to actually be true.

There's something, if not quite honest, at least ballsy about a real, true-to-life lie. It's why Cheney is so exhilirating to watch when he shows up to repeat, again and again, that Saddam and Al Qaeda were working together. That is just a good old lie, because Cheney knows it's his job to be a mean old bastard whom you either love or hate, depending on where you live. What fun! You go fuck yourself too, big guy, I am gonna MISS you in one or five years.

But for the most part, this administration seldom has the sack to just lie. "Contact with Al Qaeda going back ten years" is, strictly, true. But it's not at all true in the way that the administration hopes you will find it true; it could perhaps more accurately be phrased "Contact with Al Qaeda, the last verifiable instance of which happened ten years ago." "Ansar al-Islam was active in Iraq" is also, strictly, true. But they were active in an area of Iraq over which we flew air cover and over which Saddam exerted no control. But "Ansar al-Islam was active in the no-fly-zone, the area of Iraq that we currently control" wasn't as convincingly, dissemblingly true as the first phrasing.

This administration knows exactly what it's doing. It wants to convince us of things that aren't true without having to belly up to the untruth itself. It just hopes that enough of us will get the intended, and not semantic, meaning of its words. That's my problem with Bush; if you phrased his facts in their most obvious ways, most of them fade into insignificance.

If Bush wanted to foster democracy and remake the Middle East, then that's the conversation we should have been having. Was it a worthy goal? A realistic one? Hard to say, because I seem to remember the debate being about Al Qaeda and weapons of mass destruction (with brief pauses to mention democracy so it could refer to it afterwards). The only people talking about democracy in 2002 and 2003 were the National Review and the Heritage Foundation. No, the administration didn't lie (much) about Iraq; they just didn't trust us enough to really tell us what they were doing.

Thank you, philosopher kings. What, I wonder, in your second term, is going to be true in the very special way that you'll hope I'll find it to be true?

Joe:

"that you've decided to prove your own manhood by bragging about how impassively you can watch while your own countrymen are killed."

You've misread me. 9/11 was awful, and, as I've said before, if you lost someone then, I don't know how you get up again. Just terrible. I think we all feel that way. I think that's the reason I literally don't know anyone who opposed the invasion of Afghanistan. And, in the spirit of fair is fair, I admit that Bush impressed me by the relative temperateness of our response in Afghanistan. I wanted a lot more blood at the time; I see now that his way was better.

But going into Iraq was a different thing. We didn't go into Iraq to avenge our losses (though, if you're a regular Fox watcher, I suppose that is news to you). We went to prevent the remotely contingent possibility that Saddam might present a threat in the future. And we did that b/c Bush told the country to be afraid.

Are there things out there that go bump in the night? Yeah. But that doesn't mean we should beat the hell out of everyone we find on the streets after dark.

"When did Jane start with the "y'all" tick?"

What wrong with "ya'll", Robert?

Jane, you are right. I hate to generalize, but I agree: Politicians wouldn't know the truth if it slapped them on their butts.

Im still waiting for someone to comprehensively break down and point out Moores lies in Faranheit 911. Ive read Hitchens typical contrarian rant on F-911 at Slate, and was surprised at what a poor piece of work it was. I have only seen the movie once, but many, many, bigger issues than poppa Bushs job at Carlyle are addressed. Incidentally, the only specific contract I remember Moore referencing in reguard to Carlyle was 8000 new Humvees type vehicles bought by the US military, specifically for Iraq. In Hitchens rant he wrongly states that Moores movie focuses on poppa Bushs role in Carlyle as the primary source of the billion + dollars the Saudis have paid the clan Bush, it in fact traces the Bush jr -Saudi connection to his early days in the National Guard. The movie points to another NG member, AWOL at the same time as Bush jr, by the name of Booth. Booth managed the Saudis Texas business intrests, and was an investor in all of jrs failed prospecting Co.

The single thing I want to see answered from Faranheit 911, is the news clips of Powell and Rice saying that Iraq had no wmd, no capacity to produce wmd, and were a threat to noone, in 2001. This means all these old Clinton and Kerry Iraqi wmd quotes are nothing more than a distraction and a lie, as this administration had to be privey to at least two 'new' intelligence reports on Iraqi wmd after Clinton. The first new intelligence to account for why Powell and Rice disagreed with the previous administrations opinion on Iraqui wmd. The second set of intelligence data has to exist to account for their 180 on Iraqi wmd. With the CIA now claiming that they knew Chalibi was lying about wmd, but didnt 'think it important enough to tell the President', despite it being the only source for Powells wrong, wrong, wrong speech to the UN, and all Bushs error- filled, attack Iraq at all costs speeches, is to ridiculous to be believed.

Tim,

I think it's all a matter of perspective and background. From my point of view, as influenced by my time in the military, the first thought I had when Bush announced the War on Terror was, my goodness, but that's ambitious. I wonder if he really means it? My second thought was, well, I wonder just how long before we go into Iraq?

You see, it was obvious to me that conducting a war on terror included going into Iraq as one of the first steps in prosecuting that war. Yeah, we had to go after Al Qaeda and the Taliban first, but that's because that's where the perpetrators of the 9/11 attack were headquartered. But Iraq is/was a hotbed of terrorist activity, a lot of which is directed at US interests. No, there is no direct connection between Iraq and the 9/11 bombing, but I know of no one who claims there is. But there are direct connections, and a lot of indirect connections, between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and between Iraq and Abu Nidal, and between Iraq and the PLA, etc.

We did not go into Iraq "to prevent the remotely contingent possibility that Saddam might present a threat in the future" but rather because going into Iraq was a necessary step in the War on Terror. It was obvious to me as soon as the War on Terror was announced, and it's still obvious to me even in hindsight. You just don't have my background or perspective. I know I'm "right", but I know of no way of convincing you--your background and perspective are just too different.

I can agree that politicians will tell lies. However, I think the media is exaggerating the problem and adding to it with its own spin on things.

Many of these arguments seem to hinge on the flawed media, which is bent on finding the exciting story, not informing the public. I recommend reading the book Out of Order to find out what the media has done to the electoral process and then decide its role in politics. Journalism isn't the most reliable tool for judging someone's character.

Sometimes the media exaggerates -- Kerry is being accused of "waffling" and turning his back on his own beliefs. What the press leaves out is that his decisions came nearly 10 years apart, during which the context of the vote changed, like Iraq. The two different wars occured both in different decades and in different contexts. This should've been a non-issue.

Sometimes the media skips a big deal -- Bush, in his original campaign speech, said that "we cannot be the world's policemen" and promised that "every single American will have affordable health insurance" by the end of his term. Now a large number of Americans are uninsured, and we still have troops all over the globe. This is a boldfaced lie, and should've been a major issue.

I recommend comparing voting records to statements and speeches before accusing any politician of lying. Journalism distorts the real picture. Not all politicians lie. That's a media attention-grabber and a turn-off to young voters.

Believe it or not, some politicians actually tell the truth!

Bush jr isnt lying when he says there were ties between Saddam and Al Qaeda, if 'ties' mean contact between any member of the Iraqi government and Bin Laden. But what he isnt saying is that by that definition of 'ties' every single Islamic state has 'ties' to Bin Laden. There are no authenticated documents or even detailed descriptions of Iraqi/Al Qaeda meetings, but what is known for certain is that Iraq rejected any overtures of collaberation with Al Qaeda.

A guy like Saddam is far better for the West than the radical Islamic theocracy likely to be voted in when/if they have elections. Saddam couldnt coexist with radical Islam, or trust them in any way, because radical Islam hates secular dictators. Saddam had to squash radical Islam for self preservations sake. Al Qaeda has even tried to assasinate Pakistans Mushariff twice, and he is less brutal to Islamic fundelmentalists than Saddam and far more powerful. The sad truth is whoever eventually consolidates power in Iraq will have to be every bit as brutal as Saddam.

SomeCallMeTim:

Personal responsibility includes knowing when it is necessary to act as well as when it is necessary to refrain - and having the stones to act when it is politically dangerous.

Contributor B:

So, it's OK for politicians you approve of to parse carefully and insist on the literal ("What is the definition of 'is'?"), while politicians you disapprove of get slammed for doing the same? I expected better.

And I'd appreciate no gratuitious insult about me being "in over my head" this time.

"It's why Cheney is so exhilirating to watch when he shows up to repeat, again and again, that Saddam and Al Qaeda were working together. That is just a good old lie"

Here's another shocker for you: non-politicians lie too. You're distorting what Cheney has said.

Some of you really need to grow up and face reality as it is. Bush has made certain judgement calls based on what he knew (always an imperfect proposition.) He was not going to let Saddam continue to be a gathering threat for a vulnerable, post-9/11 America.

There's this powerful inclination to denial on the part of the left and some libertarians in America. It's as if, faced with post 9/11 realities, instead of adapting they went into a stateof unreality. The irony is that people here who want "the truth" really can't HANDLE "the truth".

Tim--Believe it or not, some people who watch Fox understand fully that 9-11 was not directed by Saddam or any of the malevolent scumbags in his employ.

Seriously, we take our fingers out of our noses long enough to figure this stuff out.

I understood fully that the war was about--at bottom--setting up an embryonic democracy in the ME. I understand fully that the next move is the real hammerstroke--the showdown with Iran.

See Tim, I put down my comic books and stopped having relations with my cousin long enough to figure something out: We will be engaged in the ME for a long time.

Some states, like the repressive butcher regimes of Saddam or the Taliban, will be defeated militarily. Some, like libya, will fold their hand voluntarily. Others will begin the program of cooperation because we are twisting their balls so hard that they really dont have much option. Im thinking Saudi Arabia and Pakistan here.

And the Others? well the others get the time to think about things a wee bit. Like when you were a kid and were walking in the dark and you heard and saw things that scared you but you didnt know what the next move was. You were alone and didn't have many friends nearby. You decided to change things so that didnt happen again. That's probably going to be Syria and Lebanon real, real soon.

Oh and Tim, I think I also saw on Fox that Israel has drastically cut down on suicide bomber efficacy and attempts. That they're killing a lot of Hamas guys too.

Bottom line Tim: the cost-benefit construct of being a bad guy has changed pretty much since about 9-12-01, regardless of who you are.

Not bad for a 'tard in office 33 months, no?

well, back to Nascar for me. ANd damm, that cousin sure is looking purdy......

I defy anyone to come up with ONE lie that Bush told. (Just One). That is all. I read politics and have an excellent memory and I do not recall one lie that Bush told. Bush is not subtle, he is not brilliant, he wouldn't know a nuance from a spruce, but he is honest. I live in Texas and when he was governor he did the best he could. I believe he is doing what he thinks is right, regardless of the polls. I am sick and tired of hearing about Bush's lies. He never said we invaded Iraq because of weapons of mass destruction. He never said Iraq was an eminent threat.

I will also agree he never gave the exact reason we invaded Iraq, but that is OK, the reason should be obvious to any intelligent human being. Strategic positioning in the Middle East.
Period.

Most folks don't realize that on the day France surrendered to Nazi Germany in July, 1940, they had more men under arms; more amour; more artillery and more planes than the conquering Germans. What they didn't have was the will to win.

Some folks wonder how the French lost in a mere six weeks to an invader with fewer troops, tanks, artillery and planes. The terrorists and their allies cannot beat us on the battlefied now - but like the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese before them, they working to undermine our will to win; and seek to win in our politics. Kerry can't deliver allies who have nothing to give; worse yet, his base is stridently anti-war. Elect Kerry and find out for yourself how we lose - and give the terrorists their best chance ever to win. You scoff now - but in a year so so, if events play out as they appear to be headed, and you're honest, you'll realize the critical mistake we've made.

I get miffed more each day as most don't even seem to understand what the meaning of the word 'lie' is. To lie, one must be intentionally attempting to mislead - tell a known falshood. Something along the lines of wagging one's finger and stating unequivically "I did not have sexual relations with that woman.....' comes to mind. That is clear and distinct. If the weather man states this evening that it is supposed to rain tomorrow - based on all the information he/she has - and it does not, did he/she 'lie'? Of course not. Just as an exercise - can anyone out there identify just ONE western Intel service that did NOT believe that Iraq possessed WMDs before the war? Just one? If GWB believed, with the information that was available to him at the time, that we must act on a percieved threat - he may have been woefully mistaken, but did not lie.

" somecallmetim' should really sign his name as "mostcallmeschmuck" -- what a twit.

Jane--when I first started reading your BLOG I thought you were quite intelligent and perceptive. but latley you have been showing your youthful inexperience in the statements and conclusions you have been making about a large number of topics. I will have to rethink my opinion of your ability to think things out. You write well but what you write is becoming more and more insipid.

thedaddy

Fred:

Ask and you shall receive. Actually, this should be good if you live in TX. From The Poor Man (http://www.thepoorman.net/)

Lie: "No."

President George W. Bush
When asked by a Dallas Morning News reporter if he had ever been arrested after 1968
1998

Truth: "Operating Under The Influence"

Arrest Record Card
Recording George W. Bush's arrest in Kennebunkport, Maine
7/6/1976

Thanks Thorley Winston,
I mistated the relationship. But the central point still holds.

Begbee, you want a break down blow by blow?
try this one: http://www.davekopel.com/Terror/Fiftysix-Deceits-in-Fahrenheit-911.htm

I am still waiting to see precisely where Bush (43) lied. In order to show that he lied, please supply the following:
1. The statement(s) by Bush that you believe were false. Be specific. Please give date, location, occasion, and hopefully, URL.
2. The facts that you base your belief that at the time that Bush made statement #1, he believed it to be false.

Merriam Webster defines the verb "lie" to be
"1 : to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive"
Another definition by the Cambridge dictionary
"something that you say which you know is not true"

This implies that the lyier knew that the statement was false. Just making an untrue statement is not sufficient, as long as the one making the untrue statement does not know of its falsity.

A good example of this are WMD in Iraq. Everyone knew that Iraq had WMD, including Bush (41), Clinton, Gore, the French, Germans, British, the Russians, the UN, the CIA, etc. Either, everyone was lying, or Saddam Hussein hid them and/or got rid of them without anyone finding out. You pick. My bet is that most were shipped to Syria, and most of the rest buried. But we are still trying to reconcile the world view pre-invasion to what was found.

But the point is that if everyone else believed that Iraq had WMD, and so did Bush, then he obviously did not lie - but, as he has admitted, was mistaken. Lying would require knowledge that the statement being made was false, not just that it was ultimately determined to be false.

p.s. Clinton did lie, and he did it under oath. This was a finding of fact by a United States District Court Judge, and was significant in his 5 year suspension from the practice of law. In that case, it was found that the statement(s) was false, and that Clinton knew it false when making the statement.

Im so sick of all the bs surrounding the effect of our presence in Iraq. Our presence in Islam post Desert Storm is much of the reason we have been targeted by Al Qaeda. Qaddafi hasnt been a player in state sponsered terrorism in years, and he only opened his doors to the UN hoping for the lifting of sanctions against Libya. The media has failed to ask a highly important question to the planning of 'shock and awe.' What steps were taken to secure the wmd in the war plan? It seems to me not knowing what happened to the wmd is far worse than knowing an impotant Saddam had them. Now, the wmd might be in Syria or the hands of terrorists, which is the very thing this war was suppose to pre-empt, not cause. One thing we do know for sure is a result of our invasion of Iraq is that Iran has accelerated its nuke program, is now thumbing their nose at the UN, and like all the Islamic nations, covertly supporting the Iraqi insurgency.

We keep emphasizing Saddams brutality to his citizens. Saddam is accused of killing 300,000 in 30 years in Iraq, in Rwanda 500,000 died in a week. Want an easy Bush lie? "Iraq wont be an exercise in nation building" This wasnt suppose to be a humanitarian effort, but now its hundreds of billions of dollars. And rather than have the Iraqi oil pay for it, because then the Iraqis would choose the contractors, Bush is using our tax dollars to pay so he can funnel sealed, no bid contracts to his friends in US big energy.

People can try to excuse Moore for this nasty bit of propaganda but this Democrat is ashamed.

I have never voted for a Republican in my life, but I will be voting for Bush in Novemeber. What is more if I don't see the Democrats condemning this film then I will not be a Democrat anymore.

Michael Moore is a multi millionaire who is making money off of anti Americanism and dead Americans. He insults his fellow Americans, he defames soldiers in harm's way, he makes excuses for teerrorists, he even confers with Hezbellah on distributing this film and we all know what they are. I may not agree with everything Bush does but I remember Clinton and the Iraqi Liberation Act and I know that Bush inherited a lot of this.

And it should be remembered that there are Republicans out there that know how to make movies too and Kerry has some really creepy stuff in his background they might want to make a movie about. After all we Democrats have made it plain that the truth is just a detail.

Fred, you're right, but it doesn't matter.

The Moore-supporters do not inhabit the same world as real people. There are ways to force them into the real world, at least temporarily, but it's damn hard to do with words.

And there's no point in asking for examples, because they don't have any. What they have is this:

Bush lied. We know this because he is a liar. We know he is a liar because he tells lies. See! He said something I disagree with! Liar liar!

And that, basically, is it. Of course, the people who believe this are unable to realise that this is exactly what they are doing, and will explode with anger when you point it out. Which is fun, but unproductive.

Jane, keep up your good work. Those of us who are sane value you, anyway.

B: I'm afraid I disagree with you that the Bush administration tells some special, extreme form of lies. They tell exactly the kind of lies all other politicians tell: the kind that have just enough basis in truth that the media will not report them as having told an out and out falsehood. I've offered Clintoncare as one example, but there are as many examples as there are politicans. As far as I Can tell, politicians tell the Michael Moore sort of lie every time they open their mouths. Now, you may disagree, but you're going to have a lot of work to do to convince me that previous politicians did not make exactly the same sort of self servingly misleading statements. I observed it firsthand with Clinton; and I've read enough about Reagan, Nixon, Johnson, Truman, Eisenhower, and FDR to be pretty confident that I'm right on them. I'll give you Ford, Carter, and possibly Bush I, but as that list seems to indicate, a willingness to fearlessly tell the truth does not seem to be highly correlated with either competence or electibility.

Given that politicians lie, anyone who wants to make an excuse for telling vicious lies about their political opponents can find something to justify their decision, if we set lying up as the bar. ANd if we decide that anything goes, then any chance we have of having a decent political discourse goes right out the window. It's cheap to say politicians are doing it, so we should do it too. Politicians have ever served their own interest. It's the job of the polity to keep them honest, not join them in their reindeer games.

I'm not endorsing such lying as a policy; if you want to denounce it on all sides, more power to you. But the people who are pissing me off are the people who don't want to denounce it on all sides, only the other side; then, after their side has made equally false statements, they want to cut some exquisitely fine distinction that gives their guys a get out of free card.

MYself, I don't have the energy to denounce politicians for doing what got 'em elected. So I save my ire for folks who ensorse Moore's tactics in a one-sided fashion.

My problem with Moore is that he's blazing new territory: the mass market propaganda film. This bothers me, as it was an area of discourse that was previously often quite stupid, but at least nominally free of this sort of mentality. It bothers me even more that journalists are endorsing this sort of thing, in the sleazy hope that Moore will tell the lies they want to, but can't because they'd get fired.

"Bush manipulated our fears of something bad happening to get us to support his policies?"

So, what's this "our" thing, Jane?. Speak for yourself. If someone, say me, for instance, supported the war, it was because Bush manipulated my fears? D*mn patronizing, that's how it sounds to me.

Capn Joe

I read your link and I find it even less convincing than Hitchens distortions. All of the accusations leveled at the link are debateable, most of them focus on small points or chronology of events.

All lies are not equal. Clinton lied about sex under oath. This President knowing lied to all of America about war during his State of the Union speech two years ago. During the vetting of the SOU the CIA refused to be used as a source for the Niger-Uranium accusations. Bush needed to get nukes involved to maximize fear, so he used a British Intell report that was KNOWN TO BE BASED ON THE SAME INTELLIGENCE THE CIA CONCLUDED TO BE FALSE, but used the wording African and nuclear material rather than Niger and Uranium. Its also the rather unseemly that Cheney used the very same premise Clinton used to attempt to avoid deposition in Lewinsky, that it violates the Constitution by giving the judiciary authority over the executive office, in avoiding releasing the Enron DOE minutes.

"the mass market propaganda film"
Then again, there's nothing like a 24-7 cable news network (Fox) working in concert with thousands of hours of talk radio (Rush, Hannity, Savage), book publishers (Regenery, ReganBooks), websites (Drudge, Newsmax, Worldnetdaily), thinktanks (Heritage, AEI), pundits (Coulter, Ingraham, Bennett)etc.

"Whatever serves the Party is the Truth."

What Bush says doesn't serve the Democratic Party. It therefore isn't the truth. Correspondence or lack thereof with the objective Universe isn't one of the tests.

Regards,
Ric Locke

Multi-millionaire wants you to pay him nine bucks to watch a two-hour attack ad.
You bite.
Sucks to be you.

Oh, hell, an honest person has as much chance of being elected President as I do of playing center field for the Yankees. I checked my voicemail, and Torre hasn't called. The electorate might occasionally tolerate an honest prson for Representative or, maybe, more infrequently, Senator, but when it gets to piling up 270 electoral votes, the electorate wants somebody who will lie their ass off, and would banish a truth-teller to Nome to be a dog-catcher, assuming Nome bothers with the problem of stray dogs. I really get embarassed listening to people speak of any politician in glowing tones; folks, you don't know these people, they don't know you, and they seek to exercise great power over you. It may be wise to keep a crow-bar within reach.

As to Moore and his ilk, it is just as embarassing to hear folks speak of such obvious charlatans in positive terms. Jesus, have you people ever spent five minutes on a used-car lot? You'd be insulted if someone thought so little of you in an attempt to get you to buy a 96' Taurus, but when it comes to selecting those who will rule you, a lot of folks ( and many of whom think themselves quite sophisticated) roll over like marks out for the first time on a Saturday night. Really, really, pathetic.

I'm new to this blog and not a journalist, but find it very interesting and informative, even educational.

It isn't so much that Bush lied to launch the war in Iraq, as much as it is Rumsfeld's and Wolfowitz's lying. To get rid of them and Cheney, whom I strongly believe is still profiting from Haliburton, regardles of what he was suppose to have done with his investments, people have to vote for Kerry.

Rex: You are right about that. History shows why Iraq was the next destination for the Pentagon. Look at a map of the Middle East and place your finger in the center of it, it will be on Iraq. Generals know that to get control of an entire region they have to take the middle ground first. This splits the enemies' forces and lets you control their communication routes, as well as limit their ability to counter attack. As uncooperative as the Arab League is they are not likely to. Iraq provides air bases which will help to control the "civil war" in Saudi Arabia in our interests.

The insurgancy will eventaully be controlled. The only good thing about suicide bombers is they are depleting their resouces... one at a time. When enough have seen the uselesness of it they will refuse to take part.

What I hate most are the casualties, our best young people forced to fight with their hands tied. Those Iraqis dancing around burning Humvees should have been shot. One Marine brigade fought for 14-hours to prevent "dancers" from taking a burning Humvee. Flowers thrown in their paths had short fuses.

Democracy is at odds with Islam, it will never happen in the Middle East. Freedom is the right to question and Islam forbids it. This is Bush's delusion, just as the "higher power" he talked to before going to war and mistook no reply as being full authorization.

McClain: you must watch foxNews, a 24hour attack ad lead by Sean Hannity, whose primary Job is to bring hate against the left and the democrats.. just read his book, "deliver us From Evil", I'll give it to you for free if you can prove he is honest....... other wise it'll cost you a dollar for evey lie he has told on the air..... (I will be the richest gay, married, abortion loving, christ destroying, family blasting, homeless, alcoholic, communist bastard in the world!!!!)

Gosh...so many smart commentators. I like Bush, he also pisses me off something terrible. I like my governments to shrink in relationship to the GDP. Can't have everthing I guess. The thing is, we a swamp, a dangerous swamp full of barbarians that would rather rule a graveyard than be a prole in heaven. Bush plans to drain that swamp, one flyblown shithole at a time. The truth is, so will every President if Bush is re-elected. If however, the politicians see Bush crucified in an election this year they will just bide their time in office hoping that the final cataclysm occurs on someone else's watch. I've settled in for the long haul, with the cowards and fifth columnists at full pitch we will face our enemies reticiently unless they pull off some colossal attack against civilians. Therefore, if Bush needs to justify a minor battle in the next world war I don't care if he lied (He didn't). I find the President's problem in his concern about what other countries may say about the United States. I think that it would serve America's interest to crush a "friendly" country, disloyalty must cost lives and fortunes. Sorry Belgium, you are the example...there I go thinking that my opinions matter.

Jane I know this seems to be a dumb question. But you did you actually see the movie? You would be suprised how many people have a strong opinion who havent seen it.

Jane:

Respectfully, you seem to be arguing about the bad acts of two sets of people here, Michael Moore and the people who say, "Misleading, but OK." Neither argument is convincing.

1. Moore - he's a propagandist. Like Hannity (who pretends to read the news) and Limbaugh and Coulter. Where are your strident attacks on them?

You say, "My problem with Moore is that he's blazing new territory: the mass market propaganda film." But I don't understand why the use of mass media like books (Coulter), TV shows (Hannity, O'Reilly), or radio shows (Limbaugh) is any less worthy of your concern. The people on TV (inc. Coulter) and radio have significantly sized audiences. Absent an explanation of that distinction, it kind of sounds like you really mean, "Being misleading in mass market films is bad, because it turns out the Democrats are pretty good at it."

2. Liberals who are OK with it - It seems perverse to punish liberals for having either the honesty or the untrusting nature to look critically at Moore's piece and say it seems misleading. There were a lot of conservatives on TV (Hannity, etc) and radio (Limbaugh) and books (Myrolie) spinning a fairly misleading series of pictures about liberals ("they're traitors") or Saddam ("helped Al Qaeda attack the US"). But I don't remember any conservatives (a) pointing that out, and (b) saying that it was wrong to be so misleading. Maybe y'all did - can you point me to those links on this site?

If you didn't, then your argument (by inference) seems to be that you didn't think those sorts of stories were misleading, and so you had no responsibility to say it was wrong. So then Republicans get a benefit from being either dishonest (if they thought it was misleading) or (more likely) credulous and easily fooled. Surely these are the sorts of perverse incentives that you are always pointing to as "bad."

And, ...er, lest you and Mindles not know it from my comments, I still love your blog.

Jimmy?
"...you must watch foxNews, a 24hour attack ad lead by Sean Hannity..."
Sorry, dude, I don't watch TV.
Or listen to talk radio.
I read the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald almost every day (at work.)
The Globe is "liberal" like Starbucks, the Herald is "conservative" like Dunkin Donuts.
Overthrowing evil dictators is always right.
I'm sorry your petulance prevents you from understanding this simple fact.

I defy anyone to come up with ONE lie that Bush told.

"I continued flying with my unit for the next several years..."

"when the revolution comes, I'll be the first one with my back against the wall."
Amen! Knowh'I'msain?
That's the kind of language that keeps me reading this blog.

Jane:

In light of the fact that you seem to perceive some sort of unique perniciousness in F911's having no cinematic counterpoise, I wonder what your take was on Showtime's DC9/11:Time of Crisis? Do you believe that people came away from that movie with false impressions damaging to discourse and the Republic itself? Is a drama that purports to recount an historical event somehow different?

As testament to the power of the Right's mighty wurlitzer, one need only observe this thread. You begin with an essay stating the self-evident: that all politicians lie. Yet the comments contain numerous posts by those who deny that Bush ever did so. That's power that Michael Moore only wishes he had.

Jane, there are a lot of comments on this thread since I last checked in, so apologies for the late response. I was interested to read that Nazi Germany posed no threat to the United States.

I really don't know what to say in response to that, so I'll leave it. I won't post any more comments here. It was a bad habit I should have dropped a long time ago, so thanks for providing the impetus.

Begbee, one "lie" was that W's cousin called the FLA election for W.

He didn't, called Gore @ 7:52 PM. Pgs 35-36 - Deadlock by the WP political staff.
-----

Via LGF:

Huge news from Iraq, where 1.77 metric tons of nuclear materials have been secured and removed: US Removes Iraqi Nuclear and Radiological Materials; Joint Operation Conducted with US Departments of Energy and Defense.

---

...Twenty experts from DOE’s national laboratory complex packaged 1.77 metric tons of low-enriched uranium and roughly 1000 highly radioactive sources from the former Iraq nuclear research facility. The DOD airlifted the material to the United States on June 23 and provided security, coordination, planning, ground transportation, and funding for the mission....

-----
As usual, nothing to see here, move along.

All very innocent, but I'm glad it's not there, anyway.

"What steps were taken to secure the wmd in the war plan? "

Sssshhhhh. It's a big secret that Mr. Bush didn't let you in on.

But I will:

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/usnw/20040706/pl_usnw/u_s__removes_iraqi_nuclear_and_radiological_materials__joint_operation_conducted_with_u_s__departments_of_energy_and_defense145

Maybe it would behoove all the "smart" people to kinda shut the f$%^ up about lying till late October, at least?

By the way, it's not a lie to think somebody a traitor, it's an opinion, a judgement call. You may disagree, but it doesn't make it a lie.

Speaking While Republican is not a crime.

Then again, there's nothing like a 24-7 cable news network (Fox) working in concert with thousands of hours of talk radio (Rush, Hannity, Savage), book publishers (Regenery, ReganBooks), websites (Drudge, Newsmax, Worldnetdaily), thinktanks (Heritage, AEI), pundits (Coulter, Ingraham, Bennett)etc.

Beautifully said.

You've managed to name the 14 groups/people who stand in the face of the daily onslaught from the NYTimes, Washington Post, Tom Brokaw, Andrea Mitchell, Katie Couric, Oprah Winfry, LATimes, Atlanta Journal/Constitution, Peter Jennings, Salon.com, Dan Rather, 60 Minutes, Professor Wimer (my college poly sci teacher), and Mrs. Kimball (my 3rd grade teacher ((whom I worshiped)) ).

As a standard white bread Brady Bunch loving youth in America growing up in the 60's and 70's my only vision of anyone having a thought that was different than the orthodox world view you so fervently wish were true was poor old James Kilpatric who faced off against Shana Alexander during the last 5 minutes of 60 Minutes sometime back in the 1970's. I remember very clearly that I thought he was a complete jerk and couldn't imagine why anyone would allow him to appear on TV. He was just so damn mean, nasty and bald.

How the people on your enemies list as stated above managed to break through the almost complete liberal hegemony of the press in the 60's, 70's and 80's is still an object of wonder to me.

Please understand that I'm not talking about this as some sort of abstract theoretical construct. This was my experience. The words of my father and grandfather fell on ears that were unable to hear because absolutely no one else that I personally knew was saying anything like what they were saying. There were no conservative voices available to the developing mind in what passed for the Media and the educational system back then. Two voices against thousands must be wrong, right?

Thank Allah I had the ability to look and learn and observe for myself.

Fine rant, Jane -- but it would help if you would identify clearly at least one example of a Bush lie.

There does seem to be an issue of "what will it cost -- in the future". This is really unknowable, unlike "how much I paid (wrote a check)" in the past. It seems that the Bush admin asks various folks for various estimates, and chooses the one that fits their desire. That's certainly not lying.

You say They lie about the outcomes of their policies, and they lie about their reasons for enacting them. They lie about their past accomplishments, and they lie about their future plans. If there are 5 reasons for a policy, including getting paid off, and a politician says only 2 of them, that's not lying. If he denies getting paid off, THEN it's lying. If he says he legitimately got a consulting fee, not denying getting the money, then it's a judgment call on whether he got paid off or merely paid (for his lobbying strategy).

Then there's real, but small lies: I didn't have lunch last Tuesday with so-and-so. (It was coffee after lunch). I'd call it a lie. Bushies, like Cheney, seem to do more of this.

Saddam was a dictator. He violated many UN resolutions. Saddam's violations were legal cause for him to be attacked. Bush did NOT lie about this reason for regime change. The Left doesn't think it's enough reason, that's what they should be arguing. After reading his speech.

The idea that Bush-hate justifies lies/ distortions/ propaganda against Bush is terrible.

I disagree with Bush on every issue except foreign policy. I voted for Gore last time. I live near NYC so when 9-11 happened, I decided to learn everything I could about the threat we face. I read 11 books, blogs galore, the web, on and on.

I believe we face the biggest threat this country has ever faced in its history and that most of the American people do not really have a clue as to what is going on. Everything every liberal stands for is at stake and liberals need to join with conservatives to stand united which is our only hope. You worry about health insurance when civilization itself is at stake.
Michael Moore should be tried for treason.

The left is hysterical because they are witnessing their movement implode, and they see their candidates losing power. Moore is necessary to them because, without a cover of lies and fraud, Bush is a shoo-in for reelection.

And, with Iran about to become a nuclear power, what we need right now is not only a powerful military presence in Iraq, but a leader with the moral clarity to act, without regard for the polls. I only hope that, if on the eve of election Bush appears to be about to lose, he commits us to the Iran battle before Kerry has a chance to surrender our power to the UN.

Orbitron:

"I really don't know what to say in response to that, so I'll leave it. I won't post any more comments here."

Well, so much for the idea that a good rant never accomplished anything worthwhile.

I disagree with Bush on every issue except foreign policy.

Now that is an honest opinion and one I can respect.

I could not care less about political gotchas. Bush lied. No he didn't. Shut up already. I am not a Bush fan but he has my vote. He understands that we are at war. Dems counter with a war protester and a lawyer. Jane might look better in a burqua, but my daughters will not. I don't have anything for or against homosexuals or adulterers, but I'd prefer not to have them stoned to death. I don't know which direction to face for Mecca, and have no desire to learn. I don't care how many third world governments we need to knock off for them to get the message. Next stop, Tehran. Faster, please.

"You watched the WTC fall down - that's your justification for the current idiocy in Iraq?"

Yes. Re-elect one of the bravest men in human history. I know many people are trying to instill fear in your heart. Overcome it, for the sake of your children, and continue the course we've chosen. It's hard, it's scary and it's the right thing to do. Vote for Bush, vote for our very survival. Yes.

Misleading half truths are punishable as securities fraud under the securities laws. If "Farenheit 911" were a stock prospectus, Michael Moore would be going to jail for securities fraud. His "legalistic" evasions - that what he said was literally true, would be of no avail: the omission of facts necessary to make the statement made not misleading constitutes fraud. Q.E.D.

All politicians lie. Well, yes. For those who hold traditional religious views, this is obvious, polticians being sinners along with everyone else. Others may come to the same conclusion by other means.

But most of what are called lies from politicians are actually deceptions. And politicians are generally very good at telling them. What they say is often literally true, but will cause many who hear them to come to the wrong conclusion. (I recall being a bit startled during the 1992 campaign when Clinton, more than once, told outright checkable falsehoods, since there seemed to be no need for him to cross a line most politicians avoid.)

I was pleased to see that Michael Oullette understands this point, and unhappy to see that few others in this comment thread seem to.

Many of what opponents call Bush lies are not, unless they believe Bush to be omniscient. He gives the best understanding he has at the time, often citing the source. For instance, in both his speech to the UN in Fall of 2002 and his 2003 State of the Union speech, some of his arguments follow this pattern: "UN reports say . . ". That can be a lie only if (1) that is not what the report said, and (2) Bush knew the report did not say that.

To clarify it further, let me take a small, recent example from Clinton. He was saying, as Hillary has before, that she was named after the New Zealand mountain climber, something impossible since she was born before Sir Edmund became famous. Now is this a lie? Probably not. I think it was a story Hillary told herself early in life, that she came to believe it, and that Bill accepted her story. He's wrong and careless about the facts, but not lying.

Now for an example of a real lie. The Clinton administration knew that genocide was going on in Rwanda and refused to use the term, because they did not want to act. (So far as I can tell, few care about that lie, even though, by the usual estimates, 800,000 people died. Or about the French support for the killers.)

I don't see a lie like that in the case the administration made for winning the war with Iraq that had been going on since 1991. (They regularly shot at our planes, we shot back. That's a war. By the old rules, Sdddam's endless violations of the deasefire agreement were enough -- by themselves -- to justify a war, legally. That's separate from the question of whether it was a good idea.) If you actually read Powell's speech to the UN, for example, you will find him saying that we don't know why Saddam was ordering these aluminum tubes, but it seemed unlikely that he wanted them for artillery.

So, I don't agree with the argument that the Bush administration lied -- just like all politicians. First, I don't agree that the adminstration lied in their main arguments, though some parts of it have been shown to be false, as some parts of intelligence always is in war. Second, I don't agree with the common idea that all politicians are liars, other than in the sense that all of us are sinners. They often deceive us, but they lie less often than most think.

Finally, the argument that all politicians are liars leads us to avoid comparisons. Some politicians are worse liars and deceivers than others, though the commenters here might disagree on which are worse. Still, it is important to try to make those judgments.

"Democracy is at odds with Islam, it will never happen in the Middle East."

I'm not an expert, but I don't think this is true. Turkey is more or less a democracy, and Indonesia, the most populous Moslem-majority country in the world, just had a democratic election. These are not long-established democracies like Israel or the US, to be sure, but I think they suggest that Islam and democracy are not inherently inimical.

Someone above said: "Bush's war is not the equivalent of Clinton's blow job".

That's true. Clinton's blow job made Bush's war necessary, as Clinton ignored the gathering threats. WTC I, the Khobar Towers, the debacle in Somalia, the CIA shooter, the Millennium plot to blow up LAX (prevented by pure luck), the embassy in Nairobi, the embassy in Dar es Salaam, the USS Cole... No significant response, no strategy, no nothing. Like his feckless management of the economy, which left a bursted bubble for his successor to contend with, Clinton's skirt chasing, in lieu of leadership and proactive grappling with the nation's problems, created a swamp of misery and peril for this nation.

Back when Bush took office, his detractors accused him of talking the economy down and of causing the recession (as if!) by honestly providing an assessment of the direction it had been taking for well over a year. But, when he has provided optimistic assessments that didn't completely come to pass (Only a million new jobs? But you said there'd be 1.2 million! You lied!), he is accused of lying, and put on a par with Michael Moore's cutting and splicing disparate bits of video to willfully create a false narrative.

That is totally bogus. Moore is an active and intentional liar. A rank propagandist whose hate spewing personna we have not seen the like of since Father Coughlin. Coulter on the right does not even come close to Mikey's level of distortion and intentional mendacity. For a real eye opener, I suggest you all go read "Michael Moore is a Big Fat Stupid White Man". This guy is a true menace to the republic, preying on gullible people like some posters above and laughing all the way to the bank.

Moore's elaborately constructed Bush conspiracy seems to Dems to be entirely plausible, while the simple conspiracy of Middle Eastern fascism seems beyond their grasp.

The anti-Bush folks simply cannot see the world in the same way as those who have had their view forever altered by 9/11. There is no way to make the Moore-loks see through this post-terror lens, and no way to return to 9/10 for those who can.

Nevertheless, we are at war, whether we wish it to be so or not. Spain will continue to be attacked, as will we. Withdrawal confers no safety, aggression will be met with aggression. We live in terrible times, and blaming Bush will not undo the fascism we face. There is no middle ground here, and the stakes are simply too high to relinquish a centimeter to the anti-war crowd.

There are liars and fanatic liars. Fanatic liars will lie to bring people to their cause without realizing/recognizing/acknowledging that lies brought them to the cause. Cognitive dissonance.

Almost ten years ago there was a gun control debate in Milwaukee over a proposed law. Not being a Milwaukee resident I didn't feel like I had a dog in that fight on either side but, I listened. Among other things, I heard about the woman who claimed handgun violence took her baby.

Today I see that as a Michael Moore truth: Her "baby" was an armed robber shot by police. She knew that and the gun control advocates who put her into the debate knew that but, they had a cause worth lying for.

Freeman Dyson once rejected a physics theory that actually supported his views because he thought it was bad science. If you have a good position you want good support. If you have a bad position you better change your mind.

A few points. Moore never said Bushs cousin declared Bush the winner of the last election. He states Fox news called Bush the winner. As to Bushs cousin Moore states that she is President of the Co Jeb Bush hired to count the votes. Seems Haliburton and Bechtel arent the only company getting 'sweetheart deals'.

Its common knowledge that Iraq had nuclear materials, but its not weapons grade. In fact, enriching that Uranium was the basis of the Bush lie that the centrifuges Iraq purchased was to make the Uranium weapons grade.

Im so sick of this administrations fear mongering and using the word freedom as an excuse for everything. As long as there are governments there will be terrorism. We have lived with terrorism in this country since the 1940s, and for the most part, until this administration took office our freedoms have expanded. We were hit on 911 because of Bushs failure to lead. In rolling up the millenial terrorists in Vancouver, Chicago, and Montreal Clinton produced a blue print for defending America from terrorists. Clinton was informed of a high volume of terrorist 'chatter' on attacking the US. So he coordinated all the various intell agencies to meet and share information, and that shared intelligence resulted in stopping the attack. Terrorist 'chatter' in July of 2001 was at an all time high, so Bush went on vacation.

Jim Miller, were you as startled when Bush told an outright lie about his arrest record, which was more checkable than most lies that Clinton ever told, being contained in a public document?

Turkey is not a democracy. Islam does not allow equality for nonmuslims, and without equality there can be no democracy.

JB save the profanity, it only reveals your ignorance and stupidity. And if you have to use that language, you should be sure your right. I specifically asked what Bush did to secure the wmd prior to 'shock and awe', not after it.

Oh, Begbee, please. The Millenium bombing was stopped by pure luck. And, out of the eight terror events I listed above, that is the only one that didn't succeed. Clinton was getting BJ's all through the 90's while the mega-terror attacks came one after the other.

And, the nuclear materials carted out of Iraq this week could have been used to construct dirty bombs, even disregarding the centrifuges which were clearly intended for uranium enrichment. It is just plain silly to claim otherwise. If you lived in Iraq's neighborhood, with nuclear power Israel to the right and incipient nuclear power Iran to the left, you'd be trying to secure nukes, too. But, just because it is understandable does not make it tolerable vis a vis the risk to our nation.

I'm sure you are sick of the fear, so you blame the messenger. Bush didn't start the fire. But, he is attacking it and putting it out.

I voted for Clinton twice. Please feel free to ignore this information and please do assign me my place in the right wing in your reply.

The notion that nobody was hurt as a result of Clinton's sexual escapades in office frosts me. The context in which this happened is important.

The Clintons were the avant garde of the sexual harassment hysteria. Clinton's actions in the Oval Office would have cost my CEO his job. The Clinton's were vocal about putting other men out of their jobs, in jail or in exile as the result of actions just like Clintons.

An entire industry devoted to sexual harassment exists in great part as a result of the efforts of the Clintons. It is an invasive, abusive and ideologically driven industry devoted to villifying men. The workplace has been turned into what Henry Miller called "The Air Conditioned Nightmare" as a result of these efforts.

Don't tell me that Clinton's offense was merely lying. That's crap.

And, now, please tell me about my place in the pantheon of right wing nuts.

Begbee:

Turkey has a secularist constitution. Though its democracy is imperfect (as are most if not all democracies), it is rather misleading to say the only democracies meriting the name are perfect ones.

The Clintons were the avant garde of the sexual harassment hysteria. Clinton's actions in the Oval Office would have cost my CEO his job. The Clinton's were vocal about putting other men out of their jobs, in jail or in exile as the result of actions just like Clintons.

SomeCallMeTim:

As Paul Harvey would say, here's the rest of the story.

"Dallas Morning News reporter Wayne Slater told colleagues that he asked Bush in September 1998 whether he'd been arrested since 1968 and that Bush had answered 'no.' But Slater said the governor also said, 'Wait a second' and appeared ready to amend his answer when spokeswoman Karen Hughes stopped the conversation."

http://www.azstarnet.com/vote2000/1104.shtml

Since lying requires intent (otherwise it is error, not lying), it seems to me that your example might just fall in the "uncorrected error" category.

As to why it went uncorrected, you'll have to ask him and Ms. Hughes - if you ever get the chance.

Jack O'Lantern (who has an interesting name, I must say) asks whether I was startled by Bush's lie about his arrest record. Some, because he should have know it would come out, and that it would be better if he explained it early himself. (There is, I have heard, a defense of Bush, but I am not familiar with the details -- nor do I necessarily think that reporters are always correct.)

I was not as surprised as I was by Clinton's fibs in 1992, because there seemed to be a pattern in Clinton's behavior that I did not see in Bush's.

Now my question for you: Are you at all troubled by the Clinton administration's refusal to call the mass murders in Rwanda (800,000 lives, by the most common estimate) genocide? Perhaps I am mistaken, but I see that as more important than lying about a drunk driving arrest (which hurt only Bush).

When F9/11 was announced, I said on my radio show that (a) it would set box office records for documentaries [Moore is nothing if not an effective self-promoter] and (b) most of the reviews would be favourable [since most film reviewers are liberal Democrats]. Everyone called me crazy.

Once again, I'm sorry to be correct.

Jane:

Answer the question--did you actually see the movie? Yes or no.

"...omission of facts necessary to make the statement made not misleading constitutes fraud. Q.E.D."

Do the Bush defenders really want to play the game with this standard?

MaB,

You betcha.

Hondo:

So, it's OK for politicians you approve of to parse carefully and insist on the literal ("What is the definition of 'is'?"), while politicians you disapprove of get slammed for doing the same? I expected better.

Where did I say I approved of Clinton? When did I say anything about Clinton? Why, if I disagree with Bush, do I immediately have to f*****g defend Clinton? I thought the whole endless investigation of him was a fruitless joke, but once they nailed him to the wall for a blowjob and he lied under oath, he was responsible for his own actions. He shouldn't have lied under oath -- whether about a blowjob or a murder -- and that was perjury, grounds for impeachment. But why do I have to flash my moderate's club membership card AGAIN just to make a point about Bush?

But can we eliminate, finally, at least in this thread if not out in the media, the assumption that criticism of Bush implies unconditional love of Clinton? And Whitewater hyperventilators: not this thread. Save it for later.

Rex,

So when Bush told Polish television on May 30, 2003 that we "found the weapons of mass destruction" without mentioning that the nature of the "mobile labs" to which he referred was contested by US intelligence, that was fraud right? After all, not to mention the fact that there were serious doubts about the trailers was misleading.

Contributor B:

Mea culpa.

I posted while in a hurry, and apparently confused another poster's words with yours. That criticism should not have been directed at you.

My apologies.

Well, dammit. Hondo apologized. Unequivocally.

You're not supposed to do that, Hondo, come on, what happens to the national dialogue if people are just apologizing all the time, how much fun is that?

Crap. Well, now what?

I'm sorry I told you you were in over your head.

Everybody, in another thread I told Hondo he was in over his head when I had no idea what his background was, and I'm sorry.

Crap.

Hey, Thumper? I've never watched the entirety of Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will". Am I therefore off-base by labeling it a load of propagandistic crap, although propagandistic crap crafted by a talented mind?

Tim, I try as hard as I can never to think about Ann Coulter, and I certainly don't read her stuff, but this is what I've had to say in the past about Ms Coulter. Grand total: I dislike her intensely, but there's no call to go making fun of her for being tall and skinny. Tall and skinny people have feelings too, you know.

Thumper: I haven't seen the movie. I have, however, seen his earlier movies, which rely on sleazy camera tricks to imply things that just ain't so. I am relying on the word of people I trust -- including a number of liberal co-workers who have seen, and liked, the movie, that the stuff I'm describing is in there. And more importantly, on the words of people who agree that Moore's movie is misleading in a fashion that they would find scandalous were conservatives doing it, but who think that that's just dandy because after all, the most important thing is to get Kerry elected By Any Means Necessary.

In a sense, we play into the Left's hand by even discussing this stuff at this level. I'm talking about whether the President and his staff lied or painted the facts here.

I remember quite well that we all knew this was intel and a best guess--no one was claiming certainty on this stuff, just the preponderance of evidence.

What we were discussing was the likelihood of Saddam passing weapons he likely had to terror scum we knew would use them on us. And whether it was just and moral to strike a sovereign country preemptively under those circumstances.

Looking back now and pretending we were all so freaking certain of all this stuff is just playing on their court. We took a shot and we're safer for it. The real measure of our effort isn't for years to come, and that the President was quite certain of.

She's not tall, BTW. She's a tiny little thing, and bony to boot.

But technically it IS lying to withold information while implying that you are not...it's the specific definition of "deceit". Since one does not deceive one's friends, it's inescapable that Mr. Moore doesn't consider his target audience to be his friends. Perhaps because he resents the fact that their adulation rests on his image as an edgy indy auteur, forcing him thus to fear being recognized as a successful big-show-biz mogul, a state-of-being of which he must be proud (as it is a rare and difficult achievement), but one which also rests upon it's own non-existance, denying him the 'joy-of-being' that must be one of the better definitions of success. It's the same old problem which has dogged high achievers throughout time, the nagging feeling of fraudulence. Lordy, did I just call Mr. Moore a 'high-achiever'? Sorry, I meant to call him a 'fraud'. Oh well, back to the drawing board!

Contributor B:

As a rule, I've never thought twice about apologizing when I was wrong. IMO, apologies don't diminsih the giver. Failing to apologize, when clearly wrong, IMO does.

I agree that the national dialogue might well be less entertaining if it contained apologies when warranted. However, I think it would be more productive if apologies - when warranted - were routine rather than a grossly unusual exception.

Thumper:

There's an old saying that "one does not have to eat the whole egg to know whether or not it is rotten." Perhaps in the case of Moore's current "documentary", the smell should tell you that long before you get close enough to take a bite.

Wish I'd read more before I posted, would've avoided sloppy seconds, but must salute Thinker, above, for the Big Truth so perfectly stated.

MaB,

At the time Bush said that I too believed that the mobile labs were evidence of WMD. That's what the belief was based on the available evidence at the time. The intel folks weren't "contesting" the meaning of the trailers, but rather were still evaluating the significance of the trailers. Within a few weeks it was clear that they weren't what we thought they were when they were discovered.

This equates to "Bush lied"? If that's so, then every newspaper in the country "lies" when they report the "news" based only on what they know in the initial stages of an event. Bush had a good faith belief in the truth of his statement at the time it was made. There can certainly be argument over whether or not he should have said ANYTHING while the intel evaluation was going on, but that's a different issue.

What I want are intentional lies on the part of George Bush. I haven't seen any to date. What I have seen is puffery, but that is common to all people, let alone salesmen and politicians. What I haven't seen is an outright deliberate lie. (Not to say there might not be any out there, but I haven't seen any yet.)

I realize there are no perfect democracies. If we had a true democracy rather than a represenitive republic, Gore would be President. A constitution is nothing more than a piece of paper. Turkeys laws are draconian and brutal, especially to women. There is no equal protection under the law in Turkey for non muslims. I do not consider Turkey to be a democracy. I think I should point out Im not a democrat, and I voted for Bush sr twice, and Clinton once out of the four elections I have been eligible to vote for. Because of my feelings about Clintons repeated purgery, Gores unwavering support of Clinton, and Bush jrs obvious stupidity I chose not to vote last election. How the reps stood Mccain next to Bush and chose Bush, I'll never know.

Reid, Clinton did have luck on his side in the border patrol picking up the terrorists in a random search in Vancouver. But there were also raids, arrests, and convictions on terrorist cells in Chicago and Montreal. The senate committee that reviewed the results of the millenial terrorists case recommended that the Clinton method of coordinating intell among intelligence agencies be adopted as policy. So much for Ashcrofts 'wall'. The Uranium could have been used to make a 'dirty' bomb, but the centrifuges were not of the type suitable to enrich Uranium.

This "rant" provides an intriguing insight. And it is interesting that it has touched a nerve with so many.

The above list of posts frequently contains a defense of the lies promulgated. Such should not be the case.

If a politician lies, they should be held accountable. Why is that so hard?

My theory is this: People register for a political party, and it becomes part of their identity. When a politician misbehaves from "their" party, the behavior is minimized. But when it is a member of the opposite party, it is magnified. If two people from differing parties committed the same act, the responses would be polarizing. Is that the way it should be?

Wasn't there a Republican Senator from Oregon who got in trouble for sex with the office staff? I don't remember the details, but he unceremoniously left office. Yet when a Democrat . . . well, you know.

To maintain that Bush lied about WMD is unsupported by facts. The United Nations thought he had WMD. The UN Security Council - including France, Russia, and China - voted unanimously to send in inspectors. There are a plethora of quotes from President Clinton making the case for regime change based on WMD.

I suspect that if people only registered for a political party in order to work for that party, and the rest of us were non-committed, we'd have much, much less nonsense in the political discourse.

People could actually discuss issues rather than trying to defend their party's nominee.

The fact is that in 1992, the House, the Senate, and the Presidency all went Democrat. Now all are held by Republicans. Does the party-label identity have anything to do with the virulent anti-Bush emotion?

We all know that a Pennsylvania Republican is more liberal than a Mississippi Democrat. Yet, the party identity prevails.

Here's a pretty good example of a Bush lie, although it it post-invasion in trying to justify his decision:"We gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in." (source:WaPO 7/15/03) In fact, Hussein did let the inspectors in and they were at work and had to be called out to make way for the invasion. Yet Bush hasn't lied, apparently. I know, I know, maybe he believed this to be true so he wasn't lying or maybe he didn't intend to deceive and just misspoke, but can't a reasonable person call this statement a lie?

Good job pointing out all of the factual errors in Moore's movie. Oh. Wait. There weren't any.

Thank you for the latest edition of "Fun with Tim and Jane".

For what its worth these are the facts from my perspective:

1) Human beings lie (via omission or commission) ... bloggers and politicians are no exceptions;

2) The most fervent Bush-haters believe that the 2000 election was "stolen" ... all independent recount evidence to the contrary;

3) These same people subconsciously loathe Al Gore even more. "My grandmother could (would) have won that election!"

4) Michael Moore is an RNC operative. There can be no other explanation.

5) The 2004 election is really a referendum on war. If America believes it is at war the present administration will be reelected ... and more soldiers will die. If America believes 19 radicals just got lucky on a bright Tuesday morning Kerry/Edwards will be elected ... and more civilians will die.

6) The great unwashed of America, both NPR and Fox frequenters, are not as uninformed as politicians desire ... or bloggers assume.

7) Life will go on ... and human beings will lie.

Zach:

A good propagandist doesn't need to lie outright. Misleading context, careful editing, and juxtaposition can mislead like hell while technically being factual.

As a poor, but quick example: if I remove nine characters from your post, it becomes "Good job pointing out all of the facts in Moore's movie. Oh. Wait. There weren't any." You did actually write each of those characters, in exactly the order they appear. However, it's been edited; it's not ALL that you wrote.

A second example: your original post can even be made to mean it's opposite depending on how the last sentence is delivered. You say it can't? Yeah, right.

Another example is what was done with a Schwartzenegger interview during the recent CA recall election. If I recall correctly, an interview he gave years ago was selectively edited to show that he purportedly admired Hitler. When the entire transcript was later released, it was clear that Schwartzenegger was expressing admiration for Hitler's ability as a public speaker - and immediately therafter stated that he did not like what Hitler had done with this ability.

Moore has the right to make any misleading cinematic trash he desires. He'll probably make a good living; there are plenty of fools who will willingly allow themselves to be duped by his screed (Barnum was right). Where I get steamed is when he presents misleading intentional propaganda to be "documentary" fact - and virtually no one from the left calls him on it.

John -- you are absolutely right. This is the thing that drives me nuts more than anything about Michael Moore: is he a documentarian or a satirist?

Niether. The man is a demagogue.

--A few points. Moore never said Bushs cousin declared Bush the winner of the last election. He states Fox news called Bush the winner. As to Bushs cousin Moore states that she is President of the Co Jeb Bush hired to count the votes. Seems Haliburton and Bechtel arent the only company getting 'sweetheart deals'--

Bush's cousin John Ellis worked for FoxNews - Ellis called it for Gore at 7:52 PM. Fox went w/Gore like the other channels. Pgs. 35-36-37 - read it yourself. Jeb called Ellis, are you sure the Panhandle was still OPEN, Ellis said, "It's not going to help. I'm sorry."

Mary Matalin on CNN said Whoa - that can't be and checked her sources in FLA went back on CNN and said, "I'm going out on a limb here. We have early data. The spread is 2%. The raw total is just 4K votes at this point. If it continues at this pace, there are a 1/2 million absentee ballots out there."

CNN's veteran election analyst, Bill Schneider, scoffed, "When we call the state," he intoned, "we're pretty sure that state is going to go for the winner."

Read it yourself, BG. Pgs 35-36-37. I use the book as the source because I remember irony of it all from that night and wanted to confirm my recollection.

The WP book was a series in the WP before published.

-----

And to the person who said Turkey's not a democracy until everyone can vote, under that definition, either the US was in 1920 w/the womens' right to vote, the 60s or to be snarky, possibly 2004 because of FLA.

Since I'm a product of public schools, were Greek women allowed to vote? If not, then I guess some could argue Greece is not the home of democracy, if we're using the all-or-none definition.

But Cuba, the USSR, Iran, the former Iraq and other places are.

Now, if you want to argue they were the first to recind (sp) their prediction, or they called it after midnight, that's different.

But the fact still stands that FoxNews originally called it for Gore and the person who called it was a Bush cousin. And it was on CNN that Matalin said hold on a minute.

As to the cousin who runs the company, was it a new contract or had they done previous elections - either local or state-wide before Jeb was gov? And if locally, did they need state approval before hiring a firm?

I also think, for some odd reason, that Ellis was interviewed on FoxNews after all was said and done.

Begbee,

This is long, but required.

"There are no authenticated documents or even detailed descriptions of Iraqi/Al Qaeda meetings, but what is known for certain is that Iraq rejected any overtures of collaberation with Al Qaeda."

Really? That's known FOR CERTAIN? How can we both have "no authnticated documnts or even dtailed descriptions" of their meetings and also KNOW that "any overtures" were rejected? Congratualtions, you're totally logically inconsistent.

"It seems to me not knowing what happened to the wmd is far worse than knowing an impotant Saddam had them."

And if "impotant" Saddam had them, he could GIVE them to whomever he felt like (he actually made at least on veiled threat to do this). That alone would make him not so "impotent".

"Now, the wmd might be in Syria or the hands of terrorists, which is the very thing this war was suppose to pre-empt, not cause."

Which is why the Presidnt shouldn't have had to spend several months publicly proclaiming that we knew h had WMD. That, and if Saddam had them, what was to prevent him from giving them to terrorists (without our knowledge)?

"One thing we do know for sure is a result of our invasion of Iraq is that Iran has accelerated its nuke program, is now thumbing their nose at the UN, and like all the Islamic nations, covertly supporting the Iraqi insurgency."

Cool - I didn't know that we knew "for sure" that Iran and "all the Islamic nations" are "covertly supporting the Iraqi insurgency". Well, since we know for sure, I suppose you won't complain when Bush takes that for the declaration of war that it is (blowing up our soldiers on the battlefield is the easiest of all actions to classify as an act of war) and responds accordingly... Or is consistency asking too much of you?

"And rather than have the Iraqi oil pay for it, because then the Iraqis would choose the contractors, Bush is using our tax dollars to pay so he can funnel sealed, no bid contracts to his friends in US big energy."

I assume you mean Halliburton - the same company that got the same no-bid contract from the military during the Clinton years. I suppose that's Bush's fault too...

"This President knowing lied to all of America about war during his State of the Union speech two years ago. During the vetting of the SOU the CIA refused to be used as a source for the Niger-Uranium accusations. Bush needed to get nukes involved to maximize fear, so he used a British Intell report that was KNOWN TO BE BASED ON THE SAME INTELLIGENCE THE CIA CONCLUDED TO BE FALSE, but used the wording African and nuclear material rather than Niger and Uranium."

Newsflash! The British STILL stand by their intelligence (which has only been released publicly as referring to Africa) - it was based on human intelligence gathered BEFORE that document was even found. So you're LYING - or, I suppose, you could be mistaken... like Clinton when he blew up that aspirin factory. That was just a mistake, not a lie, right?

"We have lived with terrorism in this country since the 1940s, and for the most part, until this administration took office our freedoms have expanded. We were hit on 911 because of Bushs failure to lead."

Right - an opperation that took years to plan and train for was the fault of someone who took office ony a few MONTHS before it was executed. Come, join us in reality for a few minutes, OK?

"Clinton was informed of a high volume of terrorist 'chatter' on attacking the US. So he coordinated all the various intell agencies to meet and share information, and that shared intelligence resulted in stopping the attack."

The guy at the border was caught by a routine DRUG official, nothing that Clinton did. Next.

"The senate committee that reviewed the results of the millenial terrorists case recommended that the Clinton method of coordinating intell among intelligence agencies be adopted as policy. So much for Ashcrofts 'wall'."

"Ashcroft's 'wall'" was created under... wait for it... JANET RENO. In fact, the DEMOCRAT who authored it sits on the 9/11 Commision... Oh, but it's bipartisan and has no agenda...

The Uranium could have been used to make a 'dirty' bomb, but the centrifuges were not of the type suitable to enrich Uranium.

"Not suitable" does not mean "not capable" - in fact, any reasonable person trying to acquire something they aren't supposed to have won't buy the specific thing they aren't supposed to have, but something that is just "close enough". That would be why those parts were also on the forbidden list. Not to be too rude about that, but, um, DUH.

Eamon O'Brachlain

"Here's a pretty good example of a Bush lie, although it it post-invasion in trying to justify his decision:"We gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in." (source:WaPO 7/15/03) In fact, Hussein did let the inspectors in and they were at work and had to be called out to make way for the invasion. Yet Bush hasn't lied, apparently. I know, I know, maybe he believed this to be true so he wasn't lying or maybe he didn't intend to deceive and just misspoke, but can't a reasonable person call this statement a lie?"

In the country, or in the specific places they wanted to go? The first, he did, the second, he didn't. Which was Bush refering to? Since "in the country" is totally useless without being able to go where you ned to, I would guess the second, so I wouldn't call that a lie. (I consider myself a reasonable person, but then, almost everyone considers THEMSELVES reasonable, don't they?)

Eamon,
As I recall, Hussein had let the inspectors in, then didn't let them in, and then agreed to let them in with unacceptable strings attached, etc. Without searching for the exact dates and sequence of events, I can't tell you exactly when Hussein was agreeing to let inspectors in and when he wasn't. The point was that he was not complying with either the spirit or letter of the UN mandate. We gave Hussein several chances to let inspectors in, and he refused.

Do you know what the job of the inspectors was? A lot of people, dare I say most people, think that the job of the inspectors was to search for and find the WMD. That wasn't their job. Their job was to verify the disposition of the WMD, and they could only do that if Hussein pointed them in the right direction in the first place. They were never searchers; they were verifiers. Hussein agreed to this arrangment and then obstructed the job of the inspectors at every turn.

And a minor point--I don't think Bush was "justifying" his war in any talks he gave after we invaded; I think that he was EXPLAINING why we went in. WMD's were only one of six major reasons why we went in. In my mind, the WMD's were the least of the reasons; in other people's minds, they were the greatest of reasons, but please never overlook that they were never the only reasons.

"At the time Bush said that I too believed that the mobile labs were evidence of WMD. That's what the belief was based on the available evidence at the time."

No he didn't. He said:

"We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories. You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said, Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons. They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two. And we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong. We found them."

The words, "I believe" or any other qualifying phrase are not to be found in the remarks, nor has he ever retracted or corrected his statement.

"There can certainly be argument over whether or not he should have said ANYTHING while the intel evaluation was going on, but that's a different issue."

No, its not - it is the same issue. When the President states that, "We found the weapons of mass destruction." without noting that the evaluation was going on, without mentioning that there were doubts within the intel community, he was making a misleading assertion. The CIA's own report, released two days before the President's remarks, notes the many assumptions that have to be made to conclude the trailers were for mobile bio-weapons production, such as the existence of other post-production trailers ( that they hadn't yet found )that would have "mixing tanks, centrifuges, and spray dyers" which also hadn't been found. On May 30, the day of the President's remarks, Slate featured a piece by Fred Kaplan which notes other problems with the "mobile labs" theory:

"One biologist, looking at CIA-released photographs of a trailer, noted that the pipes feeding into the chamber appear to have threaded or bolt-flange joints, which he says would cause leaks—both from the inside and to the outside. The former might contaminate the bioproduction, the latter might kill the bioworkers. Another biologist said he would like to know whether the trailer has a thermal-control meter that could keep the chamber to within one or two degrees of body temperature; if there is such a meter, the trailer might have been used to grow toxins; if there isn't, it couldn't possibly have been."

(http://slate.msn.com/id/2083760/sidebar/2083762/)

Leaving these facts out, while convenient, certainly constitutes the "omission of facts necessary to make the statement made not misleading" or fraud, per the standard described above. Spare me the casuistry.

BG - remember, we are approx. 90% Christian and 80% white, be careful of wanting popularity votes.

Democracy is nothing more than mob rule, which is fine when your mob is in charge. It's when your mob is not....

Jane should see the movie or not write about it.

Movies are not newspaper articles and they are not textbooks. Documentaries, non-narrative or otherwise, are not journalism. If the point made by a movie could be summed up in a few words such as "GW lied", the movie would not have needed to be made. For the same reason, emailing someone the words "Some believe that a culture of fear exists in the U.S. and contributes to a lowering of natural barriers to violent action," does not have the same effect as having them watch _Bowling for Columbine_. People that attack Moore or his movies because they are not journalism miss the point. In fact there's little reason to attack Moore at all, but plenty to wonder why more movies like his aren't made.

Let's take _Columbine_. It presents a way of making sense out of the Columbine High shooting incident to the viewer. Moreover it does so to a depth and breadth that isn't to be found in our cultural discourse outside of long articles in obscure academic journals. Like those long articles, you are not required to agree with the author at the conclusion, but unlike them it is accessible to a large segment of our population. In communication you can't get something for nothing, however, and it sacrifices the footnotes and the references that the article has. It relies upon emotion and aesthetic to shift the viewer's perspective and reinforce points, partly to make up for the fact that it cannot use the same devices of evidence amassment and rhetoric available in the written form, and partly because these will reach a larger audience than the latter. None of this makes it illegitimate as long as it does not step over certain bounds. Quoting out of context (e.g. the Heston speech excerpts) is mostly OK; academic articles do this too. Harassing interviewing (e.g. the Heston interview) is OK, as long as the context (all questions, and complete dialog from start to finish) IS included. In the end, _Columbine_ accomplishes an important function in providing a large number of Americans a way to make sense of a horrifying tragedy and pointing out places to look for ways to prevent a recurrence. You may not agree with the view presented; that's fine, and it would be great if there were other filmmakers out there attempting similar work, but I'd rather have one view than none at all. Even if you disagree you are at least shown how it may be possible to construct a picture, and to search for a solution.

_Roger and Me_ was not as coherent as _Columbine_ -- it did point out some interesting and important aspects of how corporate decisions can affect social conditions, but it did not have a clear picture to provide, nor did it point out a promising direction for resolution. It was Moore's first film. It still stimulated thinking about how our society is structured and whether there are not places where it could be improved.

Now I have not seen _Fahrenheit 9/11_ so I'm not going to talk about it. But from its success at Cannes I suspect it is closer to _Columbine_ than _Roger_ in craftsmanship and coherence. And in any case I am confident that the experience to be derived from watching the movie (which I will do) does not hinge on whether 0 or 4 members of the "bin Laden flight" out of the U.S. after 9/11 were interviewed by the FBI. They also don't hinge on whether the views of a set of Iraq soldiers interviewed is typical of the whole. To criticize the movie on the basis of such points is losing the forest for the chemical constituents of the bark on its trees. To write a blessay about the movie based on such criticism while neglecting the question of what it might have been trying to convey and how it conveyed it more effectively than other media might have is a waste.

"A constitution is nothing more than a piece of paper"

Begbee:
I apologize in advance, but that statement is beggin'.

For those of you who anticipate that political dialog should always advocate for a positive outcome, it doesn't. A positive outcome would require some actual work, therefore, I suppose we must settle for propaganda.

In Mr.Moore's case, that which he thrusts at us as advocacy is actually anarchism.

Michael Moore's goal is not a resolution of issues, but their muddling, and not a proffer of legitimate alternatives, but the destruction of an administration.

I have not heard the Leftists put forward any coherent strategy for dealing with international terrorism, period.

What I do hear is that if George W. Bush et al are not able to return us to our pre 9/11 virginity, they have failed.

What the Democrat Party is apparently saying to the electorate by embracing F9/11 is: Here, snack on some conspiratorial and classist appetizers. Don't worry though, we'll serve you a real feast when our guy gets in.

For example, what will Botox Man and Rob'em the Boy Wonder's economic policy be?

If we choose to follow their examples, we'll first try to marry money, and if not successful, we'll sue ourselves to prosperity.

Oh, by the way, before I'm toe tagged as Right Wing, I voted for Bill Clinton twice. I have always registered as independent or unaffiliated.
I am also imperfect; I fell for Al Gore's line of BS as well.

I haven't left the Democrats, they left me.

Enough with the everyone knew Saddam had wmd. The fact is both Rice and Powell are quoted as saying Iraq had no wmd, no capacity to produce wmd, and were a threat to noone in 2001. This means they had intelligence that the pols who commented prior to 2001 didnt have. All these quotes based on old intelligence is a very transparent red herring. I suppose the fact that both Oneil and Clarke said that this administration targeted Iraq long before 911 make them two more liars that seem to surround this administration. I guess when Clarke spoke of going after Al Qaeda Afganistan, Rumsfeld never said, 'theres better targets in Iraq ' despite Al Qaeda having no working relation with Saddam. And I suppose the reports of Powell saying 'I wont read this bullshit..' when speaking about the speech before the UN is another lie from the lying liars that tell lies.

My comments on the Fla voting was limited to what Moore said. Moore said Fox news was the first to report a Bush victory in Fla. Thats the way I remember it. There is no way that the Presidents Governor brother should have allowed Bushs cousins Co to count the vote. Are we expected to believe that under these working circumstances that the 3 Fla counties that were riddled with convicted felon mistakes just happen to be largely black districts, who just happen to vote at a 96% rate for dems?

As to being a democracy, the US still isnt a democracy, its a representive republic or Al Gore would be President. A democracy must allow every citizen equality in voting. The electoral college does not allow for 1 citizen = 1 vote. Until very recently only white males were considered citizens in the western democracies. But in todays world, any nation that has government regulated inequality based on race, gender, or religion, is not a democracy. Its funny, some people think if you hold an election your a democracy...

ABR, you are now talking about a movie I have seen, and examined in great depth, for an article I wrote. Bowling for Columbine consistently steps over what I would term any reasonable boundary for minimal standards of honesty.

To cite just a few things:

1) That Heston speech is not simply clipped out of context; it is two speeches laced together, with anything that might make Charlton Heston look marginally human carefully edited out. If you watch the movie closely, as I did, you can see the color of his tie change. Michael Moore uses cutaways to the audience to cover the transition between Heston #1 and Heston #2, and the voiceover strenuously implies that it is a single speech.

2) The interview you're talking about is a) clearly cut and b) heavily edited. Moore has stated repeatedly that the scene of Heston walking away was done with two cameras. Having looked closely at it, I have to conclude that this is extremely unlikely, unless his front cameraman was a midget contortionist; there's simply no room to put a cameraman where he says one was, and moreover, the rest of the movie seems to have been shot with one camera. On the reasonable assumption that the front view was probably shot after Heston had walked away, it becomes clear that we don't really know what happened at all during that scene, since the audio used is the audio from teh front shot. Michael Moore could have been standing there calling Heston names, and we have no way of telling.

3) Moore attempts to make it seem as if the NRA has some bizarre penchant for going to shooting stops to have its meetings. Sleazy enough that he didn't tell you that the reason the NRA held its meeting in Boulder right after the shooting is that under the laws of New York State, where the NRA is incorporated, members have to have ten days notice of a general meeting change or cancellation--and the Columbine shooting happened eleven days before the meeting, leaving them insufficient time to notify the membership of a change. What's really egregious, however, is that he attempts to make it seem as if Heston went to Flint right after a little girl was shot by a boy in her class. He does this by showing you an NRA document, and then quickly highlighting and bringing forward a phrase that reads "48 hours after she was shot . . . " while Michael Moore tells you that after the shooting, Charlton Heston went to Flint. As it turns out, Charlton Heston went to Flint nine months later, on a 3-hour whistle stop during the Bush campaign tour. The actual sentence, from which he excerpted the highlighted phrase, reads "48 hours after she was shot, President Clinton went on the Today show to talk about gun control." There's simply no excuse for that.

4) Moore conflates the demise of the first Klan insurgency with the creation of the NRA a year later. Problem: the Klan arose in the reconstruction south. The NRA was founded by an act of the New York State Legislature, by former civil war officers who wanted to make sure that recruits for the military could shoot as well as the rebs they fought had. There's not only no connection between the two things; there's a specifically anti-south (the original Klan was a completely southern, anti-reconstruction group) strain to the NRA's founding, which Moore surely knew if he did any research at all.

. . . and that's just off the top of my head. You are not salvaging my opinion of Michael Moore, or his supporters, by bringing up Columbine.

I think I see, now, MaB.

The President is obligated to inform the public of every niggling doubt possessed by every analyst in the entire intelligence chain, and expressly and repeatedly disclaim statements made by himself and his spokespeople with anything less than 100% certainty to... some purpose I can't quite figure out.

An attempt to satisfy individuals already convinced that his entire administration is composed of mendacious, war-profiteering weasels, perhaps?

To do anything less would be perpetrating fraud on the American public!

Right?

John you quote me on the value of a constitution and then your post reads like someone using a thesaurus to attack Moores film, and nothing to the worth of the constitution. Dont quote me unless your reasonable or bring your A game. And the personal insults thrown at Kerry and Edwards are completely ridiculous for a party that features Mr 'I looked into his eyes and saw a good soul' Bush and Mr 'fuck off' then charge the paddles Cheney. I guess Cheney aint down with the 'compassionate conservative speak, or am I misunderestimating him?

Coming in late here....
Let me break it down.
Micheal Moore is a private citizen.
He has a right to his opinion, just like Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Al Franken, and Rupert Murdoch. Now , he gets to use a movie camera to express his opinion, while Murdoch has to make do with a 24 hour cable network. Thats OK. HE HAS A RIGHT TO HIS OPINION.
George Bush is the President of the United States. He represents ME. If he decides to invade another country and thousands of people with MY ared forces, he has a responsibilty to tell me the truth about why he's doing it.
Thats the difference. Thats why we should be far more concerned about whether politicans lie, than when some media figure lies.

And for some reason, Putin recently backed W up on Iraq. And wow, considering many people want to make FO, FU part of the minute-by-minute conversation, what was the big deal?

I'm from IL, we have fist-fights here.

-- 3 Fla counties that were riddled with convicted felon mistakes just happen to be largely black districts, who just happen to vote at a 96% rate for dems?--

Again, I'm from IL, the state w/the most spoiled ballots in 2000, IIRC - and most of those were from Chicago - certain parts of Chicago.

And did you know there was a study done that found there were approx. 20 - 23K black republicans in FLA in 2000 and they were 30% more likely to have their ballots spoiled if they voted in a place w/a dem poll worker at the head? Did I mention I'm from Chicago? I don't think I mentioned punch ballots were used quite a bit in this state in 2000. Shall I tell you what happened before punch ballots? The backs of the machines were opened and the numbers were read off and written down.

And you're not the first to point on what Mickey said about FoxNews - he was wrong, now you know. That's why I knew where to go.

And BG, look at Iraq this way, unfinished business and location, location, location. Even the mullahs understood that before the war. Saw it on a newscast of Iran's. DISH channel 9410 of ME news roundup. It is no coincidence that Korea, Iraq, Iran and the unfinished domestic business of Viet Nam are all biting us (deleted for sensitive ears) at this point in time.

I expect a plan to invade Mexico and Canada. And I expect it to be reviewed on a regular basis. A certain piece of paper says something about "common defense."

Deoxy that was pathetic. We know Saddam refused Al Qaedas overtures to cooperate with Al Qaeda because the recently translated Iraqi records have not been authenticated, but they still reject the possibility of working with Al Qaeda. Saddam couldnt give terrorists wmd he didnt have, but if he did have them, giving them to terrorists that oppose his rule would be incredibly stupid.

As to every Islamic country covertly supporting Iraq, havent you ever heard of the 5 pillars of Islam? One of the 5 pillars is that all Islamic nations will join to remove the infidel from Islam. Bush himself has pointed at Iran, Syria, and Egypt as insurgency collaborators.

Ashcrofts 'wall' existed nowhere but in the minds of those officials who's complete incompetance allowed 911 to occur. Clintons handling of the millenial terrorists proved this 'wall' to be complete bs, thats why we havent heard it as an excuse in months. Bush ignored terrorism, took vacation when chatter was at its highest level ever, and had no terrorism policy in place, but what the heck, 6 months on the job requires a months vacay no matter what the consequence. And dont worry about those 2 briefings that so ambiguously state, 'Al Qaeda in America planning jet hijacking'. Oh, and let me be crystal clear, there were no centrifuges discovered in Iraq capable of enriching Uranium.

Question, Carib: Say you work within an organization where your reputation is a valuable tool that you need to push your project along in a competitive environment. Say that on this conglomerate staff there's two other staffers in competition with you. One of them fights you by saying he thinks your ideas are wrong, the other fights you by whispering that that you molested his child at the company barbeque last year. The first guy has a right to his opinion. The second guy has forsaken his rights to the benefit of the doubt, and deserves all the approbation you can heap on him. Right?

Most of the reviews for F9/11 have been using this meme: "Not very well put together, kinda sloppy, not all that truthful...but Moore's heart is in the right place! Four stars!" Gee.

1. Make a loud, emotional movie whose politics are similar to those of the people reviewing it;
2. Exhibit movie to show how "brave" you are, daring to dissent in Ashcroft's Amerikkka;
3. Profit (and win Oscars)!

Begbee:

"A constitution is nothing more than a piece of paper"

Aye, and in one respect neither is a Bible, Torah, Koran, or any other religious Holy Book. Nontheless, many hold these "pieces of paper" dear. You might want to think twice before talking badly about any of them.

----------

ABR:

I believe that motion pictures or television programs that are documentaries are generally considered to be "journalism" vice "entertainment". (Professional journalists lurking, please help out here?) Responsible journalists don't knowingly lie to the public - or at least they didn't used to. Maybe the rules of the game have changed.

----------

Contributor B:

Your apology - with background - above was gracious; it is both appreciated and accepted. I was remiss in not saying so earlier.

ABA's commments remind me of that left-wing female poet who won some big prize based on her autobiographical writing, and then it turned out she had fabricated it all -- never mind, said the left, her storie were "true" at heart even if the facts were false. If that's your defense of Michael Moore, the documentary maker, well, I say, you can have your Leni Reifenstahl. Like Reifenstahl, Moore pays tribute to facism and mass murder - if we followed his advice, the Taliban would still be sitting in Kabul and Hussein in Bagdahd. But if that's the kind of poetic "truth" that turns you on, well, OK, but leave me out.

-- 3 Fla counties that were riddled with convicted felon mistakes just happen to be largely black districts, who just happen to vote at a 96% rate for dems?--

So what are you trying to imply – that the Democratic elections director who bought the list did so with the intent of disenfranchising black voters or that the Democratic county officials who were charged (under the 1998 Florida statute) with verifying the accuracy of the names on the list and removing those that weren’t dead or felons didn’t do their job? Bonus points if you can actually name someone who was actually denied the franchise (as opposed to having to correct it at their polling place) because their name was wrongly put on the list.

ABR, I'm not sure how 'documentary' is used in your neck of the woods, but any English dicitonary will tell you that it refers to the documenting of something in a factual and informative manner. Attempting to confuse the meaning of "documentary" with a vociferous personal perspective that relies on selective editing and context-invention is a disservice, both to the word and to the argument. We already have words that accurately describe what Moore does, and which Moore himself should be more careful to use: "satire" or "personal polemic" will do just fine.

ABR--

How does Jane's main point that she disagrees with those who admit the movie's a hatchet job but think it's "important" because it serves a "larger truth" depend on her having seen the movie?

I'm mean, all she's doing is taking these people at their word.

"Bush misled people"?

Only those who weren't listening. Megan is right that the Democrats who are shocked, shocked at lying by politicians are just hypocrites clutching at straws, just as their reaction to Cheney's four-letter lingo to Pat Leahy was as disingenuous at it could be, but I don't think Bush lied to anybody. The left is manufacturing this stuff about our being misled as an excuse for Democrat waffling on the war. They voted to support it, and now they want to justify the reversal of their positions, and what better way than by claiming that they were lied to?

Does anybody in his right mind really believe that Saddam wasn't a terrorist? Was it ever Bush's position that we were only going after terrorists with a close working relation with Al Qaeda? No and no.

The biggest scandal about all this is the heavy involvement of the news media in selling this nonsense. I just wish I knew how to hit big media where it hurts. What I'd like to see is for the Fox broadcast network to start a nightly news program to run against Dan, Tom, Peter and Jim. It could easily be done by editing down Brit Hume's program, and it would be fun to see how it would do in the ratings. There is a huge unserved market for news that tells both sides.

So, Ashcroft's wall isn't that big a deal?

What about Torchy's 1983(?) wall?

Okay, I'm not going to weigh in on the lied/didn't lie thing nor am I going to talk about Moore's film. But I would like to talk about what a Documentary is.

A Documentary is a non-fiction film. My Husband is getting a Ph.D. in this stuff. I hear him talk about it all the time. That means that Moore's film is, in fact, a documentary, just as an Anne Coulter book would be non-fiction. I may disagree with everything she puts on paper and think that she characterizes things incorrectly, and even misrepresents and outright misconstrues the fact in her favor, I may even call the book a FICTION...but it is, in fact, non-fiction. Michael Moore is not a journalist. He is VERY open about his opinions and his point of view. He has every right to say whatever he wants (just as Anne Coulter does) and his OPINIONS are non-fiction (regardless of what you believe). I find "journalists" like Nedra Pickler at the AP much more dangerous than Moore or Coulter or any of their ilk. At least you know where Moore and Coulter are coming from and they don't claim the clap-trap they write/film is Journalism.

For those of you who may disagree with me, did you see Errol Morris' FOG OF WAR? Certainly it had an opinion.

Also, from a comment back a long time ago regarding Bradbury being unhappy his title was (sort-of) used in Moore's film...suck it up. Titles have no copyright protection on their own. If he's done a little marketing and recieved trademark protection he wouldn't have this problem.

So the moral to this story is everyone needs a Trademark lawyer.

ABR presents a nice white-washing and rationalization for lying in service to a cause. One suspects that ABR is not so generous when the lying serves a cause that ABR does not favor. Gosh, how cynical of me.

Moore finds a willing audience - many people want change. However, his films border on
propaganda. He misrepresents facts, edits film clips to mislead, etc.



http://www.bowlingfortruth.com/

http://www.moorelies.com/

http://moorewatch.com/index.php/weblog/C18/

http://www.spinsanity.org/topics/#MichaelMoore

Jane -

Something's curious about this thread. Who are the people who excuse Michael Moore for lying in the service of a higher truth? All of the apologies I've read of the movie focus on the fact that it's deeply flawed but contains some kernels of truth. The same with the people I've talked to (who, I know, are some of the same people you talk to): nobody thinks it's ok to lie as long as you lie for good.

We all seem to think that it's a shame that Moore has to mix up some perfectly fair points with all that crap about pipelines and the Carlyle Group's 1.4 billion from the Saudis and the gratuitous and poorly served Orwell quote. Moore is an oaf and in love with himself, but it doesn't mean that some damning subset of what he says isn't true. (Same with Bush, incidentally; one of the things I keep having to say to my German friends is "Just because George Bush said it doesn't mean it's wrong.")

So who, exactly, thinks that it's ok for Moore to lie for good? Do you have any links, or is this from conversations?

You rspond to about half of what I said (essentially conceding defeat on the other half), and you call ME pathetic? And that's before I even rebutt!

"We know Saddam refused Al Qaedas overtures to cooperate with Al Qaeda because the recently translated Iraqi records have not been authenticated, but they still reject the possibility of working with Al Qaeda."

So, Bush goes on record about something that has not been authenticated, and it's a lie, but we KNOW Saddam rejected ALL offers from Al Qaeda ALL the time based on un-authenticated documents from Iraq, despite authenticated documents from OBL and other Al Qaeda sources saying otherwise.

"Saddam couldnt give terrorists wmd he didnt have, but if he did have them, giving them to terrorists that oppose his rule would be incredibly stupid."

Repeat after me: the enemy of my enemy is my friend. That would be why OBL made such nice comments about Hussein (from those authenticated sources, again.)

"As to every Islamic country covertly supporting Iraq, havent you ever heard of the 5 pillars of Islam? One of the 5 pillars is that all Islamic nations will join to remove the infidel from Islam. Bush himself has pointed at Iran, Syria, and Egypt as insurgency collaborators."

Yeees, so we KNOW Malaysia (for one example) is covertly supporting the insugency (not "Iraq" - WE are supporting Iraq) based on the 5 pillars of Islam, and we KNOW Al Qaeda won't join togther with another Islamic country (Iraq) when the "Great Satan" (that would be us) is the enemy? You need remedial logic courses.

"Ashcrofts 'wall' existed nowhere but in the minds of those officials who's complete incompetance allowed 911 to occur."

You are only leaving out all the official policy memos from years of the Clinton administration, where the term "wall of separation" was coined, and where it was admittedly, specifically created despite the acknowledged costs in intelligence capabilities. Go read the memos, and just repeat to yourself how officials in office for fewer than 9 months, most much fewer due to the whole recount delay thing, can undo years of policy with implementation time to spare. And Bush still mamangd to get out a new terrorism policy that increased spending on it 5 fold (his very first policy roll-out, by th way).

"Clintons handling of the millenial terrorists proved this 'wall' to be complete bs, thats why we havent heard it as an excuse in months."

Oh, you mean the handling where nothing Clinton did made a difference because a routine DRUG SEARCH found the explosives? You mean that "handling"?

"Bush ignored terrorism, took vacation when chatter was at its highest level ever, and had no terrorism policy in place,"

I call bullshit. The VERY FIRST official policy Bush put out was on terrorism, and it was out BEFORE 9/11.

"And dont worry about those 2 briefings that so ambiguously state, 'Al Qaeda in America planning jet hijacking'."

Yay, Al Qaeda is planning hi-jackings. At that point, they'd been planning hi-jackings for literally years, and there had been warnings about it before, with no developments. AND that was only one small portion of a MUCH larger briefing that assigned higher threat levels to other things. You cherry-pick well, though.

"Oh, and let me be crystal clear, there were no centrifuges discovered in Iraq capable of enriching Uranium."

Wrong again - there was such equipment hidden in the home of a scentist (disassembled... or is that what you man by "incapable"? pretty weak).

Also, we intercepted parts that would have been "capable", though not "suited". There is a difference, but when "suited" is definitively banned, "capable" is what you go for. To ignore that as likely from somone who had a demonstrated desire to get WMDs is to engage in wishful thinking. To think someone would kick out the inspectors in 1998 and then secretively, unilaterally disarm is, well, not necessarily wrong (people have done dumber things, actually), but, barring definitive evidence (which we clearly don't have, or this entire argument wouldn't be happening), very naive and foolhardy.

And speaking of WMD, just for a little perspective:

There are over 100 documented chemical weapons dump sites in the US left from WWI that we CAN'T FIND (how may years has it been?).

The Chinese find caches of chemical weapons every few yars that th Japanese buried in WWII.

In Berlin, there are authenticated documents indicating that there are fully supplied fighters in the bunkers in Berlin left from WWII which are as yt unaccounted for. No one knows for sure if they are there or not, because there are still unexplored bunkers left from WWII, some of them under the Berlin airport.

So, repat your little mantra: there are no WMDs in Iraq; if there were, we would CERTAINLY have found them by now.

Just as an example, you can fit several tons of chemical weapons on th back of one 18-wheeler. That's enough to kill thousands and thousands of people. And don't even start on biologicals. Properly weaponized infectious bio-agent capable of starting a worldwide epdidemic if properly (and suicidially) propogated would fit in a SODA CAN.

And on more thing - that sarin shell that was used in an IED? It was 1) unmarked, and 2) a binary shell.

1) unmarked. So, the 15ish stockpiles of weapons, each thee size of 20+ football stadiums, that we've found could be housing huge numbers of such shells. We'd have to test thm individually.

2) a binary shell (meaning the chemical weapons precursor chemicals are mixed in flight). Iraq never declared ANY binary artillery shells; Hans the bumbler Blix never found any, either. So, where, pray tell, did it come from?

Contributor B, look nor further than this thread, with this defense of a previous Moore movie:

"It presents a way of making sense out of the Columbine High shooting incident to the viewer. Moreover it does so to a depth and breadth that isn't to be found in our cultural discourse outside of long articles in obscure academic journals. Like those long articles, you are not required to agree with the author at the conclusion, but unlike them it is accessible to a large segment of our population. In communication you can't get something for nothing, however, and it sacrifices the footnotes and the references that the article has. It relies upon emotion and aesthetic to shift the viewer's perspective and reinforce points, partly to make up for the fact that it cannot use the same devices of evidence amassment and rhetoric available in the written form, and partly because these will reach a larger audience than the latter. None of this makes it illegitimate as long as it does not step over certain bounds. Quoting out of context (e.g. the Heston speech excerpts) is mostly OK; academic articles do this too. Harassing interviewing (e.g. the Heston interview) is OK, as long as the context (all questions, and complete dialog from start to finish) IS included. In the end, _Columbine_ accomplishes an important function in providing a large number of Americans a way to make sense of a horrifying tragedy and pointing out places to look for ways to prevent a recurrence. You may not agree with the view presented; that's fine, and it would be great if there were other filmmakers out there attempting similar work, but I'd rather have one view than none at all. Even if you disagree you are at least shown how it may be possible to construct a picture, and to search for a solution."

This obsfuscates, and rationalizes, the fact that "Bowling for Columbine" is filled from top to bottom with L-I-E-S, and this obsfuscation and rationalization is engaged in simply because the poster thinks the lies serve a useful cause. Go read David Edelstein's review of F911, in which he essentially makes the same defense.

Kate:

Good luck to your husband. However, you didn't answer my question (though as a lawyer, I don't think your opinion would be definitive in this field): is a documentary film considered, by professionals in the journalism and/or filmmaking industries, a work of journalism - or not?

By the way, I am the individual who posted the Bradbury-opinion-about-Moore references. I think we are all well aware that book titles are not generally legally protected. My post was not meant to imply anything about the legality of Moore's appropriating and bastardizing the possibly legally unprotected (since untrademarked) intellectual property of Ray Bradbury. It was, instead, intended to give insight into Moore's fundamental character.

I personally think Bradbury describes Moore's fundamental character pretty accurately, if somewhat profanely.

I mean, what should we think about someone making their living through the use of creative intellectual property who steals - then bastardizes and cheapens - the title of one of the acknowledged living titans of modern literature's meisterwork without so much as the courtesy of a "Do you mind if I . . . ?" -- and then avoids him/her when he/she expresses displeasure?! Come on! IMO, a**hole is a pretty mild description of such conduct.

If someone did that to me, "korkad skitstövel" would be one of the least offensive terms I'd use to describe the individual.

Yay, Al Qaeda is planning hi-jackings.

To negotiate the release of terrorists from prisons around the world.

Which is another reason why simply arresting them isn't a great idea.

Hondo,

Documentaries CAN BE journalistic, or thay can not be. I can make a documentary on the horrors of dugs or I can make a documentary on how great drugs are or I can just make a documentary about drugs. all are non-fiction. two have opinions. Jouralists can make journalistic documentaries, but documentaries are not necessarily made by journalists.

Just like this blog is full of opinions, it is documentary in nature. It documents Jane and Mindles' opinions, but it is not a citable source except to those opinions. Most feature documentaries take a side and are not truly objective. Think of it more like a long-form essay.

Deoxy Bush has made a fool of himself and the US with documents of dubious origin many times. Theres the documents the CIA told him were wrong about nuke material, but Bush still used in the State of the Union speech, were forgeries. The Cheyk intelligence on Atta meeting Iraqi agents has been discredited by the 911 commission. So any document presented by this administration that hasn't been authenticated elsewhere is in doubt. And you flat out lie in stating theres authenticated documents that show Iraqi-Al Qaeda collaberation in terror.

Learn something about the region before uttering the cliche about friends and enemies. Saddam and the terrorists hate each other. Musshariff and the terrorists hate each other. Arab secular dictators are mortal enemies with radical Islam. Have you noticed Zacarwei(sp) has no qualms with killing the more secular Iraqis? How about that Al Qaeda trying to assassinate Mushariff twice? If we werent occupying Arab states, we wouldnt be targets for Islamic terrorism. One of he main reasons given by Bin Laden in his fatwa on the US is our post desert storm presence in Saudi Arabia.

The centrifuge that had been buried in an Iraqi scientists garden since Desert Storm was not capable of enriching Uranium. In fact, it was in such bad shape it was nothing more than junk. Theres no doubt Saddam had dual use equipment that might be modified for a nuke program. We know that for sure because in 1999 Halliburton while being led by CEO Cheney, illegally took 38 million in oil for food money by selling dual use equipment to Iraq.

You need to work on your reading comprehension. Ive said there might be wmd, there might not be, we cant be sure because this administration launched this war without a plan to secure the wmd, and thats made this war a disaster. We were alot better off with the wmd in Iraq with a military dictator who couldnt allow radical Islam to flurish, than where ever they are now, if they exist at all. Oh, btw, the reason the UN wasnt looking for binary shells is because of how old they are. Those shells are likely ones we sold Saddam in the 1970s, they werent inventoried. And dont forget, Powell in his speech to the UN said we knew exact locations and quanities of wmd.

The 'wall' was claimed by Ashcroft to make intell angencies cooperation illegal. Clintons rolling up the millenial terrorists relied on just that. And for the fourth time, there were terrorist cells in Chicago and Montreal that were broken up, and that had nothing to do with luck at the border.

Everyone slamming Moore should consider this. In F-911 theres footage of business seminars with speakers from corporate America and also Iraqi businessmen. The Iraqi businessman states, 'when the oil gets turned on in Iraq there will be big money pouring into Iraq, and the US government backs it up, so you know your getting paid' about 5 times in two minutes of speech. He also states, 'You come to Iraq and you form relationships that keep paying' several times. One of the people Moore interviewed was Berg, who was recently beheaded on video. Moore could have rushed footage of the interview with Berg into F-911, juxtapose that with the beheading and the Iraqi businessmans speech, and would have created an incredibly powerful piece of film, but out of concern for the Berg family didnt. And he gave them the only copies of the Berg interview.

What part of "overthrowing evil dictator" am I supposed to object to?
Just because Bush did it doesn't mean it's wrong.
Saddam wasn't a threat?
No one thought Afghanistan was a threat.
Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11?
Mussolini had nothing to do with Pearl Harbor.
Good people die in wars?
Yeah, that's why they call it "war" instead of "peace."
Good luck trying to end tyranny by declaring peace.

BegBee has obviously chosen to disbelieve anything that would justify taking out Saddam, and has chosen to believe any spin against the President. The arguments presented are a tired rehash of, yes, lies that the left has repeated so often that they even begin to believe them.

http://edition.cnn.com/WORLD/meast/9902/13/afghan.binladen/

The above is a link to a CNN article which has the following quote, "Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has offered asylum to bin Laden, who openly supports Iraq against the Western powers." This was in reference to US demands that the Taliban hand over bin Laden after the Kenya and Tanzania bombings.

So yes, there is a Saddam/Osama connection.
Which is what the Bush administration still maintains. Does it mean Saddam had something to do with Sept 11? Of course not. But the President NEVER said he did.

When it was confirmed that the Iraqi Intelligence Service had attempted an assassination of former President George H.W. Bush, President Clinton ordered a missile strike on the Iraqi Intelligence Service headquarters in June, 1993.

"The suffering inside Iraq can come to an end when Saddam Hussein's regime is replaced," said a top Clinton administration official at the time. "And I hope -- and most of the world community hopes -- that this regime based on terrorism and atrocities against his own people will be replaced. Over time, we hope to achieve that result."

The speaker? Al Gore.

A Senator, 2002:
Mr. President, when I vote to give the president of the United States the authority to use force if necessary to disarm Saddam Hussein, because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a threat and a grave threat to our security and that of our allies in the Persian Gulf region.

The Senator? John Kerry.

Another Senator, October 2002:

It's clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological, chemical warfare and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all
too well, affects American security. This much is undisputed.

This Senator? Hillary Clinton.

The canard that BUSH LIED!!! simply has no traction with anyone who looks at the big picture logically. Repeat it a thousand times, and it will still be a lie that BUSH LIED!!!

And as shrill as they sound now, it will get worse over the next several months. Yet as the economy continues its biggest growth in decades, people will realize that the biggest issue is the next four years. Who takes the threat against America seriously? Who is actually willing to do something about it? Who is lying about a "Unilateral" world view, when over 30 nations are involved, and the only significant opposition is from France and Germany - uh, and the dictatorial states? You know, France and Germany, who have a COMBINED total of 3100 troops committed to Afghanistan - the war the world agreed upon? (But Michael Moore didn't.)

Reason please

I have stated several times that Bin Laden had 'ties' to Saddam. But Al Qaeda also has ties with every Arab government. All you newly compassionate, big hearted, democracy for the whole world reps are a joke. Lets see, things are alot worse in the Sudan, Rwanda, China, etc than Iraq, are they next? Im not going to restate all the lies Bush told already documented here previously. Im not going to break down the motivations or limited contributions of the coallition of the bribed.

But heres a new question. The post 2001 quotes you provide from Clinton and Kerry are based on intell from Chalibi. The CIA recently has admitted that they used intelligence from Chalibi even though it wasnt backed up by other informants, and he was a known liar. It turns out that he was the source of the Niger-Uranium forgeries, the lies that Powell told the UN about exact location of, and quanities of wmd in Iraq, and was known to be completely unreliable by the UN. Now the CIA says they never told Bush that Chalibi was unreliable, despite the fact we were paying him $300,000 dollars a month, over several years. Despite the fact he was seated next to Mrs Bush and honored in the State of the Union address two years ago. Not to mention that he was an Iranian spy. Dont you think Bush needed to have multiple, reliable sources to launch this preemptive war? Dont you think hes responsible for vetting the intell he recieves from the CIA, especially since he claims they also failed on 911? What happened to the buck stops here? Under Bush its morphed into blame anyone but me.

See the movie for yourself. Make your own judgements. Dont let them make you a liar without even knowing the whole story.

"but there's no call to go making fun of her for being tall and skinny. Tall and skinny people have feelings too, you know."

It's like the precursor to some sort of ideological SAT question:

Jane wants better treatment for: tall skinny people.

is like

Jane protects the interests of:

(a) rich white people
(b) poor dark people
(c) dirty fur'rn people
(b) liberals.

[Lighten up, people. It's a joke. If Hondo gets to argue that Bush didn't lie about arrests after 1968, then I can make a joke. Seriously, Hondo, you mean once Clinton tells us that he meant to acknowledge having sex with Lewinsky in 2001 (that is, correct the errror), then Republicans will stop whining that he lied to the American people? Done. By the power vested in me as a liberal, I declare that Clinton meant to "correct the error" in 2001. Don't use the "Clinton lied" meme again.]

Nice, Jane. Censoring your discussion board, I see? Cowards.

Begbee,

For a good overview of why a lot of us support the war and don't think that Bush needed lots of multiple reliabel sources to attack Iraq, go to
http://denbeste.nu/essays/strategic_overview.shtml
which should provide you with lots of things to disagree with.

Thumper,

Just what is the matter with you that you can't be civil? This is Jane's blog, not a discussion board, and she can do ANYTHING she wants with it. If you don't like it, leave. If you stay, please try to stay within the bounds of civility. Some of stray occasionally, but we usually at least try.

Begbee - I think we all agree that Michael Moore's movie is a distortion. Whether the totality is crap is a matter of judgment, I suppose, but I think time-shifting, and clever editing to achieve the desired outcome is unworthy of my time.

I honestly think Michael Moore has discovered a lucrative gravy train selling nonsense to those who WANT to believe something so desperately they'll forgo a demand for consistency, objectivity, and, yes, truth.

And you stray when you mention Sudan, Rwanda, and China. The Bush administration is, in fact, intervening in Sudan. Colin Powell has visited, and we are currently actively TRYING to get the rest of the world - including the left's favorite non-participants, France - involved. Kofi Annan has so far refused to call it genocide - because then the UN would actually have to do something.

Rwanda was Bill Clinton's fiasco, remember?

China isn't currently threatening us.

The point is that we are at war with the fanatic fundamentalist Islamists. Whether the anti-war crowd likes it, we are in a war we didn't start.

And the election is going to be won by someone who takes that seriously, or we are going to be in trouble.

That was me Thumper.

I do occasionally delete posts that engage in name calling while not even attempting to add a point. That's what you did, and continue to do.

SomeCallMeTim:

Re-read my post. I did not "argue that Bush didn't lie about arrests after 1968." What I did was observe that the complete picture is not as clear-cut as you had presented. The actual facts of the incident are ambiguous. I don't know whether or not Bush lied at that point - and neither do you.

Lying requires intent. An error doesn't.

In the Bush case you cite as an example of "lying", the facts are actually quite ambiguous. It is entirely possible (IMO even probable) that Bush was in the process of changing his answer to correct an error, then was cut off. Why he didn't later correct his answer - well, as I previously said, you'll have to ask him and Ms. Hughes if you ever get the chance. Could be as simple as he forgot or was ovewhelmed by time (governors do get busy). Might have been a conscious decision to leave things alone. Could be some other reason. I can assume anything I want, but I don't know - and neither do you.

Clinton's case (hey, you brought him up - not me) is very different. Here, intent to deceive is about as clear as it gets. In Clinton's case, he was asked, under oath, a rather simple question. Although Clinton was reputedly quite a lady's man, I seriously doubt he somehow forgot receiving oral sex in the oval office - or who else was present at the time. Yes, Clinton later did correct his statement (sort of) by acknowledging an "improper relationship" with Lewinsky. However, that doesn't change the fact that, when sworn in and legally subject to perjury, he intentionally lied.

It also seems to me that the acceptable tolerance for error in each case is very different. I've always found that people try much harder to be accurate when making sworn statements than on other occasions - at least, people with more than three working brain cells do. Misstatements on other occasions, therefore, should be "cut more slack" than those made when under oath.

You really seem intelligent enough to see the essential difference - both legally, and in practice.

begbee:

"John you quote me on the value of a constitution and then your post reads like someone using a thesaurus to attack Moores film, and nothing to the worth of the constitution."

I did indeed quote your statement which refers to "a constitution" as no more than a piece of paper.

I had assumed you meant to include our nation's
constitution in that group.

U.S. history sufficiently rebuts your absurd
conclusion, and I did not think it necessary to
elaborate.

Apparently, I was mistaken.

Also, I can assure you that no thesauri were exploited or abused in the course of the making of my previous post, although I did use Merriam-Webster's online dictionary to check the spelling of the word proffer, which just didn't look right with a single "f".

In hindsight, I now realize that my reference to Mr. Moore's work as anarchism, (2 : the advocacy or practice of anarchistic principles> anarchist: 1 : one who rebels against any authority, established order, or ruling power), later in the post was too subtle to be clearly tied by the average reader to the consequences of having a government who's constitution is no more than a piece of paper.

You continued:
"And the personal insults thrown at Kerry and Edwards are completely ridiculous for a party that features Mr 'I looked into his eyes and saw a good soul' Bush and Mr 'fuck off' then charge the paddles Cheney."

First off, I do not speak for the Republican party, only for myself.

Secondly, I have an odd sense of humor, and when I first saw the two of them together, I thought: Batman & Robin.

No insult intended, only a reference to Mr. Edward's previous career as an ambulance chaser and Mr. Kerry's badly needed image renewal during the primaries.

I will add that if someone is going to voice opinions on economic policy, I would prefer they know what the rest of us have to go through to earn a buck, so to speak.

I will close with an example of something I found to be humorous several years ago before I took the time to acquaint myself with the basic priciples of market economics:

Q: What is the difference between "Compassionate
Conservatism" and the regular kind?

A: Lubricant

I'd like to open somewhat of a sideline threat here, based on something that Reason, please said above.

Reason, please observes that he honestly thinks that "Michael Moore has discovered a lucrative gravy train selling nonsense to those who WANT to believe something so desperately they'll forgo a demand for consistency, objectivity, and, yes, truth."

To me, this implies that Moore's distortions are willful and knowing. Ergo, he is deliberately dissembling rather than telling the truth as he sees it. I agree.

Does anyone out there think that Moore actually beleives he is telling the truth in his films? What evidence is there for or against this belief?

(Jane, this is your site; if you'd prefer this subthread not start, go ahead and kill this post.)

Begbee

"Bush has made a fool of himself and the US with documents of dubious origin many times. Theres the documents the CIA told him were wrong about nuke material, but Bush still used in the State of the Union speech, were forgeries."

OK, allow me to state this a little more plainly, since you are either unable to read what I read or are choosing not to read it:

Bush's statement in the SOTU was NOT based on the (obviously) forged documents you reference. It can from the British, who still maintain that their claim is true, based on OTHER intelligence gathered BEFORE that document was acquired.

from
http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1087373567507

"A UK government inquiry into the intelligence used to justify the war in Iraq is expected to conclude that Britain's spies were correct to say that Saddam Hussein's regime sought to buy uranium from Niger.
...
The Financial Times revealed last week that a key part of the UK's intelligence on the uranium came from a European intelligence service that undertook a three-year surveillance of an alleged clandestine uranium-smuggling operation of which Iraq was a part."

Clear enough for you yet?!?

"The Cheyk intelligence on Atta meeting Iraqi agents has been discredited by the 911 commission."

Actually, the Czechs still stand by that intelligence, and only evidenc we have that he was NOT thre is a phone call made from his cell phone. We don't know that he made that call, and there's no reason he would take his phone to Europe, since it wouldn't have worked there.

"So any document presented by this administration that hasn't been authenticated elsewhere is in doubt."

So, any documnt you dispute, since you have been shown repeatedly above to be dead wrong, is in doubt, unless it has been authenticated elsewhere. Oh, and I thoughts the Brits and the Czechs WERE "elsewhere".

"Learn something about the region before uttering the cliche about friends and enemies. Saddam and the terrorists hate each other. Musshariff and the terrorists hate each other. Arab secular dictators are mortal enemies with radical Islam. Have you noticed Zacarwei(sp) has no qualms with killing the more secular Iraqis? How about that Al Qaeda trying to assassinate Mushariff twice? If we werent occupying Arab states, we wouldnt be targets for Islamic terrorism. One of he main reasons given by Bin Laden in his fatwa on the US is our post desert storm presence in Saudi Arabia."

YOU learn something about it. There authenticated sources of OBL speaking approvingly of the help they've gotten from Hussein. Hussein (and other secular dictators) often get a pass from all but the most extreme of the extreme radicals by wrapping themselves in Islamic rhetoric at oppropriate times, just as Hussein did from time to time. And Zarqawi has no qualms about killing ANYBODY if he thinks it will help the cause.

As to presence in SA, well, yeah, but that's also a special case - SA is the caretaker of Mecca and Medina. OBL has mentioned that specifically makes it more eggregious. Of course, another of his major problems with the west is that we took back Andelusia in the 1400s (Spain - which the Muslims originally took from Spain by force... "You are trying to kidnap what I have rightfully stolen.") Got any bright ideas for dealing with that one? I mean, since it sounds like you're advocating just giving him what he wants in other areas...

And that "cliche" about friends and enemies? It's only the basis for a goodnly number of foreign relations policies throughout the history of humanity. And ASSUMING they couldn't possibly is also naive and foolhardy, especially when you have to ignore evidenc to make that assumption.

"The centrifuge that had been buried in an Iraqi scientists garden since Desert Storm was not capable of enriching Uranium. In fact, it was in such bad shape it was nothing more than junk. Theres no doubt Saddam had dual use equipment that might be modified for a nuke program. We know that for sure because in 1999 Halliburton while being led by CEO Cheney, illegally took 38 million in oil for food money by selling dual use equipment to Iraq."

That's great. It was no longer functional. Then why save it? Obviously, they were hoping to get it functional again, otherwise, why not simply dispose of it? Remember, they also beuried their brand-spanking new Russian Migs that they weren't supposed to have, eithr, despite the fact that they totally ruined them when they did so.

Ah, so they DID have "dual use" equipment? Nice to hear you acknowledge it (so, if only Bush personally gave him WMDs, then, suddenly, he DOES have them? Nice standards....).

"You need to work on your reading comprehension. Ive said there might be wmd, there might not be, we cant be sure because this administration launched this war without a plan to secure the wmd, and thats made this war a disaster. We were alot better off with the wmd in Iraq with a military dictator who couldnt allow radical Islam to flurish, than where ever they are now, if they exist at all. Oh, btw, the reason the UN wasnt looking for binary shells is because of how old they are. Those shells are likely ones we sold Saddam in the 1970s, they werent inventoried. And dont forget, Powell in his speech to the UN said we knew exact locations and quanities of wmd."

You need to work on reading, period. Ignoring what I say doesn't mean I haven't said it (see above for the most egregious example, though there are others).

We never made binary shells, so that's crap. (If you don't understand what binary shells are or why we never made them, just say so, and I'll give more detail.) We also never sold WMDs to Iraq. We gave (or maybe sold) them medical samples of lots of bio-agents - just like we gave to many, many other countries (supposedly for the creation of vaccines - the rules on that at the time were very loose and very naive).

As to the shells in question (agaiN), they were UNMARKED and UNDECLARED. Undeclared, whatever their age, would violate (just like so many other things) the UN resolutions. Unmarked means they were intentionally being hidden.

And, as I said before (that you ignored), Hussein threatened to distribute his WMDs to terrorists before. Also, what's to prevfent him from selling the stuff to anybody? N. Korea and Pakistan have both had great fun with that...

"The 'wall' was claimed by Ashcroft to make intell angencies cooperation illegal. Clintons rolling up the millenial terrorists relied on just that. And for the fourth time, there were terrorist cells in Chicago and Montreal that were broken up, and that had nothing to do with luck at the border."

Go. Read the memos. Such cooperation WAS illegal, hence the need for some parts of the Patriot act, making it legal again for them to share info. (It also made it legal for agents to go to public places, such as churchs, to listen in. Why in the world was that ever illegal to begin with?!?!? They are PUBLIC PLACES - anyone can go there.) Besides the legal part, there was also lack of exact understanding of what was and wasn't legal, so people generally erred on the side of caution, as the penalty for making a mistake, even and honest one, would likely be the end of your cereer. Add to that years-long institutionalized habits (such as ignoring lists of Arabic names taking flight instruction, as pointing it out might be viewed as racist, which was also a career killer), and you've got a situation that takes more than a few months to fix.

As to the terrorist cells in Chicago and Montreal - you have yet to show how any kind of inter-agency activeity yeilded those hits. Show that, and you'll have some actual evidence regarding the "wall".

Next post

"I have stated several times that Bin Laden had 'ties' to Saddam. But Al Qaeda also has ties with every Arab government."

Ah, so thy can have TIES with an ARAB government (even a secular one), but they would NEVER work together? I'm trying to find a logical position here...

Bonus points if you can name another Arab governmnt that offered OBL asylum.

That's right, Hussein would never work with people hate him (and support him against Western powers), but he would certainly offer them asylum....

"All you newly compassionate, big hearted, democracy for the whole world reps are a joke. Lets see, things are alot worse in the Sudan, Rwanda, China, etc than Iraq, are they next?"

I'm not newly compassionate - I'm not compassionate at all (well, yes I am, I hope things get better for all those people, but that's not how I make my decisions). People such as myself talk about how good it is get rid of Hussein because people on the lft are always talking about how bad things are for people in [fill in the blank - Sudan, Rwanda, etc], and we should go hlp them. Well, we helped one, Iraq. From everything such people had said over the years, we thought they'd be hoppy. Their interests and ours coincided. Yay.

Now we find out that it's only good to gt rid of a dictator if we have no reason to do so? WTF? We can go to Bosnia with no justification, no UN, no nothing, just because the people are suffering, and that's all well and good, but in Iraq, which is even worse off than Bosnia was, we go and gt rid of the guy, and the same people scream at us. Excuse me if I suspect bad faith.

Oh, and I wouldn't be against going to those other places you list, by the way (except probably China, directly - but that's just because I think the costs would be enormous... nuclear war and all that).

"Im not going to restate all the lies Bush told already documented here previously."

I'll do it for you: no arrest (followed by "wait a second", but then he was cut off). That's it.

"Im not going to break down the motivations or limited contributions of the coallition of the bribed."

The coalition of the bribed? Oh, you must mean the people who opposed us versus Iraq - France had billions in oil contracts with Iraq, not to mention all the oil-for-food kickbacks (that make Halliburton look like chump change). The Russions got oil and held billions Hussein's debt. Etc, etc. If you want to talk bribery, the other side has it in spades. Were a few of the countries in our coalition "encouraged"? Sure they were - that's the way international politcs works. But Britain? Australia? Poland? And many others - they signed on bcause it was the RIGHT thing to do (or possibly just for brownie points - we'll never really know that sure).

But heres a new question. The post 2001 quotes you provide from Clinton and Kerry are based on intell from Chalibi. The CIA recently has admitted that they used intelligence from Chalibi even though it wasnt backed up by other informants, and he was a known liar. It turns out that he was the source of the Niger-Uranium forgeries,"

see above - the "uranium/niger" story (if it really was about Niger - Africa has a FEW other countries, you know) is not debunked by the existence of an obvious forgery saying the same thing put out later.

"the lies that Powell told the UN about exact location of, and quanities of wmd in Iraq, and was known to be completely unreliable by the UN."

Really? Completely unreliable? For one thing, how many MONTHS after that until we took Iraq? What kind of absolute F'n moron wouldn't move their stuff after such a claim?

Bonus points: name the country whose intelligence service said Iraq had no WMDs.

Answer: trick question. No such country exists in the whole world.

"Now the CIA says they never told Bush that Chalibi was unreliable, despite the fact we were paying him $300,000 dollars a month, over several years. Despite the fact he was seated next to Mrs Bush and honored in the State of the Union address two years ago. Not to mention that he was an Iranian spy. Dont you think Bush needed to have multiple, reliable sources to launch this preemptive war? Dont you think hes responsible for vetting the intell he recieves from the CIA, especially since he claims they also failed on 911?"

Reality check: When the President wants something vetted, the CIA is who he asks to do it. Or would you like ANOTHER intelligence agency setup, too? How about 3? Maybe 5?

People used to understand that the President makes decisions based on information he is givn from our inlelligence service, that he is not personally a field agent who can go and collect information. When Clinton hit an aspirin factory, did you get your panties in a wad about how he "lied" and said it was a weapons factory? There was intelligence that it was; it was bad intelligence. My complaint in that case is that I suspect he was "wagging the dog" for "personal" reasons (what was going on then, again?), so h jumped with bad intellignce before waiting to se if it was good.

Our intelligence on Iraq has been building for YEARS, and the other intelligence agencies in the world were in agreement. Could they all have been wrong? Sure - but to blame world-wide intellignce failur squarely on Bush is... well, "inappropriate" is the only nic thing I can think of to say. Wilfully dishonest, blinding biased, or woefully brain-dead seem the only alternatives, here. Oh wait, I suspose disconnected from reality would be an option, too.

"What happened to the buck stops here? Under Bush its morphed into blame anyone but me."

What happened to understanding that the President is not omniscient?

"See the movie for yourself. Make your own judgements. Dont let them make you a liar without even knowing the whole story."

I'll take th director's own word for it being untrue. He calls it truth, but when pressed, he retreats to "It's satire" or "I'm an artist." Sounds real true to me.

(Hondo - there's your answer.)

And that's without mentioning all the adoring reviews that state, in a nutshell, "It's not really truthful, but we like what it says." If the movie's biggest fans largely acknowledge that it is untrue, I'd say it's untrue.

Amazing!! Thse freepers attack Micheal Moore for playing fast and loose with the truth and overlook the Bush Adminisration who not only played fast and loose with the truth, but WENT TO WAR on our behalf pushing THEIR version of the truth( If they didnt LIE outright, clearly they did not WANT to know the truth) .
They attack Moore for using innuendo but some how overlook the Whitewater case, which was one big heaping PILE of innuendo!
They are outraged by MMs lack of objectivity, but dont say a word about
Rush Limbaugh
Mike Savage
Sean Hannity
Bill O'Reilly
and a ton of other right-wing " radio journalists"

They object to MM describing his film as a " documentary" but find it acceptable and presumably even HONEST that the Fox News Network describes itself " fair & balanced"-IMO the very definition of a lie!!
Y'all need to quit.

Well Kate, I thought I was writing my reply for a general audience, not a lawyer, so I refrained from mentioning that some dictionary definitions of "documentary" also include the word "objective." Didn't want to lay it on too thick, you know. (Now I do. You have been warned.)

As for your husband's Ph.D., best wishes to him, but apparently the academic definition of "documentary" is being actively rewritten as we speak, whereas I prefer the vulgate, since the common people are the ones Moore seeks to influence (by, among other things, calling his fictitious* works "documentaries").

Now, I have seen documentaries that make very powerful points, and do so without resorting to the sort of horsecrap Moore likes to employ. If there is a factual case to be made, it can be made without distorting context through creative splicing and destructive errors of omission; the evidence will speak for itself. Back to the dictionary definitions, just for fun. I happen to like the American Heritage one best, but YMMV:

Mirriam-Webster Dictionary:

1 : being or consisting of documents : contained or certified in writing
2 : of, relating to, or employing documentation in literature or art; broadly : FACTUAL, OBJECTIVE

(Source: http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=documentary)

Mirriam-Webster Dicitionary of Law:

: being, consisting of, or contained in documents

American Heritage Dictionary:

1. Consisting of, concerning, or based on documents.
2. Presenting facts objectively without editorializing or inserting fictional matter, as in a book or film.

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary:

Pertaining to written evidence; contained or certified in writing. ``Documentary evidence.'' --Macaulay.

Princeton WordNet 1.6:

relating to or consisting of or derived from documents [syn: documental] n : a film or TV program presenting the facts about a person or event

(Source: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=documentary)

----------
*Yes, they are fictitious, m'lady's proestations notwithstanding. Shall we break out the dictionaries for that word too, or just accept that actions such as the splicing two speeches together to create the effect of one speech that never occurred are, in fact, works of fiction?

Deoxy generally in a post that long, by sheer chance you should be right about at least one thing, but somehow you arent.

The intelligence used for the State of the Union was the same for both the CIA and the Brits. The CIA and Brit reports on that intelligence differed in that the CIA specifically stated Niger-Uranium while the Brit report used the words Africa and nuclear materials. The CIA refused to be sourced during the vetting of the SoU, so Bush was forced to quote the much more general British wording, but its about the same intell. You dont seem to understand theres alot of shared intelligence inside NATO.

Its funny you make my task easier by criticizing Powells UN speech for revealing the location of the supposed wmd. That fits another aspect of my argument nicely. Where was the plan to secure the wmd? Where they kept under satelite surveillance? Did we target the bombing to detur movement of the suspected wmd? All I know for certain is that we lost the main purpose of this war when we lost the wmd.

Again you further make my point in your President assign vetting to the CIA claim. Read a newspaper. The CIA now claims it was aware that Chalibi was lying, but claims not have informed the President of that. And what about Rice? Was she aware that all the intell provided by Chelibi was disputed by other Iraqis? Isn't Rice and the NSA responsible for advising Bush on the intell he recieves? And for the fiftieth time this intell was not building for years, it in fact was completely contradicted by Powell and Rice in 2001 when they stated 'Iraq has no wmd, no means of producing wmd, and are not a threat to anyone'.

Bush has no concept of honor. When the Embassy was hit in Beiruit, Reagan stepped up and took responsibility. All Bush has done is cry and blame the intelligence agencies. Btw, the wet panties comment was juvenile and vulgar, I dont mind vulgarity but try to be funny if you resort to that.

Your last paragraph is complete garbage. If you havent seen F-911, and havent decided who your voting for, you owe it to yourself to see this film.

Deoxy generally in a post that long, by sheer chance you should be right about at least one thing, but somehow you arent.

The intelligence used for the State of the Union was the same for both the CIA and the Brits. The CIA and Brit reports on that intelligence differed in that the CIA specifically stated Niger-Uranium while the Brit report used the words Africa and nuclear materials. The CIA refused to be sourced during the vetting of the SoU, so Bush was forced to quote the much more general British wording, but its about the same intell. You dont seem to understand theres alot of shared intelligence inside NATO.

Its funny you make my task easier by criticizing Powells UN speech for revealing the location of the supposed wmd. That fits another aspect of my argument nicely. Where was the plan to secure the wmd? Where they kept under satelite surveillance? Did we target the bombing to detur movement of the suspected wmd? All I know for certain is that we lost the main purpose of this war when we lost the wmd.

Again you further make my point in your President assign vetting to the CIA claim. Read a newspaper. The CIA now claims it was aware that Chalibi was lying, but claims not have informed the President of that. And what about Rice? Was she aware that all the intell provided by Chelibi was disputed by other Iraqis? Isn't Rice and the NSA responsible for advising Bush on the intell he recieves? And for the fiftieth time this intell was not building for years, it in fact was completely contradicted by Powell and Rice in 2001 when they stated 'Iraq has no wmd, no means of producing wmd, and are not a threat to anyone'.

Bush has no concept of honor. When the Embassy was hit in Beiruit, Reagan stepped up and took responsibility. All Bush has done is cry and blame the intelligence agencies. Btw, the wet panties comment was juvenile and vulgar, I dont mind vulgarity but try to be funny if you resort to that.

Your last paragraph is complete garbage. If you havent seen F-911, and havent decided who your voting for, you owe it to yourself to see this film.

Hey, A-M, since we are using dictionary definitions here:

Is the Fox News Network a " news network?"
Would you describe it as " fair" and " balanced?"
Is Rush Limbaugh a "radio journalist"?
do you think the reports that Iraq had an arsenal of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons could be described as "fiction?"
Was Mr Cheneys statement that Iraq could launch a strike with chemical and biological eapons within 45 minutes "true"?

Apologies for the double post.

Deoxy about some of your drival I missed the first time. Iraq has never cooperated with a single terrorist in an act of terrorism. But N Korea and Iran have done so recently. Providing asyleum and cooperating with terrorism are two different things, and everything about UBL to Iraq was cast as speculation, not an offer.

Theres no doubt France, Germany and Russia had national intrests involved in not supporting the misadventure in Iraq. But when you slam the French, realize they have 6000 troops in Afganistan.

The elder Bush has stated, 'Saddam was the lesser of two evils' when commenting on not removing Saddam the first time, and he was right. Every single political expert on the mideast will tell you a military dictatorship is better than a Islamic theocracy for the west. Whoever replaces Saddam will have to be just as brutal.

A review of F911 can be found at this website:

http://www.documentaryfilms.net/Reviews/Fahrenheit911/index.htm

THis Site is dedicating to the making and reviewing of documentary films. Apparently, they must have missed the memo about F911 not being a documentary film.

Deoxy more corrections

I never disputed any authenticated document. In fact the only document in question are the known forgeries. As to Atta, there are photos of him in Va the day before the supposed Prauge meeting, and none of his known alias's were used for international travel during that period.

A quick civics lesson for you and Ashcroft. A memo can't create 'law'. Increase bureaucreacy? Absolutely, but theres nothing illegal about sharing intell among the various agencies. You should read Clarkes book for the exact methodology used to stop the millenial terrorists.

The reason the centrifuge was garbage was because it was buried in a plastic bag for 10 years. And you flat out lie stating theres authenticated UBL Saddam collaberation. The reason the shells are considered 'binary' is the sarin and the charge are seperated. The day they were dug up I saw an ex General thats an MSNBC analyst state they were likely from the 1970s, likely came from the US, and were likely not inventoried because they were buried and 'lost'. I havent vacillated at all on my opinion of the wmd, my opinion all along is we just dont know.

I'm perfectly willing to rest my case against Bush and Company on their incompetency. A good leader makes good decisions, not excuses. I don't care about reasons why they were wrong. I want someone who is right more than he/she is wrong. Period.

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Bremer, etc, had no idea what they'd run into in Iraq because they chose to shut out input from experts with the "wrong" attitude. Their intelligence was wrong. Even worse, they've made decision after decision that has left us stretched to the limit militarily with no certain end in sight. Handing over sovereignty and devoting months to training Iraqi soldiers bought us no quarter. Why do we expect an election to be decisive?

It's time for somebody else to make decisions. Bush and Company have proven that they do not deserve the trust embodied in command over our men and women in uniform.

"It's time for somebody else to make decisions. Bush and Company have proven that they do not deserve the trust embodied in command over our men and women in uniform."

Why don't we ask our men and women in uniform?

Begbee,

"Deoxy generally in a post that long, by sheer chance you should be right about at least one thing, but somehow you arent."

Then you simply didn't read it.

The US never made binary artillery shells. That's an easy one that I called bullshit on you about (can't sell him what we never had). There are plenty more.

You are running out of points. You claim I didn't get a single thing right, yet you only tell me a very few things you think are wrong.

I will try one last time, and then I will quit, since you are unwilling to acknowledge half of what I say, then say that I am wrong.

The British intelligence PRE-DATES the forged documents regarding Niger. The British intelligence existed BEFORE any Western intelligence service saw the forged document regarding Niger.

Do I need to say that some more? The Brit intelligence was NOT based on the forged document. The British rviewed it again just recently and came to the conclusion that it was STILL CORRECT - I even linked it for you!!

On a related note, have you read the book by Wilson (you know, the guy who single-naded invesitgated the whole country of Niger in a week and declared that Iraq wasn't trying to get uranium)? In it, he mentions that some Iraqis had been there to discuss exports. Nigeria exports... what, goats? and uranium. In his own book, no less.

A classic method of dealing with an intelligence breach is to release an obvious forgery with the same information. Congratulations, you fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

"Again you further make my point in your President assign vetting to the CIA claim. Read a newspaper. The CIA now claims it was aware that Chalibi was lying, but claims not have informed the President of that. And what about Rice? Was she aware that all the intell provided by Chelibi was disputed by other Iraqis? Isn't Rice and the NSA responsible for advising Bush on the intell he recieves?"

I make YOUR point? You've made mine!

Who would YOU like the President to have him vet his info? WHO? The CIA vetted it, he said it. Was he wrong to trust the CIA? Possibly, but until you have an alternative way for him to vet his intel, you are LIVING IN FANATASY.

"And for the fiftieth time this intell was not building for years, it in fact was completely contradicted by Powell and Rice in 2001 when they stated 'Iraq has no wmd, no means of producing wmd, and are not a threat to anyone'."

You got a source for that? I'd like to see it - I don't remember that, but I wasn't really paying much attention at the time.

And if they are liars (which you apparently believe), why should we believe that one instance was the truth, and everything lse is lies, for years both before and after, everyone says Iraq had WMDs? Again, you're just believing what you want to believe. Even assuming that's what they said and not a "paraphrase", their own statements and the statements major actors on both sides of the aisle for years both before and after would ALL have to be wrong for that one little snippet to be right. Possible? Of course it is! But then, it's also POSSIBLE that Elvis is alive. I have do DEFINITIVE proof that he is dead -I just choose which is more likely based on all the evidence I have. People who believe he's alive have to ignore a LOT of evidence.

"Btw, the wet panties comment was juvenile and vulgar, I dont mind vulgarity but try to be funny if you resort to that."

I appologize - I wasn't aware anyone considered "Don't get your panties in a wad" vulgar.

"Your last paragraph is complete garbage. If you havent seen F-911, and havent decided who your voting for, you owe it to yourself to see this film."

By that logic, your entire argumnt is complete garbage - if you haven't seen the intel reports, and you haven't decided who you're voting for, you owe it to yourself to read them.

As human beings, we make decisions all the time based on what other people tell us. It is especially important in the area of books and movies, where we give our monetary approval of th author before we are even allowed to see the material we are approving, that we have other people whom we trust giv us their opinion. That's why some movies do well and others don't, because we take someone's word for it.

In this case, as I said, I take the director's own words for it. When someone brings up how some part of it is untru (take your pick, he's been challeneged on most of the film), he retreates to "I'm an artist", or "It's satire" (his own words). Satire? You claimed it was a documentary! You claimed it was TRUTH! What a joke.

"I never disputed any authenticated document. In fact the only document in question are the known forgeries."

How about the tape of OBL talking about Hussein's help? Oh, wait, that's a tape, not a "document" - my bad.

"As to Atta, there are photos of him in Va the day before the supposed Prauge meeting, and none of his known alias's were used for international travel during that period."

They do not know where he was that day, yet they KNOW he couldn't have been in Prague? How is that again? And we know ALL of his aliases, right? RIGHT? Our intelligence service does not know where he was. They do not claim to know where he was. They think he did not leave the country, but they aren't sure.

"A quick civics lesson for you and Ashcroft. A memo can't create 'law'. Increase bureaucreacy? Absolutely, but theres nothing illegal about sharing intell among the various agencies. You should read Clarkes book for the exact methodology used to stop the millenial terrorists."

There's nothing illegal about noting that lots of peopl with Arabic names are taking flight lessons - that doesn't mean it wouldn't end the career of the person who did it. As to law, ys, there were laws passsed regarding intel sharing - that's the part about the Patriot act I mentiond (that you ignored). Part of the Patriot (don't want to get into the rest) was restoring intel powers/privileges/whatever you want to call them that had been taken away. The "wall of sparation" was built during the Clinton years. It's well documented, as is the acknowledgement that having such a wall would have a cost to our intel capabilites. It was created anyway.

"The reason the centrifuge was garbage was because it was buried in a plastic bag for 10 years."

That's great. Um, so? They weren't supposed to have it to begin with - they hid it poorly, and it degraded. What part of that shows they were acting in good faith? That they weren't hiding stuff waiting for a lax moment to pull it out again and get started?

"And you flat out lie stating theres authenticated UBL Saddam collaberation."

You must define "collaberation" differently than I do. Collaberation on 9/11? I never said that. Collaberation on any specific terror act? I never said that either. Collaberation? Yes, there are documents where they discussed getting weapons training for AQ members. Surprsingly, there aren't any documents signed by both parties; all documents are from one or the other. Is that what w need before you'll believe?

"The reason the shells are considered 'binary' is the sarin and the charge are seperated."

No, a "binary" shell is one where the chemical precursors to a chemical weapon are stored separately and mixed in flight - for artillery shells, they are mixed by the intense spinning of the shell from a rifled barrel. That's why it morked so poorly as an IED, btw. And no, the US never made binary shells - you only make thos if you can't get your chemical weapon to remain stable long term. Ours are still sitting around after 20+ years.

"The day they were dug up I saw an ex General thats an MSNBC analyst state they were likely from the 1970s, likely came from the US, and were likely not inventoried because they were buried and 'lost'."

Then you or he are mistaken.

"I havent vacillated at all on my opinion of the wmd, my opinion all along is we just dont know."

Oh, we don't know? We don't know about ONE of the many justifications for war (check the congressional authorization - it lists 5-10 reasons), so the whole thing is illegitimate?

The vast majority of our men and women in uniform support Bush and the War on Terror.

Sources: milblogs, my son (CAPT, USMC) and his military friends, and my former military friends.

This is what we military types do for a profession: protect the country. We really really like it when what we are ordered to do actually coincides with protecting the country, as contrasted with going somewhere only because someone ordered it. Lebanon? What were we doing there? Our hands were tied and a fine combat leader had his career ended because he had the nerve to have a private meeting with the Druse and tell them that if they fired artillery at him he would attack in return. The State Department was pissed. Grenada? Yes, good op. Desert One? Good plan but piss-poor execution because it had to be so "joint." Panama? yes, good op. Bosnia? WTF? I still don't know what our national security interest is in that place. But because casualties have been relatively light, no spotlight shines on it. (Remember when Clinton said he'd have the troops home by Christmas?) Kosovo? Again, where's the national security interest? (I'm not saying that we didn't have some positive effect, but why was it any of our business in the first place? It had nothing to do with protecting our country.) Kuwait? Absolutely. And we were right to stop as soon as we achieved the U.N. mandate, rather than losing lives (e.g., mine) taking Baghdad. Afganistan? You betcha. Direct link to WTC. Iraq? (I.e., Hussein.) I think yes, he is now a proven threat, and his demonstrated willingness to support international terrorism, coupled with the known terrorist attacks against the US (including embassies and ships), makes it abundantly clear to us military types that going into Iraq is worth our lives. I'm retired now, but my son is still on active duty, and I hope that he doesn't get killed, but if he does, at least it will be doing something that furthers the objective of protecting our country.

That could be the bottom line. There are an awful lot of us who think going into Iraq is an act of protecting our country (and the WMD's really don't enter into this; they're just an added reason and by no means the main reason). Those of you who don't agree will never see it our way.

Begbee,

Oops, I forgot one:

You want a flat out lie?

"Iraq has never cooperated with a single terrorist in an act of terrorism."

I would call funding "cooperation", and Iraq funded terrist activity in Israel. Unless you don't call suicide bombings on school-busses terrorism.

Not to mention the ties (not proven, I admit) with Saddam's intelligence and the first WTC bombing. Oh, and he gave asylum to one of the bombers afterwards! I'd call that cooperation, too - driving the get-away car.

carib:

We've found one binary chemical warfare shell.

It takes far less than 45 minutes to fire a cannon.

Don't these two facts prove Cheny's assertion that "Iraq could launch a strike with chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes" to be true?

If not, please explain why not.

We already have words that accurately describe what Moore does, and which Moore himself should be more careful to use: "satire" or "personal polemic" will do just fine.

Michael Moore film's are consistent in that they use a thin sinew of silly, often contradicatory plot lines to clunkily propel a series of images and sounds designed to inflame the passions, ignite fantasy and squelch rational thought toward an indeterminate conclusion. Since these are also the time-honored techniques employed by the makers of such cinematic classics as Where The Boys Aren't and Sorority Cheerleaders in Love, an even more accurate descriptor of his films might be "political pornography."

I'll try to make this quick.

The War on Terror, although unconventional in the
historic sense, is similar to previous wars in one very important way.

The War on Terror will undoubtedly be a war of
attrition.

The primary goal in a war of attrition is to separate the enemy from that which sustains him, while at the same time killing his fighters faster than he can replace them.

Follow me here, in this context would it be responsible for our leadership to allow the potential for an outfit like Al'Qaeda to aquire a state sponsor?

I suggest to you that that would be exactly the opposite of our interests.

After the defeat of the Taliban there was only one government in the entire world willing and able to openly sponsor terrorism on a scale that posed a threat which we could not depend upon diplomacy to help negate. The former regime in Iraq.

I will emphatically state my belief that anyone who doesn't get this yet, and suggests otherwise, is knowingly or un-knowingly working against our national security interest.

This would include Michael Moore and his most recent film Fahrenheit 9/11, which when viewed in this light, qualifies as misguided (un-knowingly), or Anti-American Propaganda(knowingly),in furtherance of the interests of those who were responsible for 9/11, and others who have chosen or will choose to join in this Holy War against all that is Western.

Tounge Boy, you may be closer to the truth than you think. Daniel Pipes wrote an excellent book on the history and nature of conspiracy theories, Conspiracy: How the Paranoid Style Flourishes and Where It Comes From (The Free Press, New York, 1997), in which he states, ibid. p.49,

Indeed, conspiracist writings consistute a quite literal form of pornagraphy (though political rather than sexual). The two genres became popular about the same time, in the 1740's.

Begbee:

You apparently don't know what a binary chemical munition is. Deoxy's explanation is correct; yours is wrong.

Jane, you stirred up a hornet's nest with this one! 189 comments and counting - in just over 48 hours.

Deoxy, I have to commend you on your patience. The time spent in refuting Begbee with facts is certainly more time consuming than just making up crap.

If the Left would have protested against Clinton's foray into the Balkans without the approval of the United Nations, I might give them a little more credit now. They didn't, and I don't.

During the next few months, as Saddam is tried, and the stories from families of raped daughters and disappearing members get discussed, the question will be asked: Is the world better off without Saddam in power?

To all but the most die-hard Bush-haters, the answer will be obvious.

I will risk admonishment from the owner in the interest of consolidating the anti-Moore sentiment around something tangible.

James Lileks is a decent writer who's abilities I respect. He lives in Flyover Land. He discusses Michael Moore's July 4th piece in the L.A. Times at:

http://www.lileks.com/bleats/archive/04/0704/070804.html

ABR posts:

"Let's take _Columbine_. It presents a way of making sense out of the Columbine High shooting incident to the viewer. Moreover it does so to a depth and breadth that isn't to be found in our cultural discourse outside of long articles in obscure academic journals."

The depth included conning bank officers to simulate the commission of a Federal felony; handing him the actual sample rifle rather than the certificate to be presented to the licensed gun dealer with whom they dealt, who would then transfer the firearm only after all requirements were met.

Jane already addressed the breadth. I would just like to add that the NRA meeting in Boulder consisted only of the organisational events required by law and some other formalities. The trade exhibition and shooting sports events (most gun rights activists consider these all the NRA is good for) were cancelled as exactly the sort of response Moore portrayed them as not making.

Was the Iraq invasion and removal of Saddam of strategic benefit to the United States as we move into the 21st century?

Yes.

Unbelievably advantageous.

End of debate.*

Well for an American that should be the end of debate. For everyone else in the world - well cry me an anti-American river. If you can throw in your reply a reference to the Zionist conspiracy, Cowboy mentality, or Saudi-Bush ties, you get an extra bonus:

The small box that thinks it's outside the box but is just inside a bigger one award.

Big picture perspectives. That's what a President requires. It's what was presented to President Bush prior to the Iraq invasion and was the course of action he chose to follow. It's for this reason he will go down in US history as one of the best Presidents we have had - and who did the most to prepare America for the threats of the 21st century.

SDAI-Tech1

I never said the US produced binary shells, only brokered their sale. I quoted an ex General, and its irrelevant if we sold Saddam this particular shell anyway, because we have admitted selling Saddam sarin gas. And we are talking of a single, damaged, lost shell.

Collaberation means something more than talk. Bush hosted the leader of the Talaban as governor of Texas to talk bidness despite knowing that UBL had bombed the USS Cole, and was being sheltered by the Talaban. If just talk means collaberation...

Its unlikely Saddam even knew of the existance of the buried centrifuge. The Iraqi scientist that turned it in said he buried it himself prior to desert storm, and only dug it up to get the best possible deal from the US. Another point, every single Iraqi scientist interrogated prior to shock and awe said Saddam wmd programs had been completely inactive since 1996.

Again, bureaucracy and law are not interchangeable words. The Patriot act may cut through red tape at the cost of our liberty, but it didnt make intelligence sharing legal, because it already was legal. Read Clarkes book, it clearly documents Clintons coordination and sharing of intell among the various agencies long before the Patriot act.

I stand behind my comments on Atta, its very unlikely he was in Prague given how thoroughly he was researched post 911 without a trace of proof of traveling there. I plead ignorance to the tape of UBL and Saddam, Im not doubting you, but if you can offer a source, its information Id like to read.

As to the SoU quote, the fact is the CIA refused to be sourced. This blows your disinformation claim out of the water. It was only after the vetting that Bush chose to use the Brit intelligence. That quote was in the Brit intell report that also stated that Saddam could attack England with wmd in 45 minutes. All this bogus garbage was contemperainiously linked to US intell by Blair, now theres this sudden revisionist history from Blair, and in light of all his other wmd prevarication, I don't believe it.

Finally, the Rice and Powell 2001 quotes on Iraqi wmd are in F-911. Go see the movie.

John my point on a consitution being nothing more than a piece of paper wasn't used in the context of the US, or any other Western Democracy. It was used in reference to Turkey, who Im sure drafted a lovely document, but pay little attention to it.

Im not a peacenik. It boils my blood everytime I see jr kiss Saudi ass. I supported the effort in Afganistan, and Im all for seizing the Saudi oil as restitution for 911, because the fact is 911 was planned by Saudis, financed by Saudis, and committed by mostly Saudis. The Saudi state financed madrassas export terrorism and hatred of the west, 911 was a Saudi act of war.

Begbee posts:

"Finally, the Rice and Powell 2001 quotes on Iraqi wmd are in F-911. Go see the movie."

A primary source would always be nice, but in the case of Michael Moore, who has been proven to edit film of speechs so as to change their meaning, the primary source is essential.

The Rice and Powell comments are near identical, and I remember previously seeing the clip of Powell on Fox, they werent edited, they werent taken out of context. Disagree with me as much as you want, but you can't condemn what you havent seen and maintain a shred of intellectual credability. Go see the movie.

Source:

http://edition.cnn.com/WORLD/meast/9902/13/afghan.binladen/

The above is a link to a CNN article which has the following quote, "Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has offered asylum to bin Laden, who openly supports Iraq against the Western powers."

This was in reference to US demands that the Taliban hand over bin Laden after the Kenya and Tanzania bombings.

Now why don't you provide a credible source proving George Bush met the leader of the Taliban after the USS Cole was bombed. Of course, you remember the Cole was bombed in October of 2000, while Bush was BUSY running for President.

Or maybe this is just another of your factoids.

You desperately want to believe a lie, so Michael Moore finds you to be lucrative target.

Oh, and if you think we accidentally found the only binary shell in Iraq with Sarin (an acknowledged WMD by people who dealt with the Japanese Subway sarin murders), then geez, I'm dumfounded.

Oh, as a bonus Begbee, I'm giving you a source to show your BUSH LIED!!! theory about Saddam and uranium is ill-considered.

From the British press:

A UK government inquiry into the intelligence used to justify the war in Iraq is expected to conclude that Britain's spies were correct to say that Saddam Hussein's regime sought to buy uranium from Niger.

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1087373567507

Here is an outstanding post which contains a clear discussion of many of the questions raised by Bugbee. Even more than answers, this posts contains analysis to set the answers, in so much as there are anwers, in their proper setting. The comments in the posts also should be read, as they are similarly insightful. Here is the second paragraph, to give you some idea of the content:

Michael Moore basically agrees with many of the controversial conclusions of under secretary of defense for policy Douglas J. Feith, whose Counter Terrorism Evaluation Group is the source of one of Moore's key (though erroneously framed) premises - namely that a sizeable chunk of the Saudi royal family and key members of the Saudi business establishment, including members of the Bin Laden Group, were in cahoots with al-Qaeda.

Cowalker wrote:
"It's time for somebody else to make decisions. Bush and Company have proven that they do not deserve the trust embodied in command over our men and women in uniform."

John wrote:
"Why don't we ask our men and women in uniform?"

They are legally prohibited from expressing opinions that conflict with the Administration's position.

http://traveling-soldier.org/4.04.hoffman.php

Perhaps we'll find out their opinion in the upcoming election.

I'd say that the latest AP story makes the situation look even bleaker.

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pub&dt=040708&cat=news&st=newsd83n0lh00&src=ap

When will the "legitimate" elected government of Iraq be able to stand on its own two feet? When do we get to say "You're on your own"? Can it EVER be allowed to fail due to civil war or continued civil unrest? If we don't have to prop it up forever, when can we stop?

I guess we should find out when the troops are coming home from Germany, since we ousted their fascist dictator almost 60 years ago.

The war on terror isn't done. Not by a long shot. Whether you believe the war is legitimate is irrelevant, as the terrorists certainly do.

And as long as there are probabilities of Iran going nuclear, Saudi financial support for terrorist schools, and a oppressive terror-sponsoring state in Syria, we aren't done.

And we don't stop until we're done.

Our Exit Strategy?

Win.

Begbee:

You may or may not have intended your post regarding a Constitution being only a piece of paper to refer solely to Turkey's constitution. However, we can only judge your words. That is decidedly NOT what you wrote. There were no qualifiers in your statement.

You just might want to think a bit more before posting inflammatory items. A bit more thought beforehand often prevents eating crow afterward.

Clinton's lies are old news. Bush's misrepresentations to get us into war are old news. For that matter we don't know what Bush thought he knew -- he was getting bad reports from Chalabi agents and bad reports from Allawi agents and bad reports from the Mossad, and he probably believed all of them. He didn't trust the CIA people who have a whole lot of experience with bad reports.

Moore presented something that people tend to correct the dots for. OK, that's old news too.

What are we going to do? Apart from the elections, I've noticed a minority of people who tell the truth about what they want. They want the USA to invade every arab or moslem nation one at a time, on whatever excuse. The excuses don't much matter.

Some of them piously say we can build democracies in those places, others say we can't but we should invade anyway. If you don't believe in moslem democracies then what kind of occupation do you want? Wouldn't it make sense in that case to do your best to destroy their economies, and try to keep them from rebuilding? In iraq we have doctors and university teachers getting kidnapped and killed or told to leave the country. We have the electrid grid limping along no better than before for a solid year, and slowly improving now. We have eighteen billion dollars provided by Congress for reconstruction and 300 million dollars of it spent, while a lot of the iraqi oil money goes to pay Halliburton to truck in gasoline from kuwait. A total of eight million dollars allocated to rebuild the universities. The police disbanded and new police trained slowly. It's hard to figure how it could be done much worse and still maintain any claim that it isn't intentional destruction.

We don't have the troops to occupy iran and we won't have them come march. We can roll in and smash things up but we can't occupy them, we'll have to roll out again and I doubt we'll be offering any money for reconstruction. First there's the same thing we were hearing last time. "The iranian people hate their rulers and they want to make a liberal democracy all by themselves." Every reason to think we'll hear "The iranian oil revenues will pay for all the reconstruction they need, fast."

I think it's refreshing that people come out and say they want to invade all the moslem "shithole" countries one at a time and make sure they can never send terrorists here. This is a policy that needs more public debate. Is there any viable alternative, or is this the only way we can survive?

Can we afford to invade the whole middle east when our real enemy, the enemy that is likely to choose itself ("Choose your friends wisely, your enemies will choose themselves") is china?

On the other hand, to stop the china threat isn't our best tactic to get control of all the middle east oil? Then we can choose not to ship it to china, and they won't be able to modernise at their current rate or at all. We control the oceans but we don't like to redirect tankers with oil that's officially bought and paid for. If we control the oil we can send just enough to europe to meet their needs and none will be left to resell to china. We won't need an official blockade, just redirect a *few* tankers if they wind up heading to china anyway. Problem solved.

Our military turns out not to be that strong after all, and would it be so much stronger with a bunch of unwilling draftees? We can smash any other army in the world but we can't occupy much. If we use it to control the middle east and the majority of the world's oil, then we're a superpower after all. Otherwise we're just a deficit-ridden currency-depreciating has-been with control of the world's oceans.

This is the central issue that we face regardless whether Bush or Kerry wins the election. Do we want to maintain America's superpower status? Are we willing to invade the whole middle east, on whatever excuse? Are we ready to give up our hypocrisy, or are we going to do all this stuff and lie about it?

Or if we find some other plan, what could it be? Has anybody even come up with any alternative?

"They want the USA to invade every arab or moslem nation one at a time, on whatever excuse. …
Some of them piously say we can build democracies in those places."
It's not so much building as planting and watering. As good ol'Dubya has pointed out more than once, the people of the middle-east are NOT genetically inferior to people elsewhere; therefore democracy will flourish among them, given half a chance.
We just need to kill enough tyrants, theocrats, and terrorists to get the ball rolling.
And, quibbling, it doesn't have to be literally EVERY arab/muslim country: Saudi Arabia and Iran should be sufficient.
As for the rest of your post: yeah, you're pretty much right about strategy, if a bit pessimistic about tactics.
Cheers! :-)

McClain said, "As good ol'Dubya has pointed out more than once, the people of the middle-east are NOT genetically inferior to people elsewhere; therefore democracy will flourish among them, given half a chance."

That doesn't necessarily follow. On average military dictatorships have been turning into democracy faster in recent years than the other direction, but that's mostly because we count eastern europe as dictatorships that turned into democracies. And the CIA might tend to shift the equilibrium toward the military dictator side.

Anyway, I like democracies too and I'd like arab democracies regardless how hard they are for the USA to get along with. (In the past we've tended to encourage coups against democracies in third world nations because the democracies don't play ball well enough. I saw a story that when the turks refused to let us invade iraq through their country we asked their generals to stage a coup for us, and they refused.)

"We just need to kill enough tyrants, theocrats, and terrorists to get the ball rolling."

I guess. I pretty often hear that democracy works if you just kill enough people. I'm a little bit doubtful of that myself.

"And, quibbling, it doesn't have to be literally EVERY arab/muslim country: Saudi Arabia and Iran should be sufficient."

You might be more up on moslem cultures than I am. If we conquered saudi arabia wouldn't we have to conquer all the other moslem countries too? Or at least seal their borders so they couldn't ship us terrorists....

"As for the rest of your post: yeah, you're pretty much right about strategy, if a bit pessimistic about tactics."

OK, here's the part I don't get. How come you guys aren't getting as much publicity as you can for your ideas to build a national consensus? I mean, you like democracy, right? Why do the thing without getting the consensus? Do it undemocratically and it will come back and bite you. But no candidate has talked about it. We only hear about it from liberals who try to warn people, and from guys on blogs who might be lone nutcases who heard it from the liberals. There's the PNAS literature but nobody who runs for election has actually endorsed any of that.

This is the most important political, diplomatic, and military decision the USA has faced in the last 140 years. Why aren't we discussing it in the open? How come it gets presented as a plan by just a bunch of neocon crazies who have no popular support?

OK, one last thing, Begbee, and this is a simple, non-agressive question:

Do you have a source for this?

"we have admitted selling Saddam sarin gas."

If so, I'd REALLY, REALLY like to see it. That's quite serious. It would be up against of mountain of evidence that we didn't, but there's reason why people would want it covered up, so I'd like to see the evidence, if it exists.

Other than that, I'm done talking to Begbee, whom I shall henceforth refer to as the Go-see-the-movie poster. You know, it's hard to have a conversation when half the stuff you say is totally ignored (including everything about why I'm not going to see the movie).

"I pretty often hear that democracy works if you just kill enough people. I'm a little bit doubtful of that myself."
Touche. (Too-shay? How d'you that HTML accent thingy anyway?)
Gotta admit: you made me laugh AND made a good point there.
As for the publicity/consensus thing - I dunno.
I say what I think publicly, but I'm not a "public figure."
I guess it sounds a bit too red-meat honest for a politician. Maybe the administration doesn't want to keep telling all of our enemies that, yes, there is a list and, yes, you're on it. (Aside from the 'Axis of Evil' speech.) Speak softly, big stick, & all that.
But I daresay a good chunk of the electorate shares the values and priorities that lead me to advocate this particular approach. I've seen bumper stickers (in Boston) saying things like "Nuke 'em all, take the oil!"
Nukin' 'em ain't exactly my position, mind you, but certainly closer to it than anything coming out of Mr. Moore's over-rated mouth.

--Or if we find some other plan, what could it be? Has anybody even come up with any alternative?--

You mean other than, "why do they hate us?," little more dhimmi, toss The Jooos overboard, and throw more money at them?

We're still waiting.

--And we are talking of a single, damaged, lost shell.--

I thought the Poles found another dozen or so.

--And we are talking of a single, damaged, lost shell.--

Actually, the shell I was talking about (the sarin shell) was not known to be damaged - it was used in an IED, so there's no way to know for sure.

But it WAS unmarked - Why would anyone have unmarked chemical shells?

Also, it's a type of shell that we never poduced (nor has anyone of the "great powers" recently, if at all). Iraq had other binary munitions (bombs, rockets), so it stands to reason that they made this themselves. Where are the rest of them? Where did this one come from?

We don't know - it could have been a single lost shell, sand-blasted in the desert until the marking came off. It's possible. It's also possible that it came from a cache of them. WE DON'T KNOW. We may never know, but I'd sure like to do as much as possible to make sure it isn't the second.

Free bonus: there were a few gallons of sarin in that shell, had it properly mixed. If properly applied in an urban environment (subway, for instance) that's enough to kill literally thousands of people. 1 shell.

I dont think anyone disputes that we sold Saddam many types of wmd, the ones Im sure of are Sarin, Mustard gas, Anthrax, botulism, and Im pretty certain VX. Ive read and heard all of the above in analysis of what we could face entering Bahgdad, so a google search should provide many sources. Incidentally, Im no munitions expert, but could the analysis the General offered about the binary shell be correct in that the Iraqis produced the shell, but the Sarin it contained was purchased from us? Im not sure about what wmd the Polish troops dug up, but I now remember there are reports those shells were being sold for $5000 a piece. Now if they put a price on it, that means some terrorist has already bought them. So again, rather than making the world safer with our war, we have delivered wmd to terrorists.

Hondo Im hardly eating crow. The only country whos constitution was discussed in this thread was Turkeys, I figured it was understood, I guess I overestimated you.

Theres extensive footage of Bush meeting with head of the Talaban in Houston post USS Cole in F-911. The idea that Iraq is more culpable for 911 is one of the dumbest things I have ever read. Im finished here. Go see the movie and judge for yourself.

A more precise google search to specifically find Sarin would be to look for the UNs report on Saddams gassing of the Kurds. The report concluded that since these Kurds died from cyanide poisoning, it was the Iranians that gassed them, because while Saddam had Sarin purchased from us, he didnt have weaponized cyanide. I think theres also reference in this report of the US providing Saddam Sattelite coordinates to gas the Iranians with Sarin.

cariba:

Impressive, an entire catch of red herring -- what kind of flies did you use? That's more successful fishing than I've ever had (couple rainbow trout, couple sunfish), but then, maybe I don't have the patience. Nonetheless I do enjoy shooting fish in a barrel, so here goes:

Is the Fox News Network a " news network?" Would you describe it as " fair" and " balanced?"

Don't know, don't really care, either. I despise all television news networks equally, since it's a lot like sifting a batch of preowned catbox litter -- you have to comb through a lot crap to find anything unique, and if you do find it, it's probably something you didn't want to see anyway.

Is Rush Limbaugh a "radio journalist"?

You tell me, apparently you're familiar with him. I prefer Jon Stewart, on the rare occassion that I'm near a television with a cable/satelite subscription. Otherwise, I read maybe a handful of ranting polemics in a year, just to remember why I don't like the taste.

do you think the reports that Iraq had an arsenal of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons could be described as "fiction?"

Vile simplisme. There are far too many factors involved to reduce that to a yes or no question. Grayscale, please.

Was Mr Cheneys statement that Iraq could launch a strike with chemical and biological eapons within 45 minutes "true"?

Would have to research that one, and probably even be Mr. Cheney (and thus have access to the same information that he had). I think I'll wait and see what your response to Hondo's counterpoint looks like.

I'm too stubborn for my own good, I guess - I keep coming here, hoping for reasonable answers.

"I dont think anyone disputes that we sold Saddam many types of wmd, "

Not to be intentionally rude, but I obviously do, as do many others. If you think that, you are blatantly ignoring me and many other people.

"the ones Im sure of are Sarin, Mustard gas, Anthrax, botulism, and Im pretty certain VX."

Anthrax, botulism - check. As I said, we sold/gave them medical samples (not weaponized) of those (and several others). We did that for LOTS of people back then. Naive? Yes, but those were the times.

The others... I cannot say for absolute certain that we did not sell or give them ANYTHING in the way of chemical weapons, but we certainly did not supply weapons to them in actual usage quantities. How do I know? BECAUSE THEY USED BINARY MINUTIONS. As I have repeatedly said, our chemical weapons never needed to be in binary munitions because they were more advanced and more stable. That in and of itself shows that it was not our chemical weapons they were using.

"Ive read and heard all of the above in analysis of what we could face entering Bahgdad, so a google search should provide many sources."

"everybody knows" and "lots of sources" are not sources. The news media recently claimed theere was no farewell speech from Bremer, when his farewell speech was ON CNN! Repeating something does not make it true. SOURCES, please.

"Incidentally, Im no munitions expert, but could the analysis the General offered about the binary shell be correct in that the Iraqis produced the shell, but the Sarin it contained was purchased from us?"

See above about our chemical weapons not being of the binary type. No, this is not possible (unless the Iraqis figured out how to split sarin back into its precursors, in which case they would be far more advanced than binary munitions, anyway).

"Im not sure about what wmd the Polish troops dug up, but I now remember there are reports those shells were being sold for $5000 a piece. Now if they put a price on it, that means some terrorist has already bought them."

No, it doesn't. That is a fallacy. That means that someone was willing to sell them. Could some have been sold? Yes. Do we KNOW they were? No. AND just because they are being sold now does NOT even come close to meaning they weren't being sold before. Go take a basic course in logic!!

"So again, rather than making the world safer with our war, we have delivered wmd to terrorists."

That does not logically follow. I fail to see how cutting the money supply ($25k persuicide bomber, for instance), removing the safe haven (there were many known terrorists being harbored in Hussein's Iraq, several of which we caught as part of the invasion), and securing tons of radioactive material (primarily uranium, but others also) makes the world LESS safe. You would have to make the case that any such weapons were less available before the war than they are now. Since Hussein threatened to give them to terrorists, that would be a hard case to make.

"Theres extensive footage of Bush meeting with head of the Talaban in Houston post USS Cole in F-911."

Bush's entire Presidency was after the Cole bombing. Clinton was President then. If Bush met with them at all (which he did, demanding OBL), then it was after the Cole. That is a red herring.

"The idea that Iraq is more culpable for 911 is one of the dumbest things I have ever read."

Then you haven't read much. A dictator who has used Islamic rhtoric calling us the "Great Satan", who attempting to assassinate a former US President, who may well have been involved in the first WTC attack, who appears to have had grounded planes available for hi-jacker practice... etc,etc,etc. Some of those things may turn out to be false (the meeting in Prague, for instance, though the Czechs still stand by it - what was that about vetting intel outside the CIA? It's the CIA saying he couldn't have been there), but to call it dumb in HINDSIGHT, when we didn't know all those things before the invasion (and still don't know about some of them) is, at best, disingenious.

"Im finished here. Go see the movie and judge for yourself."

I've given you many reasons why I won't, and why it is normal to take other peoples' word for things. If you won'y even acknowledge that, much less attempt to rebut, then you being "finished here" is no loss to rational discourse.

Thomasq says:

"(I saw a story that when the turks refused to let us invade iraq through their country we asked their generals to stage a coup for us, and they refused.)"

I saw a story that said I was king of the world.

I think - and I mean this as kind of a question - the problem here is a gullibility in believing nonsense sources simply because they reinforce previously-held opinions.

Begbee spends much of his posts imploring us to "see the movie" - a movie with obvious multiple admitted flaws, and therefore a decided credibility problem.

He doesn't provide sources for his claims, yet firmly believes them.

Why would anyone - left or right - deliberately choose error?

People deliberately choose error all the time, on both sides of the aisle. Even "moderates", who aren't extreme in any view often do so. It's a common human failing. I struggle with it myself, which is why I ask for (and give when their handy) original sources. It's basically a form of circular reasoning, another common human failing. (I believe point A, there fore point B must be false, since it contradicts point A, but point C doesn't contradict point A, so I'll believe it. Etc.)

First I'd like to correct a mistake. The movie F-911 shows Bush meeting with the leader of the Talaban, but it was with knowledge that they were sheltering Bin Laden after the African Embassy bombings, not the USS Cole. My apologies to Moore, Im glad that was pointed out, the USS Cole was a military target, while the African Embassies are more typical of UBLs terrorism.

Im not saying Saddam was a nice guy. Im saying he was better than what we have in Iraq now, and certainly better than the radical Islamic cleric Iraq will elect when given a chance. Like the elder Bush said, Saddam is the lesser of two evils. In any case, SA, Iran, and Pakistan are without question much bigger players in terrorism, so why Iraq?

Some weapons references-

How did Iraq get its weapons? We sold them-[Sunday Herald]

Elson E Boles: Iraq and Chemical weapons, the US Connection

US Companies sold Iraq billions of NBC weapons materials: SF Bay...

I find it hysterical that people who are writing about a movie they didnt see question my intellectual integrity.

Well, I saw the movie, and if you are unable to see the falsehoods (one after another), then well,... sad on you. See Dave Kopel's excellent blow by blow for that.

Ah the old "Elson E Boles" story from CounterPunch. There is a good journalism source. Puhleez. That story has been debunked already.

Corrupt German companies sold him his WMD production facilities. The German govt launched several landmark cases against those companies in the 90s. There are people serving sentences for it. Ah, but lets not let the facts spoil the conclusion.

Ah the old Moor Taliban trope re-emerges again. Moore has tried several times to trot out the old hoary stories (along with Scheer). I suggest you check out spinsanity in that regard.

With regards to meeting with Taliban officials, this is a good fisk of that (Dave Kopel)

Moore also tries to paint Bush as sympathetic to the Taliban, which ruled Afghanistan until its overthrow by U.S.-led forces shortly after Sept. 11. Moore shows a March 2001 visit to the United States by a Taliban envoy, saying the Bush administration “welcomed” the official, Sayed Hashemi, “to tour the United States to help improve the image of the Taliban.”

Yet Hashemi’s reception at the State Department was hardly welcoming. The administration rejected his claim that the Taliban had complied with U.S. requests to isolate Osama bin Laden and affirmed its nonrecognition of the Taliban.

“We don’t recognize any government in Afghanistan,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said on the day of the visit.

On the "we sold it to them argument"

Some references

http://slate.msn.com/id/2063934/

https://ssl.tnr.com/p/docsub.mhtml?i=foreign&s=ackerman020403

http://www.hrw.org/reports/1993/iraqanfal/ANFAL3.htm

http://www.phrusa.org/research/chemical_weapons/chemiraqgas2.html

In the British comedy series "Yes, Minister" (greatest political comedy of all time) they said a politician's understanding of the truth was the account most favorable to the politician that cannot be disproved by published facts. I keep this definition in mind when assessing anything a politician says.

Anybody's intellectual integrity is open to question when they intentionally believe distortions and manipulations, innuendos and half-truths. Don't feel special, Begbee.

And I have to laugh out loud at the suggestion that Iraq is a less worthy adversary than Saudi Arabia. Who would be first in line to suggest that an attack against SA would only be about the oil?

Michael Moore.

You no like my links? howabout these.

CBS News U.S. and Iraq Go Way Back Dec 31 2002

Scoop: US Armed Saddam Hussein With Chemical Weapons

Arming Iraq: A Chronolgy of US Involvement

Reason Moore actually lays out a case against Saudi Arabia. Who gives a damn about 'worthy'? What matters about 911 is who is culpable. Saudi Royality both directly and through charity funded several of the the 911 hijackers, Al Qaeda was born from UBL and the Saudi madrassas, is easily the largest exporter of terror in the world, not to mention about 80% of the hijackers were Saudi. So we kiss Saudi ass, attack their biggest enemy, and raise the value of their oil.

Wow.

Lookee here.

Looks like Joe Wilson LIED!!! about the (lack of a) Iraq-Niger uranium connection.

From today's Washington Post: (Not surprisingly - and consistent with a liberal bias - they didn't put the story on the front page, but rather put it on page A9.)

Wilson's assertions -- both about what he found in Niger and what the Bush administration did with the information -- were undermined yesterday in a bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report.

The panel found that Wilson's report, rather than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, as he has said, bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts. And contrary to Wilson's assertions and even the government's previous statements, the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence that made its way into 16 fateful words in President Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address.

Oh, and Begbee - those "links" you posted above - aren't. Links are like what I posted in green above, or at least a definable URL. Story titles aren't links.

Begbee the Saudis have always had us by the short hairs when it comes to oil. That is one of the reasons we've constantly sucked up to them. They've stabilized the price of oil for us through most ME crises.

If Iraq remains friendly to the U.S. and builds a pumping and distribution capacity proportionate to its reserves, the Saudis are in serious trouble, because they would no longer have as much influence on the price of oil to the West.

Finding another source of oil is necessary to dealing with the Saudis on more direct terms. Apart from WMDs (which would prompt retaliation in kind), oil is the only weapon ME kleptocrats can use against us. No president would risk the economic shock the Saudis could cause. There is no extant energy technology that can change that reality.

And that is why all presidents have 'kissed Saudi ass' as you so delicately suggest.

As a note, the paragraph above beginning with "The panel found . . ." should also be in italics as a direct quote from the Washington Post article.

Sorry about calling sources links. I cant be bothered with the url thing, but if you have doubts, the titles will get you to the source.

Im not quite sure what the whole story about Wilson is. From the Sunday talking heads the best I can figure at this point is that while he was correct that the Niger-Uranium documents are forgeries, they disagree with how he came to that conclusion. Beyond that, it wasnt Wilson that objected to sourcing the CIA as to Niger, it was Tenant. But I guess hes not in position to comment now.

Mindles D thats a compromise without honor, that does nothing to avenge the deaths of those killed on 911. I would gladly take on whatever economic burdon seizing the SA oil fields and punishing their arrogant royality would cause. The Saudis arent sorry, with help from the Bush family they continue to humilate us to this day. Remember the Sheik handing Giulianni a check for 5 million dollars while lecturing 911 was Americas fault?

Begbee, what mean you? And how does it address what Mindles said? "Vengeance" isn't quite what is being discusse here; there is a simple, relatively black-and-white problem that the US cannot take the Saudis directly while the Saudis provide a primary source of oil price stabilization.

Few if any reasonable persons will shed tears for Saddam's demise, whether or not they agreed with the means and its reasons. So, take out Saddam and make Iraq a semi-egalitarian oil producer as well as a source for a centralized US military presence in the ME; then, with Iraq's oil flowing, put the money screws to the Saudis and watch the House of Saud reform, or collapse.

I should think it is at least possible to consider this in the long-term context, rather than the next five minutes' harping about WMD or vengeance or 9/11 or...

Well, Begbee, what is it? Would you still advocate war against Saudi Arabia instead of the scenario advocated by anony-mouse (which, of course, fits with the Bush Doctrine)?

Comments are Closed.