Michael Moore: Not Quite Getting it Right

The Rocky Mountain News editorial staff probably doesn't actually hate Micheal Moore, but they certainly aren't fond of F9/11, the attention it's being paid, or the intellectual dishonesty of the thing.

Among them, for example, is the claim that Saudi Arabian oil interests secretly control U.S. foreign policy, and that President Bush invaded Afghanistan to build a gas pipeline and ousted Saddam Hussein for cheap oil. In recent television interviews, however, Moore is hard pressed to explain why, if Saudi influence was so complete, the Saudis themselves were against the invasion of Afghanistan, and so opposed to the invasion of Iraq that they kicked U.S. troops off their territory into Qatar. In trying to explain away such inconsistencies he bumbles on as unintelligibly as the president he so mercilessly lampoons.

The film also accuses the White House of allowing 140 Saudis, including members of Osama bin Laden's family, to fly out of the country in secret immediately after Sept. 11, as all other air traffic was only gradually returning to normal. Problem is, this isn't what happened. In fact, the flights were cleared by Richard Clarke, the head of counter-terrorism for the Bush administration. A ferocious critic of the Iraq war, Clarke has admitted on the record that he alone sanctioned the departures. Moreover, the Saudis left having been duly interviewed by the FBI, only after air traffic resumed.

Read the rest. It's an interesting comment on the cinematic genius that is Michael Moore.

Posted by zombyboy at July 2, 2004 06:47 AM | TrackBack