[TimeStar] Bush cruising for a bruising?

[TimeStar]

Will the successful opening of Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore's new movie, stress G.W. Bush for another fall, tumble, or trip accident?  The only time we know Bush is injured is when he wears bandages that must be explained.  Conservatives protesting the public release of Moore's new movie paved the way for good box turnouts. 

 

  Krsanna 

 

MOORE DEFENDS 'FAHRENHEIT'

Filmmaker presses points in CNN interview

Friday, June 25, 2004 Posted: 1:47 PM EDT (1747 GMT)

Michael Moore

 

(CNN) -- The Bush administration "made a half-hearted effort" in  pursuing Osama bin Laden immediately after the September 11 attacks, and  devoted resources to invading Iraq instead, Michael Moore said in an  interview, defending points he's made in his new film, "Fahrenheit  9/11."  

 

  "I think -- and I think most Americans agree with this -- that we should  have seriously gone after anyone who was responsible for the murder of  3,000 people," Moore told CNN anchor Daryn Kagan Friday on CNN's "Live  Today." "But, as Richard Clarke so eloquently has pointed out, on  September 12th the Bush administration wasn't interested in going after  the people who did this. They wanted to bomb Iraq."  

 

  Asked about the U.S. pursuit of bin Laden, whose al Qaeda organization  was responsible for the attacks on New York and Washington, Moore added,  "Richard Clarke's point, and my point, is they made a half-hearted  effort. They kept our Special Forces from going into the part of  Afghanistan where bin Laden was. They kept the Special Forces out of  there for two months."  

 

  Moreover, Moore added, the U.S. sent 11,000 soldiers into the operation,  "[and there are] more police here in Manhattan than the number of  soldiers we sent in to get Osama bin Laden," he said, quoting something  Clarke -- the former White House counterterrorist coordinator -- said.  

 

  'Slick propaganda'

 

  Moore's film, an anti-Bush polemic the filmmaker has described as "an  op/ed piece," has created a firestorm of controversy. The film won the  Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival -- the festival's highest honor  -- but has come under attack from Bush defenders and some commentators.  

 

  "Fahrenheit" is "slick propaganda that indicts President Bush for a  variety of things, using cut-and-paste video interspersed with the  opinions of far-left people such as Reps. Jim McDermott (D-Washington)  and John Conyers (D-Michigan)," wrote Fox News Channel host Bill  O'Reilly in his column.  

 

  "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," wrote  iconoclastic columnist Christopher Hitchens in the online magazine  Slate. Hitchens generally leans to the left but has been in favor of the  Iraq war.  

 

  The White House called Moore "outside the mainstream."  

 

  "I can speak for myself and I can speak for the President, and I can  assure you that neither of us have seen ['Fahrenheit']," said White  House Communications Director Dan Bartlett. "We don't have a lot of free  time these days and when we do have free time to see a good fiction  movie, we'll pick 'Shrek' or some other enjoy[able] feature like that.  

 

  "Mr. Moore has every right to produce and show movies that express his  very radical views. He's outside of the mainstream. ... This is a film  that doesn't require us to actually view it to know it's filled with  factual inaccuracies."  

 

  'Most of all, entertaining'  Movie critics, however, have been more favorable. As of midday Friday,  the film had garnered 81 percent positive reviews (out of 100 surveyed),  according to the review compilation site Rottentomatoes.com.  

 

  The Chicago Sun-Times' Roger Ebert gave "Fahrenheit" 3-1/2 stars; so did  USA Today's Claudia Puig, who wrote, "No moviegoer will be bored. The  documentary's scathing attack on the war in Iraq and George W. Bush's  presidency is informative, provocative, frightening, compelling, funny,  manipulative and, most of all, entertaining."  

 

  CNN's Paul Clinton said the film is "an accomplished documentary with an  extremely powerful message."  

 

  Moore's ire isn't only directed at Bush. In the interview with Kagan,  Moore was also critical of members of Congress who support the war but  whose children haven't served in Iraq.  

 

  "I would favor a draft for the children of those people, because I'll  tell you what, if their kids had to go and die in this war, we'd have --  we wouldn't have any wars," Moore said. "Unless it was in the true  self-defense of this country. And that's not what this war is about."  

 

  "Fahrenheit 9/11" has been dogged by -- and has courted -- controversy  since Moore announced the project. The filmmaker's previous films,  "Roger and Me" and "Bowling for Columbine," have been criticized for  factual and contextual inaccuracies, and critics claimed Moore would  give Bush the same treatment.  

 

  The Walt Disney Co. refused to let subsidiary Miramax distribute  "Fahrenheit 9/11," saying the movie was too politically charged. The  film is being distributed by Lions Gate in partnership with IFC Films  and the Fellowship Adventure Group, an independent entity set up by  Harvey and Bob Weinstein, Miramax's co-founders.  

 

     

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