With the critical and commercial success of Michael Moore's latest "documentary," backlash from right- and center-leaning pundits and bloggers was inevitable. Christopher Hitchens' brilliant takedown of the film on Slate.com has already been well-circulated, and an impressive number of web sites and blogs continue to do an excellent job of exposing the misinformation, half-truths, and outright lies of Fahrenheit 9/11.
Fahrenheit Fact takes specific "facts" from the film and refutes them with indisputable evidence from the mainstream press, as in this sample entry:
NARRATOR: Even though we were nowhere near the White House, for some reason the Secret Service had shown up to ask us what we were doing standing across the street from the Saudi embassy.
MICHAEL MOORE: We're not here to cause any trouble or anything. Uh, ya know, is that...
OFFICER: That's fine. Just wanted to get some information on what was going on.
MICHAEL MOORE: Yeah yeah yeah, I didn't realize the Secret Service guards foreign embassies.
OFFICER: Uh, not usually, no sir....
But the agent was wrong- Moore does not mention this. He allows us to believe that only the Saudi Embassy has secret service protection, which is untrue. For example, the Secret Service has this to say:
...
After several name revisions, the force officially adopted its current name, the United States Secret Service Uniformed Division in 1977. While protection of the White House Complex remains its primary mission, the Uniformed Division's responsibilities have expanded greatly over the years. They now protect the following:
* the White House Complex, the Main Treasury Building and Annex, and other Presidential offices;
* the President and members of the immediate family;
* the temporary official residence of the Vice President in the District of Columbia;
* the Vice President and members of the immediate family; and
* foreign diplomatic missions in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area and throughout the United States, and its territories and possessions, as prescribed by statute.
Likewise, JimK and Lee at moorewatch.com, in addition to their already exhaustive coverage of all things Moore, have added a F911 Lies section that includes tidbits such as this one:
In the film, Michael Moore confronts Congressional Representative Mark Kennedy and asks him to help get Congress to sign up their kids for the Army, Marine Corps, etc. Mark Kennedy looks at him funny, and there is a badly-placed jump edit right there. Moore then moves on to asking other members of Congress, who all appear to ignore him and walk away.
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Article comments
1 - Rodney Welch
Today's NYT column by Paul Krugman made one of the best points yet about Michael Moore -- and this seemed as good a space to post it as any: "There has been much tut-tutting by pundits who complain that the movie, though it has yet to be caught in any major factual errors, uses association and innuendo to create false impressions. Many of these same pundits consider it bad form to make a big fuss about the Bush administration's use of association and innuendo to link the Iraq war to 9/11. Why hold a self-proclaimed polemicist to a higher standard than you hold the president of the United States?"
2 - El Bicho
Before raving about Hitchens, check out this brilliant takedown of his article by Chris Parry.
http://www.hollywoodbitchslap.com/feature.php?feature=1150
Where did you get the information regarding the Secret Service? I saw no links or footnotes and you provide them elsewhere so I'm curious where you got this information.
Lastly, you ask if when Moore says, "Of course, not a single member of Congress wanted to sacrifice their child for the war in Iraq," is
"factually accurate" and imply that it isn't. Well, it is completely accurate because Kennedy's nephew, who is deployed, isn't his child. Why only mention the deployment and not the truth of the relationship. Is that not a lie of omission on your part? You should live up to the standards you hold Moore to.
3 - kelly s
I have read these criticisms and they all tend to miss the point. The most damning facts are regarding the Bush family's connection with the Bin Laden family as well as Carlyle Group. The assumption is that that the administration dropped the ball in the aftermath of 9/11 in part due to these strong connections. I have yet to see the real documented facts be addressed by critics. There's just a lot of nitpicking at little details here and there, but it doesn't take away the factual evidence presented. So the Secret Service really do protect the embassies as well. So what!! So there was a congressman who spoke to Moore politely and has a family member deployed. Okay, fine. How does that or anything else brought up by Moore's critics take away from the documented facts, which by themselves are sickening? I don't need Michael Moore to tell me something is wrong here. I can see it myself when the evidence is presented.
4 - Doug
Well, Kelly. The connections which you characterize as "strong" (connections with the Bin Laden family as well as Carlyle Group)are in fact very tenuous. I'm not sure what "documented facts" you are referring to that "sicken" you. Spinsanity has a pretty clearly written article that seems to address your concerns.
Spinsanity