Text 541, 185 rader
Skriven 2004-08-03 10:50:35 av John Hull (1:379/1.99)
Ärende: 59 Deceits - Pt 4
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Marquandt looked up Bush's activities for the next three days:

     Declared a major disaster area in Ohio and orders federal aid. This
affects Brown, Butler, Clermont and Hamilton counties.
     Sent a report on progress toward a "solution of the Cyprus question" to
the Speaker of the House and the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign
Relations. 
     Announced his intention to nominate Kathleen Burton Clarke to be Director
of the Bureau of Land Management (Department of the Interior). 
     Spoke at the American Legion's 83rd annual convention in San Antonio,
discussing defense priorities. Decommissioned the Air Force One jet that flew
444 missions, from the Nixon administration to Bush's retirement ceremony for
the plane in Waco, Texas. 
     Attended the dedication ceremony of the San Antonio Missions National
Historical Park in San Antonio.
     Announced appointment of 13 members of the Presidential Task Force to
Improve Health Care Delivery for Our Nations Veterans.

Christopher Hitchens notes:

     [T]he shot of him "relaxing at Camp David" shows him side by side with
Tony Blair. I say "shows," even though this photograph is on-screen so briefly
that if you sneeze or blink, you won’t recognize the other figure. A meeting
with the prime minister of the United Kingdom, or at least with this prime
minister, is not a goof-off.
      
     The president is also captured in a well-worn TV news clip, on a golf
course, making a boilerplate response to a question on terrorism and then
asking the reporters to watch his drive. Well, that’s what you get if you catch
the president on a golf course.

Christopher Hitchens, "Unfairenheit 9/11: The lies of Michael Moore,"
Slate.com, June 21, 2004. (Some of Moore's defenders have denounced Hitchens as
a member of the vast-right wing conspiracy. Hitchens, however, wrote an
obituary of Ronald Reagan recalling his lone meeting with Reagan, when he asked
a question which made Reagan angry: "The famously genial grin turned into a
rictus of senile fury: I was looking at a cruel and stupid lizard." Hitchens
also wrote a book and produced a movie, The Trials of Henry Kissinger, urging
that Kissinger be tried for war crimes.) 
 
By the way, the clip of Bush making a comment about terrorism, and then hitting
a golf ball, is also taken out of context, at least partially:

     Tuesday night on FNC’s Special Report with Brit Hume, Brian Wilson noted
how "the viewer is left with the misleading impression Mr. Bush is talking
about al-Qaeda terrorists." But Wilson disclosed that "a check of the raw tape
reveals the President is talking about an attack against Israel, carried out by
a Palestinian suicide bomber." 

"Cyberalert," Media Research Center, July 1, 2004, item. 3.
 
Interestingly, as detailed in Bill Clinton's autobiography My Life, in November
1995. when President Clinton learned that Israel's Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin
had been shot, Clinton went out to the White House lawn and hit golf balls
while he waited to learn if Rabin would live. That Clinton played golf after
learning of a terrible crime in Israel obviously does not mean that he did not
care about the crime. If a television station had recorded some footage of
Clinton hitting golf balls that awful night, it would have easy for a
hyper-partisan film-maker to use the footage against Clinton unfairly.
 
Moore wraps up the vacation segment: "It was a summer to remember. And when it
was over, he left Texas for his second favorite place." The movie then shows
Bush in Florida. Actually, he went back to Washington, where he gave a speech
on August 31.
 
[Moore response: Accurately quotes the Washington Post: "if you add up all his
weekends at Camp David, layovers at Kennebunkport and assorted to-ing and
fro-ing, W. will have spent 42 percent of his presidency 'at vacation spots or
en route.'" Does not attempt to defend Fahrenheit's mischaracterization of the
Post's meaning. Does not explain why the Israeli context was removed from the
Bush quote. Does not defend the claim that Bush went from Texas to Florida.]
 
September 11
Moore's changing positions
 
Fahrenheit presents a powerful segment on the September 11 attacks. There is no
narration, and the music is dramatic yet tasteful. The visuals are reaction
shots from pedestrians, as they gasp with horrified astonishment. 
 
Moore has been criticized for using the reaction shots as a clever way to avoid
showing the planes hitting the buildings, and some of the victims falling to
their deaths. Even if this is true, the segment still effectively evokes the
horror and outrage that every decent human being still feels about September
11.
 
But as New York’s former Mayor Edward Koch reported, Moore says, "I don't know
why we are making so much of an act of terror. It is three times more likely
that you will be struck by lightning than die from an act of terror." If there
is some additional context which would explain Moore's remarks, he has not
supplied such context on his website. It seems unlikely that Moore's "war room"
is unaware of the highly critical review written by former NYC Mayor Koch. 
 
Moore's first public comment about the September 11 attacks was to complain
that too many Democrats rather than Republicans had been killed: "If someone
did this to get back at Bush, then they did so by killing thousands of people
who did not vote for him! Boston, New York, DC, and the planes' destination of
California--these were places that voted against Bush!" (The quote was
originally posted as a "Mike's Message" on Moore's website on September 12, but
was removed not long after. Among the many places where Moore's quote has been
repeated is The New Statesman, a leftist British political magazine.)
 
A person might feel great personal sympathy for the victim of a lightning
strike, but the same person might feel that, overall, the "lightning problem"
is not worth making a big fuss over. Fahrenheit presents September 11 as a
terrible tragedy (in which Moore lost one a professional colleague, and many
other people lost loved ones), and as something worth making a big fuss. On
this latter point, Fahrenheit's purported view does not appear to be the same
as Moore's actual view.
 
[Moore response: none.]
 
Bush on September 11
Cheap Shot
 
Fahrenheit mocks President Bush for continuing to read the book My Pet Goat to
a classroom of elementary school children after he was told about the September
11 attacks. Actually, as reported in The New Yorker, the book was Reading
Mastery 2, which contains an exercise called "The Pet Goat." The title of the
book is not very important in itself, but the invented title of My Pet Goat
makes it easier to ridicule Bush.
 
What Moore did not tell you: 

     Gwendolyn Tose’-Rigell, the principal of Emma E. Booker Elementary School,
praised Bush’s action: "I don’t think anyone could have handled it better."
"What would it have served if he had jumped out of his chair and ran out of the
room?"…
      
     She said the video doesn’t convey all that was going on in the classroom,
but Bush’s presence had a calming effect and "helped us get through a very
difficult day."

"Sarasota principal defends Bush from ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ portrayal," Associated
Press, June 24, 2004. Also, since the President knew he was on camera, it was
reasonable to expect that if he had suddenly sped out of the room, his hasty
movement would have been replayed incessantly on television; leaving the room
quickly might have exacerbated the national mood of panic, even if Bush had
excused himself calmly.
 
Moore does not offer any suggestion about what the President should have done
during those seven minutes, rather than staying calm for the sake of the
classroom and of the public. Nor does Moore point to any way that the September
11 events might have turned out better in even the slightest way if the
President had acted differently. I agree with Lee Hamilton, the Vice-Chair of
the September 11 Commission and a former Democratic Representative from
Indiana: "Bush made the right decision in remaining calm, in not rushing out of
the classroom." 
 
[Moore response: Defends the factual accuracy of the segment, which no one has
ever disputed, except regarding the book's title.]
 
The Wolfowitz Comb
Another cheap shot

     Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz is shown surreptitiously
licking his comb in preparation for Congressional testimony under the cameras.
I know: Eeeuuww! Moore's point is that this proves Wolfowitz is a low life, a
sleazy guy whose policy opinions should be devalued accordingly. And, of
course, it's funny to see the famous and powerful embarrass themselves. Yet not
one among us hasn't had dozens of questionable hygiene moments that we would be
mortified to have witnessed by anyone, not to mention see featured in a
nationally released documentary. Moore knows that Wolfowitz's     desperate act
in attempting to tame unruly hair for a public appearance will look much worse
on movie screen than it really is, and he must know that periodic hygiene
failings are not any kind of proof of depravity: after all, we're talking about
a director here who habitually appears in public unshaven and sloppily dressed.
To Moore's likely retort that Wolfowitz deserves to be gratuitously ridiculed
for doing nothing worse than any member of his audience could easily recall
doing himself, the answer is that nobody deserves to be treated this way. It is
cruel and hypocritical, and violates basic   ethical reciprocity. Doing so is
wrong, and far more wrong, and infinitely more harmful to others, than licking
one's own comb.

Jack Marshall, "Fahrenheit 911," Ethics Scoreboard, June 30, 2004.
   ----- 59deceits-p4.txt ends -----

John 

America:  First, Last, and Always!
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