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. . . MOORE (MICHAEL) see "EVIL" for related links Michael Moore has released the cinematic equivalent of a French kiss to all who hate America. He is the leading exponent of HATRIOTISM. "HATE-RIOTISM" describes the new breeze blowing through the American media. It is now "cool" and "relevant" to mock everything for which our soldiers are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Criticizing democracy and America has long been in vogue in continental Europe, from those who look with disdain at American "naiveté," while still lamenting the Islamic onslaught. Now imported to our shores, hatriotism is the simplest way to get the growing contingent of professional protestors who populate television audiences to cheer. Mock America. Mock our involvement in Iraq. Mock President Bush. . .and get rousing applause. The only problem is. . .America has freed my kinsmen. I am a Persian Turkish immigrant raised as a Sunni Muslim, and in the interest of full disclosure, I must state that I left Islam in 1982, and became an American citizen. Yet as I survey the current cultural landscape, I cannot help but be less than enthused when Michael Moore states that his film is a call to true patriotism. The present conflict is not a war against Islam, and neither is it a "war for oil." In the previous six military endeavors, American troops sided with Muslims who were under attack, and there are much less extreme methods of garnering oil. This is a war of ideologies, and with Fahrenheit 911, Moore clearly shows his. [...] The central fact of the current controversy is the conflict between Islamic theocracy and American democracy. Islam has not now nor has it ever allowed religious freedom or freedom of expression. The best the Islamic republics can offer is "religious toleration." Based on the "Pact of Umar," religious toleration allows non-Muslims to enter Islamic republics, but they must pay a tax (jizyat). They can practice their faiths, but they cannot convert anyone from Islam. To do so means deportation or worse. Further, Islamic prophecy foretells of worldwide conversion to Sharia law under Islam, and thus, those who are fighting against us are "holy warriors." In this instance, I would say our president is half-right. He says we are not at war with Islam. I agree. However, a significant portion of Islam is in fact at war with us. And Michael Moore is blind to it all. [...] There is one final irony. There is a film producer who has worked for years, chasing down Michael Moore in an effort to interview him. The young man, named Michael Wilson, is making a documentary titled Michael Moore Hates America. So far, Moore has dodged him at every turn. Anyone who knows cinema recognizes that this is the exact tactic Moore took in his film Roger and Me, as he chased an automobile executive for an interview. Do you see the paradox? Because Michael Moore is now in the mainstream of hatriotism, and now the young conservatives are the radicals, Moore has become his own worst nightmare. Michael Moore has become that which he mocked. He has become an aloof elite. --Dr. Ergun Mehmet Caner, Moore's 'hate-riotism' http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0604/hate-riotism.php3 -- In late 2002, almost a year after the al-Qaida assault on American society, I had an onstage debate with Michael Moore at the Telluride Film Festival. In the course of this exchange, he stated his view that Osama Bin Laden should be considered innocent until proven guilty. This was, he said, the American way. The intervention in Afghanistan, he maintained, had been at least to that extent unjustified. Something-I cannot guess what, since we knew as much then as we do now-has since apparently persuaded Moore that Osama Bin Laden is as guilty as hell. Indeed, Osama is suddenly so guilty and so all-powerful that any other discussion of any other topic is a dangerous "distraction" from the fight against him. I believe that I understand the convenience of this late conversion. --Christopher Hitchens, "Unfairenheit 9/11: The lies of Michael Moore", http://slate.msn.com/id/2102723/ ----- More thoughts about the movie "Fahrenheit 9/11" : On the whole, it [Fahrenheit 9/11] is not accurate. --PBS journalist Gwen Ifill Anybody who gets their information from Michael Moore is as dumb as somebody who gets their history from Oliver Stone. --film critic Leonard Martin (who gave the film a 'do see' recommendation, but cautioned that Moore's work should be viewed as "propaganda," not as "documentary.") To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of "dissenting" bravery. --Christopher Hitchens, "Unfairenheit 9/11: The lies of Michael Moore", http://slate.msn.com/id/2102723/ -- The danger of living in a world where you can't hear from Michael Moore is very slim. [...] But speaking here in my capacity as a polished, sophisticated European as well, it seems to me the laugh here is on the polished, sophisticated Europeans. They think Americans are fat, vulgar, greedy, stupid, ambitious and ignorant and so on. And they've taken as their own, as their representative American someone who actually embodies all of those qualities. --Christopher Hitchens, transcript for "'Scarborough Country' for May 18" MSNBC http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5013506/ -- Moore knew he would have to deal with the actual 9/11 attacks somehow; so after the long, boring intro explaining how Bush stole the 2000 election ..., we see the footage of the 9/11 atrocities. Well, actually no-we don't. Moore cuts to a black screen, and plays only the sounds of the attacks, before an extended montage of drifting ashes and papers, artfully floating through the air while mournful music plays. ...why would someone who clearly understands the power of images choose not to show the most powerful images of our time? Because Moore knew that if he showed those images, which have been mostly absent from media for almost 3 years, he ran the risk of awakening the anger and feelings of intense danger we all experienced that day. And that was a risk he could not run-because it could very well spoil the tone of the rest of the film, and expose him for the smirking, unserious buffoon he is. After the blank screen 9/11 section of the film, he cuts almost immediately to scenes from talk shows, with bumbling people trying to sell anti-terrorism gadgets, and interviews several anti-Bush talking heads about the "climate of fear" that the Bush administration imposed on the country. Moore is a canny filmmaker. He realized that if he segued immediately to this snarky, derisive viewpoint after showing people jumping to their deaths from the top of the World Trade Center, some of the Moore Koolaid drinkers might feel twinges of conscience; they might remember what it felt like to see the largest buildings in New York City collapse, crushing and ripping apart the bodies of thousands of their fellow Americans. Some of them might even start to come out from under Moore's cinematic spell, if such an ugly reality were allowed to intrude. They might get mad. And some of them would be mad at him. So Moore, cowardly to the bottom of his hateful little shriveled soul, cut to a black screen. --Charles Johnson, http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=11569 _The_Cowardice_of_Michael_Moore ----- Fifty-six Deceits in Fahrenheit 911 By Dave Kopel [This is a preliminary version of an article that will be published on National Review Online. This report was first posted on the web on the morning of July 1. Since then, I've revised several sections in response to reader requests for clarifications, and have added additional deceits which have been pointed out by readers or journalists. Astute readers will observe that the number of identified deceits now exceeds 56. I have not retitled the report or renumbered the original 56 deceits. The final version will update the deceit count.] There are many articles which have pointed out the distortions, falsehoods, and lies in the film Fahrenheit 911. This report compiles the Fahrenheit 911 deceits which have been identified by a wide variety of reviewers. In addition, I identify some inaccuracies which have not been addressed by other writers. Fahrenheit mocks President Bush for continuing to read a story to a classroom of elementary school children after he was told about the September 11 attacks. 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 [24 June 2004] http://www.davekopel.com/Terror/Fiftysix-Deceits-in-Fahrenheit-911.htm -- Moore follows his GUT, by which I mean his Grand Universal Theory: Bush is to blame for everything. Because of Bush, the Saudis secretly run U.S. policy. Because of Bush, the Taliban were in bed with Texas energy executives. Because of Bush, the Taliban got toppled. . . . Whoa, hold up a minute, I thought he was all pals with the Taliban. The Saudis certainly were, which is why they opposed the liberation of Afghanistan. But by now Moore's moved on to pointing out that Bush's Afghan stooge Hamid Karzai used to work for the Texas energy company panting for that big Afghan gas pipeline. But hang on, I thought the Texan energy guys already had the Taliban in their pockets and were funded by the Saudis . . . " [...] Here's the way it works: If Bush is wearing the blue boxer shorts, they're a suspicious personal gift from Crown Prince Abdullah. If Bush is wearing the red boxer shorts, it's a conspiracy to distract public attention from the blue ones he was given by Crown Prince Abdullah. If he's wearing no boxer shorts, it's because he's so dumb he can't find his underwear in the morning. So, shortly after 9/11, Moore wrote that footage of one of the World Trade Center planes showed that it was being trailed by an F-16 -- i.e., the government could have shot it down but chose not to, so it could hit all those Al Gore voters. Imagine if, on Sept. 11, the U.S. Air Force had blown four passenger jets to kingdom come. Moore's film would be filled with poignant home movies of final Christmases and birthday parties and exploitative footage of anguished parents going to Washington to demand the truth about what happened that day and an end to the lame Bush spin about vague "threats" to public buildings. --BY MARK STEYN, Connect the dots when you watch 'Fahrenheit' http://www.suntimes.com/output/steyn/cst-edt-steyn04.html -- The Guardian of London reported today organizations related to the Middle East-based terrorist network have offered to help promote the film in the United Arab Emirates. [...] The terror-war supporting organization Move America Forward released a statement today saying the news about Hezbollah proves a contention it made about terrorist endorsement of Moore's award- winning documentary. Earlier this week, Move America Forward Vice Chair Melanie Morgan declared: "It would be more appropriate to have this propaganda shown at al-Qaida training camps rather than American movie theaters." The organization released an "apology" for Morgan's statement today, saying she didn't go far enough with her criticism. "I regret that we limited our comments solely to the terrorist organization al- Qaida and failed to mention that other terrorist groups, like Hezbollah, would also rally behind this film," said the group's chairman, Howard Kaloogian. --HOLLYWOOD VS. AMERICA, Michael Moore film appeals to terrorists 'Fahrenheit 9/11' gets thumbs-up from Hezbollah Posted: June 17, 2004, 5:00 p.m. Eastern http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39012   NEW YORK TIMES . . see "JOURNALISM" for related links Lately, when I tell people I work for a newspaper, I've detected the subtle signs of disapproval -- the dirty looks; the snide remarks; the severed animal heads in my bed. How did we get into this situation? Without pointing the finger of blame at any one institution, I would say it is entirely the fault of The New York Times. --Dave Barry (1947- ) American humorist, "Right or wrong, we're journalists" http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/columnists/dave_barry/6138686.htm -- In the comprehensiveness of its coverage, accuracy of its reporting, the precision of language, spelling, grammar, the Times was the best. No paper came close. Its reporters, writers and editors were a constant presence at Columbia, conducting classes, lecturing us on how to report, write, edit, criticize, editorialize. We were a farm club for the Times, though only a few of us ever made its roster. Among our faculty, it was considered the acme of success in our profession to write for the Times. Even copy editors on the "rim" of the copy desk were legends. Though we were all in a master's program and some had edited college papers, won national awards or worked professionally, it was still an honor to be invited to serve as a copy boy at the Times. Thus the sordid story of Times' star Jayson Blair is very big. For that story exposed a total collapse of standards at the Times and revealed the corruption of a once-great institution, which has prostituted itself to the commands of "diversity." [...] Over 42 months, the Times had had to publish 50 "corrections" of Jayson Blair's stories. A year ago, metropolitan editor Jonathan Landman sent an e-mail to all newsroom administrators. "We have to stop Jayson from writing for the Times. Right now." Yet nothing was done, and soon Blair was being granted plum assignments once given only to the most experienced of reporters. Who hired Jayson Blair? Who promoted him? Who protected him? And why? Like the purloined letter, the answer is right in front of us. Jayson Blair is black. The New York Times worships at the altar of "diversity." So, Times editors cut him all the slack he needed. And Jayson Blair knew how to snooker "progressives." Had Jayson Blair been a white graduate of Bob Jones, he would not have lasted past his second correction. Indeed, he would never have been hired. But he was, because Jayson Blair was exactly the right color for the New York Times' guilty conscience. The Jayson Blair scandal at the New York Times is a case of the chickens of affirmative action coming home to roost. [...] Raines and his co-editors have made the voice of the American establishment an object of mockery and ridicule in Middle America. Somewhere, today, Spiro Agnew is smiling. --Patrick Buchanan (1938- ) Journalist, author, candidate for U.S. President, "The revenge of Spiro Agnew" http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=32564 -- It is interesting that editors of The New York Times take such a sanctimonious stance in discussing the Jayson Blair affair. The New York Times is known as a respectable newspaper only because the New York Times has said so. Actually The New York Times should not have had any credibility for the last 70 years. By the admission of its own executive editor in 1987 it had served as a mouthpiece for Joseph Stalin. According to a State Department memo declassified in 1987, Pulitzer Prize winner, Walter Duranty, stated to a State Department official that "in agreement with The New York Times and the Soviet authorities," his dispatches always "reflect(ed) the official opinion of the Soviet regime and not his own." Duranty it should be remember became famous for his misreporting of the Ukrainian famine. When Executive Editor Max Frankel was confronted with this memo by Dr. James Mace he did not deny its veracity. His response was that Dr. Mace's information "doesn't seem to qualify as news. It's really history, and belongs in history books." In June 1990 Karl E. Meyer wrote in the Times that Duranty's reporting was, "some of the worst reporting to appear in this newspaper." --John Dietrich, _The Morgenthau Plan: Soviet Influence on American Postwar Planning_ -- How to ward off atrophy and routine, you ask? Well, I can give you a small and perhaps ridiculous example. Every day, the _New York Times_ carries a motto in a box on its front page. "All the News That's Fit to Print," it says. It's been saying it for decades, day in and day out. I imagine that most readers of the canonical sheet have long ceased to notice this bannered and flaunted symbol of its mental furniture. I myself check every day to make sure that the bright, smug, pompous, idiotic claim is still there. Then I check to make sure that it still irritates me. If I can still exclaim, under my breath, *why* do they insult me and *what* do they take me for and what *the hell* is it supposed to mean unless it's as obviously complacent and conceited and censorious as it seems to be, then I at least know that I still have a pulse. You may wish to choose a more rigorous mental workout but I credit this daily infusion of annoyance with extending my life span. --Christopher Hitchens (1949- ) _letters to a young contrarian_ -- The [New York] Times and the typical blog are very different forms of jounalism. One obsessively reflects the personal biases, enthusiasms and grudges of a single individual. The other is just an online diary! --Mickey Kaus http://slate.msn.com/id/2083565/ -- Perception verses reality - it's a point that needs to be made until the cows come home. Did you know that on Tuesday of this week Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, addressed a joint session of Congress? Did you know that not one word of that address, nor even any mention that the event even occurred, appeared in the following day's national edition of the New York Times? Aside from a photograph of President Bush and Mr. Karzai on its front page, and a caption mentioning that the two had a news conference in the Rose Garden, the June 16 [2004] edition of the New York Times contains not a single word about what Mr. Karzai said to Congress, to Bush or to the American people. Why the cover up? --Bob Kohn, Gray Lady spikes Karzai story http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39035 -- It will be my earnest aim that the "New York Times" give the news, all the news, in concise and attractive form, in language that is permissible in good society, and give it early, if not earlier, than it can be learned through any other medium. To give the news impartially, without fear of favor, regardless of party, sect, or interest involved; to make the columns of the "New York Times" a forum for the consideration of all public questions of public importance, and, to that end, to invite intelligent discussion from all shades of opinion. --Adolph S. Ochs (1858-1935) Salutatory in the "New York Times" [18 August 1896] -- If a newspaper prints a sex crime, it's smut, but when The New York Times prints it, it's a sociological study. --Adolph S. Ochs (1858-1935) [publisher of The New York Times] -- A KIND WORD FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES: Well, more than a few, actually. I'm working on a law review article about the regulation of nanotechnology, and I've been going through the mainstream media coverage of the subject. The Times is way ahead of anyone else -- and I mean way ahead. Not only is the quality of its coverage excellent, but the sheer quantity outstrips everyone else by a mile. This is the sort of thing that makes the Times great. And I suspect that I speak for a lot of people in saying that if Howell Raines, et al., had focused on this kind of work, excellent reporting on a wide array of topics, taking advantage of the Times' superior size and scope, things would be a lot better. I hope that the new editors will keep that in mind. People don't criticize the Times because it isn't a national treasure. They -- or at least I -- criticize it because it _is_ one, and recent zone-flooding on Augusta National, etc., has squandered that status. --Glenn Reynolds, http://www.instapundit.com/archives/009967.php#009967 -- Rick Bragg, suspended by the New York Times in the wake of the Jayson Blair fiasco, comments on wha the mainstream press is currently experiencing: "And this insanity -- this bizarre atmosphere we're moving through as if in a dream -- we're being made to feel ashamed for what was routine. . . . Reporters are being bad-mouthed daily. I hate it. It makes me sick." Mr. Bragg is experiencing, doubtless for the first time, how unfair hostile reporting is. Yet this is what the mainstream press has subjected every other business in America to for decades. Hostile reporting is the result of the sentence all mainstream reporters say, specifically, "To be objective I must be hostile to the subject of the article." That sentence is false. Hostility as a goal produces only attacks. It does not produce fairness. This is what Bragg, and the press, are discovering under these unfortunate circumstances. --Vik Rubenfeld http://www.luxeword.com/archives/000102.html -- What do the Jayson Blair and Rick Bragg scandals have in common? Besides featuring New York Times Editor Howell Raines' former newsroom pets, the suspendable reporting offenses both involved fudging the concept of "datelines," those little all-caps geography indicators at the beginning of articles. "Month after month, year after year, Rick Bragg said, his mission was to 'go get the dateline,' even when that meant leaning heavily on the reporting of others," Howard Kurtz reports today. Maybe the Grey Lady needs to open up a few more bureaus in flyover country. --Matt Welch, http://www.reason.com/hitandrun/001627.shtml#001627 -- But as a general rule, nonstaffers only supplement our correspondents' own basic reporting. They do not substitute for it. --Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd NYT memo to staffers http://www.poynter.org/forum/?id=Memos -- Milton Allimadi, a Times metro stringer for two years in the mid- 1990s, said he routinely filed crime stories that were "barely touched" by editors and reporters but never got a byline. "I often wondered how readers I had interviewed must have been surprised the next day. While interviewing them I identified myself as Milton Allimadi, and the next day the byline would be totally different," he said. --Howard Kurtz http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51506-2003May28.html -- Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools. --1921 New York Times editorial, about Robert Goddard's revolutionary rocket work end page | ABORTION - ARABS | ANTI-AMERICANISM | ANTI-SEMITISM | BALI - BUSH | CAPITAL PUNISHMENT - CLINTON (HILLARY) | ELECTION [AMERICAN PRESIDENTIAL - 2004] & FOX NEWS | GLOBAL WARMING & GUANTANAMO | GUN CONTROL & GUNS | HEALTH CARE (CANADIAN) - HOMOSEXUALS | HURRICANE KATRINA | IRAN | IRAQ 1 | IRAQ 2 | ISLAM - ISRAEL v. PALESTINE | LEFTISTS | MEDIA (THE) & MEDIA BIAS | MOORE (MICHAEL) & NEW YORK TIMES | NORTH KOREA - PATRIOT ACT | RADICAL THOUGHT | RAP MUSIC | STEM CELL RESEARCH | TERRORISM 1 | TERRORISM 2 | TERRORISM 3 | TERRORISM 4 | TERRORISM (PREVENTING) | UNITED NATIONS | | Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The End | The Reviews | Photos | |
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