My wife took our 6-week-old daughter to a baby shower this past Saturday, so I had a chance to do something I didn't anticipate getting to do this summer-- go to a movie. I decided that I'd see Fahrenheit 9/11 and make my first blog post about my reaction to the film, because, well, this is a movie that has gotten no play in the media, there is absolutely no buzz positive or negative, no one seems to be talking about it, there is just a general total vacuum with respect to opinions about it, and it is long past time someone chimed in. No?

Regardless...

You should know, before I start, where I stand. I generally find my politics in alignment with Moore's. And I can't freaking stand the guy.

That said, I will be as-- well, no one is really objective, but as honest as possible in my take.

Bottom line, there was no bottom line. I'm sure there was supposed to be a point to the film-- and indeed, many parts were viscerally compelling-- but, despite the consensus among my fellow filmgoers on the way out of the theater, I didn't know what that point was. If pressed, I’d have to say the point was to make Bush out a fool. About 40% of the film was devoted to making Bush look foolish. But is that really even necessary? Isn’t it a little like knocking the books out of the arms of the biggest weakling nerd in school?

There was that bit at the opening about Bush having stolen Florida, and he absolutely did-- but politics is hardball, and what's done is done, and frankly he "stole" it fair and square. (Maybe if that idiot Gore had thought to use an extremely popular sitting southern president to campaign in Florida, or Tennessee, or Arkansas, he would have won one of these southern states, and the election.) (Say what you will about what the Bushes did in Florida, for my money Gore has no one but himself to blame for losing the election.) And there was a bunch about the links between Bush family and the Bin Laden family and the Saudis and the Carlyle Group (all far better documented in Craig Unger’s House of Bush, House of Saud) And at the end there was some stuff about how the war in Iraq is wrong. Which it is. But instead of making the case—showing Bush tell us that we had to invade because they had WMD, then showing experts testifying that there were none and the administration knew it—Moore stoops to following around a woman who lost her son in Iraq. I feel for the woman, but this isn’t documentary; its cheap sentimentality in place of solid logic and buttoned up arguments.

A lot of thoughts crammed into a film, but no overarching message. At least not one that I could see.

Basically, Michael Moore is quite literally the Jackass of the left, by which I am comparing him to the aptly named MTV personality. Why make a cogent point when you can pull a buffoonish stunt? Example: showing how foolish Republicans are by devoting film time to members of the administration looking foolish getting make-up applied for TV appearances (Colin Powell, to his credit, was the one guy who looked uncomfortable.) But what is the point here-- that Democrats don't wear make-up on TV? That they do, but don't look foolish getting it applied? Or maybe there was no point at all, this was just part of the 40% of the movie that served only to make fun of Bush.

Then there's the scene where he tried to get congressmen to sign their kids up for military service (if this stunt isn't pure Jackass I don't know what is.) Well, if you're going to do this, shouldn't you ascertain the age of the congressman's kids? I mean, if you have a 12 year old and a 9 year old, ignoring Moore seems perfectly reasonable. There was one guy who reported that he'd personally served in the air force from '68 to '72. At a time when Moore was-- what? Boogying down to Grand Funk? And the guy took the brochure, by the way.

The reason I really can't stand Moore's work is that he picks up the banner for causes I believe in-- for example, the way that this administration has woefully mismanaged foreign policy since 9/11 because they are so close to the Saudi/Wahhabis (Wahhabis being the "evil doers" we are at war with, if you want I can provide a bibliography) that they can't properly execute the so-called war on terrorism. We are at war with Wahhabis; Bush attacks Ba'athists.

Originally I thought that the point of the Iraqi invasion was to free up the oil reserves and put a puppet in place, so that the number two oil producer in the world was our business partner, and we could loosen the Saudis’ grip on the world oil market. Since the Saudis and the Wahhabis are the same people and we are at war with the Wahhabis, this made perfect sense, and I was actually in favor of the strategy. Until I realized that the administration wasn’t going to jeopardize Saudi oil interests—they were actually actively protecting them as a matter of policy. You know, “our good friends the Saudis” and all.

But Moore is so intellectually lazy that the word Wahhabi isn't mentioned once in the movie. Not once. And there is no excuse for covering this topic from his perspective (the left) and not dissecting the relationship between Saudis and Wahhabis (they are basically the same) and the "evil doers" (Al Qaeda, Bin Laden, every 9/11 terrorist, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Taliban, all Wahhabi).

Me, I left the theater furious. Not at Bush and his cronies-- it isn't as if I learned something new, I already know he isn’t that smart and his family is in bed up the yin yang with the same people who are responsible for anti-American terrorism. No, I was furious because of the shoddy job this slovenly, intellectually lazy, buffoonish clown of a filmmaker did in making any kind of cogent case. It wasn’t a documentary; it was a soapbox. And he’s too intellectually lazy (I’ve said that now, what, 4 times?) to lay out the case.

But dang, did he make good fun of Dubya. And I guess when you’re a Jackass, that’s really all that matters.

Labels: The politics