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Do you have citations for this? I'm not trying to be snarky here; this is a genuine question. I watched Bowling for Columbine about half a life-time ago and didn't pick up on any of that; I would be interested to see if it is the case, but not so interested as to acquire and rewatch the entire movie looking for bad editing.

For the record, I snark at people who are snarky. Honest questions and differences of opinion that *don't* cast personal aspersions are warmly welcomed.

I apologize, I actually thought this was well known.

There are lots of dissections of the film on the net, but the clearest one I read at the time posted Charleton Heston's speech side-by-side with the video dialog. It's available here.

Specifically, Moore cuts and pastes quotes from two of Heston's speeches together, giving the impression that he said both of them in the speech immediately after Columbine. Heston has lavender shirt/tie in one speecn, and white shirt/red tie in another. Moore covers this with a cut scene of a billboard between the video clips, while the narration is seamless.

More specifically, the "cold dead hands" quote from Heston was not made at the speech after Columbine. By seamlessly editing that quote into the supposed speech, he paints Heston as heartless and uncaring.

And as a further note, and I'm doing this from memory of the movie, Moore asks a lot of the convention holders whether they should have cancelled the event out of respect for the Columbine shooters. He gives the distinct impression that the convention was held in callous disregard for the feelings of the affected Columbine families.

In point of fact, *this* is what Heston (NRA president) actually said in that speech:

I also want to applaud your courage in coming here today. Or course, you have a right to be here. As you know, we've cancelled the festivities, the fellowship we normally enjoy at our annual gatherings. This decision has perplexed a few and inconvenienced thousands. As your president, I apologize for that.

But it's fitting and proper that we should do this. Because NRA members are, above all, Americans. That means that whatever our differences, we are respectful of one another and we stand united, especially in adversity.

And I remember personally, while seeing the movie, noting that the convention (Charlotte, NC) was around 1,500 miles, from Columbine, and wondering how far away does something have to be to not cancel a convention.

Google for Bowling for Columbine Truth and such like, there's lots of expose's about it.

Moore was simply going for emotional appeal, and lost his integrity doing it.

Do you have citations for this? I'm not trying to be snarky here; this is a genuine question. I watched Bowling for Columbine about half a life-time ago and didn't pick up on any of that; I would be interested to see if it is the case, but not so interested as to acquire and rewatch the entire movie looking for bad editing.

For the record, I snark at people who are snarky. Honest questions and differences of opinion that *don't* cast personal aspersions are warmly welcomed.

I apologize, I actually thought this was well known.

There are lots of dissections of the film on the net, but the clearest one I read at the time posted Charleton Heston's speech side-by-side with the video dialog. It's available here.

Specifically, Moore cuts and pastes quotes from two of Heston's speeches together, giving the impression that he said both of them in the speech immediately after Columbine. Heston has lavender shirt/tie in one speecn, and white shirt/red tie in another. Moore covers this with a cut scene of a billboard between the video clips, while the narration is seamless.

More specifically, the "cold dead hands" quote from Heston was not made at the speech after Columbine. By seamlessly editing that quote into the supposed speech, he paints Heston as heartless and uncaring.

And as a further note, and I'm doing this from memory of the movie, Moore asks a lot of the convention holders whether they should have cancelled the event out of respect for the Columbine shooters. He gives the distinct impression that the convention was held in callous disregard for the feelings of the affected Columbine families.

In point of fact, *this* is what Heston (NRA president) actually said in that speech:

I also want to applaud your courage in coming here today. Or course, you have a right to be here. As you know, we've cancelled the festivities, the fellowship we normally enjoy at our annual gatherings. This decision has perplexed a few and inconvenienced thousands. As your president, I apologize for that.

But it's fitting and proper that we should do this. Because NRA members are, above all, Americans. That means that whatever our differences, we are respectful of one another and we stand united, especially in adversity.

And I remember personally, while seeing the movie, noting that the convention (Charlotte, NC) was around 1,500 miles, from Columbine, and wondering how far away does something have to be to not cancel a convention.

Google for Bowling for Columbine Truth and such like, there's lots of expose's about it.

Moore was simply going for emotional appeal, and lost his integrity doing it.

You guys didn't seem to care so much when Michael Moore did the same thing. Bowling For Columbine

http://www.hardylaw.net/Truth_About_Bowling.html Ohhh yeah, REAL educational film you got there. And you're not a liberal, you're a progressive(who either is ignorant of the actual definition of liberal, or intentionally attempts to deceive). Get it right. If you were a liberal you might bother to research in depth about the issue, instead of taking the word of a fat socialist weasel.

Just out of curiosity, could you give me some pointers to those documents?

So you think the messages in both pieces are the same? Huh. Interesting.

Check out the entirety of the cuts, and see if your opinion changes.

If not, how about:

Fahrenheit shows Condoleezza Rice saying, "Oh, indeed there is a tie between Iraq and what happened on 9/11." The audience laughs derisively. Here is what Rice really said on the CBS Early Show, Nov. 28, 2003:

        Oh, indeed there is a tie between Iraq and what happened on 9/11. It's not that Saddam Hussein was somehow himself and his regime involved in 9/11, but, if you think about what caused 9/11, it is the rise of ideologies of hatred that lead people to drive airplanes into buildings in New York. This is a great terrorist, international terrorist network that is determined to defeat freedom. It has perverted Islam from a peaceful religion into one in which they call on it for violence. And they're all linked. And Iraq is a central front because, if and when, and we will, we change the nature of Iraq to a place that is peaceful and democratic and prosperous in the heart of the Middle East, you will begin to change the Middle East....


Obviously not a Heston quote, but more egregious.

Yes he is, you fool. Read the entire transcript. He omitted ENTIRE PARAGRAPHS to make the speech sound inflammatory. There was nothing mocking about it, and every part of the conference except the meeting WAS CANCELLED. The meeting itself was held because it had to be held pursuant to the NRA charter. He also showed footage of the NC event months later ("cold dead hands" while brandishing a rifle) BEFORE the Denver speech. I'll be modded down redundant, but since you somehow missed the five other posts pointing this out I'll take the risk.

As for the speech, here is a comparison someone transcribed from F911 and from Heston's actual speech.

I have to say that whoever put together the comparison obviously didn't like Moore (calling him a liar), but, in fact, the comparison actually helps Moore, in that it shows Moore didn't make anything up and properly edited the speech with the correct context.

When I watched the film, I do not remember believing the "cold dead hands" statement came from the Denver speech. It was a segue, just as Moore describes.

There are plenty of actual liars who are in the media all of the time. Moore is not one of them. These liars just want Moore to go away. Moore exposes people, communities, and companies for who they really are, and it can be really ugly and embarrassing. I've personally seen the consequences of the type of backlash this can trigger, especially when these people have more resources, time, and/or authority than you -- you've just put their jobs and reputations in danger, so what do they have to lose by smearing you?

So, the smears are expected, and the people who hate Moore's embarrassing probes and explorations will go on repeating and spreading the same discredited information. Not everyone has access to Google every single minute of every single day, which allows this strategy to work.

I'm anonymous on purpose, because this is a highly incendiary topic, and I just know that the Moore haters will later target my account on unrelated matters.. forever.

How about you follow the link mentioned earlier in the thread (included here in case looking that up is too much effort: http://www.hardylaw.net/Bowlingtranscript.html) that takes you to a side by side comparison of the original speech, and the "sound bites" that Moore chose to include in his documentary. Mr. Heston spoke during the speech that it seemed that some people believed he and other gun owners did not feel sympathy for the victims of Columbine, and how that wasn't true. He spoke of how NRA members are part of the community of Denver and of the state of Colorado, and that NRA members had come "To help shoulder the grief and share our sorrow and to offer our respectful, reassured voice to the national discourse that has erupted around this tragedy." None of that entered the Moore documentary. Moore's selections painted a more defiant and confrontational picture of that speech. He used parts of 3-4 sentences from Heston's speech, and some film from a speech that Heston gave a year later in North Carolina that had nothing to do with the Columbine massacre. That is what I mean by changing the tone of Heston's speech.

I mean, wouldn't Heston have sued the pants off of MM and his studio

As for the speech, here is a comparison someone transcribed from F911 and from Heston's actual speech.

Here is a link to Moore's website where he responds to attacks on his movie. The page is long and there is a lot there, so I'll copy the text where Moore responds to this specific charge. I'm going to leave it as is, without correcting the paragraph/formatting errors.

The oddest of all the smears thrown at "Bowling for Columbine" is this one: "The film depicts NRA president Charlton Heston giving a speech near Columbine; he actually gave it a year later and 900 miles away. The speech he did give is edited to make conciliatory statements sound like rudeness." Um, yeah, that's right! I made it up! Heston never went there! He never said those things! Or.... The Truth: Heston took his NRA show to Denver and did and said exactly what we recounted. From the end of my narration setting up Heston's speech in Denver, with my words, "a big pro-gun rally," every word out of Charlton Heston's mouth was uttered right there in Denver, just 10 days after the Columbine tragedy. But don't take my word - read the transcript of his whole speech. Heston devotes the entire speech to challenging the Denver mayor and mocking the mayor's pleas that the NRA "don't come here." Far from deliberately editing the film to make Heston look worse, I chose to leave most of this out and not make Heston look as evil as he actually was. Why are these gun nuts upset that their brave NRA leader's words are in my film? You'd think they would be proud of the things he said. Except, when intercut with the words of a grieving father (whose son died at Columbine and happened to be speaking in a protest that same weekend Heston was at the convention center), suddenly Charlton Heston doesn't look so good does he? Especially to the people of Denver (and, the following year, to the people of Flint) who were still in shock over the tragedies when Heston showed up. As for the clip preceding the Denver speech, when Heston proclaims "from my cold dead hands," this appears as Heston is being introduced in narration. It is Heston's most well-recognized NRA image - hoisting the rifle overhead as he makes his proclamation, as he has done at virtually every political appearance on behalf of the NRA (before and since Columbine). I have merely re-broadcast an image supplied to us by a Denver TV station, an image which the NRA has itself crafted for the media, or, as one article put it, "the mantra of dedicated gun owners" which they "wear on T-shirts, stamp it on the outside of envelopes, e-mail it on the Internet and sometimes shout it over the phone.". Are they now embarrassed by this sick, repulsive image and the words that accompany it?

At this point, there's nothing more to say, really. Judge for yourselves if Moore is being honest or dishonest.

Not the greatest source, but it jives with what I recall hearing, FWIW.

Of course, you could just google for yourself.

Before you place too much stock in the supposed evidence that was in Fahrenheit 9/11 you really should take the time to read Fifty-nine Deceits in Fahrenheit 9/11. A large part of that movie was a complete misrepresentation of fact, so much so that I wouldn't have faith in anything that Michael Moore puts out.

You should also read Truth about Bowling to see another case of how Michael Moore blatantly distorts the facts in his "documentaries".

I know everyone loves M. Moore and his message and I would be the first to root for him...if he was genuine. This guy seems to have no journalistic integrity, at least there is enough information out there to be very skeptic. He likes to manipulation just the same as the people is he critical of. Just for some balance: http://www.hardylaw.net/Truth_About_Bowling.html. (I am not affiliated with this site in any way, just a random google pick. There are plenty of other sources, just google for "michael moore fraud".)

What a copout. Anything could be a lie, even before the digital world. What something like the Internet has done is made it easier to check different sources. Just judging stuff by whatever makes you feel good is dishonest and lazy. You could spend one hour looking at the Truth about Bowling link I provided, the evidence he provides, the reactions by Moore himself and others, etc.
Just look at the transcript of Heston's speech. You'll find the same one on Moore's site.

It isn't that hard, except you'd have to accept the possibility that something you believed in was deliberate spinning of the truth. But human nature is to not to question our long-held beliefs.

Regarding greedy, nearly everybody is greedy, even the poor. I'm guessing you don't live in a shack and donate the majority of your money and time to charity. And neither would a poor person given the chance to rise out of poverty. It's just that everybody tends to look at those better off as greedy, but not themselves.

Moore told plenty of lies in Bowling.

Hardy's analysis of both BfC and F9/11 picked too many nits for it to be unbiased; however, he was thorough enough for most to conclude that Moore deliberately misled people with his 'documentaries.'

Yes, we've all seen that page. Moore doesn't address most of the major criticism of his films. See here and here.

I honestly don't care what someone's political beliefs are. If they believe a word of what Moore says, they're an idiot either way. Moore uses leftist politics for his own money-making agendas. I doubt he even believes everything he says--a lot of it is just too blatantly, verifiably false or exaggerated.

http://www.hardylaw.net/Truth_About_Bowling.html is a good start.

Two points:
-If this site doesn't count, then what does?
-If half the discrepancies are true, that is still significant. In my opinion, I feel assured that more than half of the claims are true.

That implies there is a lot of incredible evidence. Do you have any actual evidence (independent reports) to back this up or are you just repeating what other people tell you?

"[I]ncredible evidence"? You haven't exactly given me a charitable reading that presents my viewpoint in the best possible (or even the intended) light. If someone said to me that there's "some credible evidence" backing a particular conclusion, I would not take that to mean there's lots of incredible evidence and thus only a silly person would believe that conclusion. What I did intend to say was that, while my mind is open on exactly where the line should be drawn on this spectrum, I think the pro-gun lobby makes a better case for handguns than the anti-gun lobby makes against them.

In any case, it's controversial because it's one of those issues that's difficult to study--specifically, it's difficult to define controls in these studies that are acceptable to everyone. Plunging ahead, my thoughts on this issue are partially informed by simply comparing violent gun incidents (injuries and deaths due to the intentional violent use of firearms) in states that have conceal'n'carry (Texas, for example) to those that do not. I say "partially informed" because this statistic is specifically chosen to throw into sharp relief the benefit of conceal'n'carry laws, so it intentionally does not take into account injuries and deaths due to accidents or misuse, only those incidents involving a crime. The argument backing the pro-gun position says that criminals are less likely to attempt an aggravated crime of any kind if conceal'n'carry is allowed and there is a high enough percentage of citizens in the area that use it, and the facts seem to back this up.

I've heard several arguments from the anti-gun lobby that attempt to explain these numbers away, the most convincing of which (in my judgment) is the one having to do with population density. This argument contends that these statistics can only be extended to cover areas that have fairly low population densities; there's no reason to think that such laws would have a similar result in major metropolitan areas. I recognize that this argument does pose some serious questions to pro-gun people that would try to pass these laws in densely populated areas. However, this anti-gun argument has some problems of its own: (1) it seems to concede the point that conceal'n'carry laws are good for low population areas, yet this is rarely the position of the arguer in the face of such a concession, and (2) while we have no data that contradicts this anti-gun argument, neither do we have any that supports it; we've never actually tried conceal'n'carry in major metropolitan areas, so at its very best this argument is far from conclusive.

So the truly independent information I can find (state crime statistics) seems to support the pro-gun argument, at least applied to the proper populations. Even looking at biased information provided by sources intended to harm the pro-gun position, when that information is properly read, doesn't do much to contradict my conclusions. The statistics cited at the beginning of Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine, when placed in a fair context (i.e., not the misleading context supplied by the movie) support the notion that strictly anti-gun countries fare no better than the United States [see section 6 of source, and in particular these two links referred to therein: 1 2].

Also, we must keep in mind that while it's fun to argue numbers and debate the applicability and meaning of statistics, there may be a more fundamental issue of Constitutional rights at play in this discussion. In other words, even if the statistics bear out that prevalent gun ownership is more dangerous, it might simply be the cost of exe

That implies there is a lot of incredible evidence. Do you have any actual evidence (independent reports) to back this up or are you just repeating what other people tell you?

"[I]ncredible evidence"? You haven't exactly given me a charitable reading that presents my viewpoint in the best possible (or even the intended) light. If someone said to me that there's "some credible evidence" backing a particular conclusion, I would not take that to mean there's lots of incredible evidence and thus only a silly person would believe that conclusion. What I did intend to say was that, while my mind is open on exactly where the line should be drawn on this spectrum, I think the pro-gun lobby makes a better case for handguns than the anti-gun lobby makes against them.

In any case, it's controversial because it's one of those issues that's difficult to study--specifically, it's difficult to define controls in these studies that are acceptable to everyone. Plunging ahead, my thoughts on this issue are partially informed by simply comparing violent gun incidents (injuries and deaths due to the intentional violent use of firearms) in states that have conceal'n'carry (Texas, for example) to those that do not. I say "partially informed" because this statistic is specifically chosen to throw into sharp relief the benefit of conceal'n'carry laws, so it intentionally does not take into account injuries and deaths due to accidents or misuse, only those incidents involving a crime. The argument backing the pro-gun position says that criminals are less likely to attempt an aggravated crime of any kind if conceal'n'carry is allowed and there is a high enough percentage of citizens in the area that use it, and the facts seem to back this up.

I've heard several arguments from the anti-gun lobby that attempt to explain these numbers away, the most convincing of which (in my judgment) is the one having to do with population density. This argument contends that these statistics can only be extended to cover areas that have fairly low population densities; there's no reason to think that such laws would have a similar result in major metropolitan areas. I recognize that this argument does pose some serious questions to pro-gun people that would try to pass these laws in densely populated areas. However, this anti-gun argument has some problems of its own: (1) it seems to concede the point that conceal'n'carry laws are good for low population areas, yet this is rarely the position of the arguer in the face of such a concession, and (2) while we have no data that contradicts this anti-gun argument, neither do we have any that supports it; we've never actually tried conceal'n'carry in major metropolitan areas, so at its very best this argument is far from conclusive.

So the truly independent information I can find (state crime statistics) seems to support the pro-gun argument, at least applied to the proper populations. Even looking at biased information provided by sources intended to harm the pro-gun position, when that information is properly read, doesn't do much to contradict my conclusions. The statistics cited at the beginning of Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine, when placed in a fair context (i.e., not the misleading context supplied by the movie) support the notion that strictly anti-gun countries fare no better than the United States [see section 6 of source, and in particular these two links referred to therein: 1 2].

Also, we must keep in mind that while it's fun to argue numbers and debate the applicability and meaning of statistics, there may be a more fundamental issue of Constitutional rights at play in this discussion. In other words, even if the statistics bear out that prevalent gun ownership is more dangerous, it might simply be the cost of exe

That implies there is a lot of incredible evidence. Do you have any actual evidence (independent reports) to back this up or are you just repeating what other people tell you?

"[I]ncredible evidence"? You haven't exactly given me a charitable reading that presents my viewpoint in the best possible (or even the intended) light. If someone said to me that there's "some credible evidence" backing a particular conclusion, I would not take that to mean there's lots of incredible evidence and thus only a silly person would believe that conclusion. What I did intend to say was that, while my mind is open on exactly where the line should be drawn on this spectrum, I think the pro-gun lobby makes a better case for handguns than the anti-gun lobby makes against them.

In any case, it's controversial because it's one of those issues that's difficult to study--specifically, it's difficult to define controls in these studies that are acceptable to everyone. Plunging ahead, my thoughts on this issue are partially informed by simply comparing violent gun incidents (injuries and deaths due to the intentional violent use of firearms) in states that have conceal'n'carry (Texas, for example) to those that do not. I say "partially informed" because this statistic is specifically chosen to throw into sharp relief the benefit of conceal'n'carry laws, so it intentionally does not take into account injuries and deaths due to accidents or misuse, only those incidents involving a crime. The argument backing the pro-gun position says that criminals are less likely to attempt an aggravated crime of any kind if conceal'n'carry is allowed and there is a high enough percentage of citizens in the area that use it, and the facts seem to back this up.

I've heard several arguments from the anti-gun lobby that attempt to explain these numbers away, the most convincing of which (in my judgment) is the one having to do with population density. This argument contends that these statistics can only be extended to cover areas that have fairly low population densities; there's no reason to think that such laws would have a similar result in major metropolitan areas. I recognize that this argument does pose some serious questions to pro-gun people that would try to pass these laws in densely populated areas. However, this anti-gun argument has some problems of its own: (1) it seems to concede the point that conceal'n'carry laws are good for low population areas, yet this is rarely the position of the arguer in the face of such a concession, and (2) while we have no data that contradicts this anti-gun argument, neither do we have any that supports it; we've never actually tried conceal'n'carry in major metropolitan areas, so at its very best this argument is far from conclusive.

So the truly independent information I can find (state crime statistics) seems to support the pro-gun argument, at least applied to the proper populations. Even looking at biased information provided by sources intended to harm the pro-gun position, when that information is properly read, doesn't do much to contradict my conclusions. The statistics cited at the beginning of Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine, when placed in a fair context (i.e., not the misleading context supplied by the movie) support the notion that strictly anti-gun countries fare no better than the United States [see section 6 of source, and in particular these two links referred to therein: 1 2].

Also, we must keep in mind that while it's fun to argue numbers and debate the applicability and meaning of statistics, there may be a more fundamental issue of Constitutional rights at play in this discussion. In other words, even if the statistics bear out that prevalent gun ownership is more dangerous, it might simply be the cost of exe

Troll? I'm not bashing Moore. I'm saying "documentaries" should be unbiased. Moores films are biased. If you think they're not, please do some research on the subject before judging me a Troll. Here are some links for you, Google hs more: http://slate.msn.com/id/2102723/ http://www.hardylaw.net/Truth_About_Bowling.html

is that a joke ?

moore is wrong more than he's right, he makes shit up. period. he is a criminal. an enemy combatant. end of story.

inform yourself. take a look here:

http://www.davekopel.com/Terror/Fiftysix-Deceits-i n-Fahrenheit-911.htm

http://slate.msn.com/id/2102723/

http://www.hardylaw.net/Truth_About_Bowling.html

and finally, someone has stepped up and made a documentary exposing moore for what he is:

http://www.fahrenhype911.com/

later
rob

http://www.robwestcott.com/

Of course, if someone can refute Moore like they've done to Ken Brown, then I would have no problem with changing my opinion.

Really? Then go read Unfairenheit 9/11 and Truth About Bowling for Columbine. Of course, they won't change your opinion, because it's my understanding the Moore fans believe only what they want to believe.

Fahrenheit 9/11
Bowling for Columbine

Um, they are both documentaries, and Moore has stated this.

Um, I just told you Moore has stated he is making no claims that Fahrenheight 9/11 is rooted in impartial fact but is an op-ed piece. Hell, right now the Daily Show is running a rerun with Moore on it, and he says the same damn thing.

If you still think Bowling For Columbine is a documentary even after it's been proven he completely distorted facts, well, then clearly you're more concerned with believing what Moore tells you than what the facts are.

There is a difference between what O'Really and the radical right wing talkers do and what Moore does.

What does O'Reilly have to do with this? He makes it clear his show is an editorial commentary show. Not a documentary.

Both are propagandists. The Right pretends to be fair, Moore does not.

There is ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE, except that you agree with Moore and don't agree with the right. So suddenly, they're "pretending to be fair" and Moore isn't. Is that why Moore came out after Cannes and said his film was supported by facts and would go after anyone claiming otherwise with a suit of libel?

That's like MoveOn.org pretending to be fair. Surprise, surprise, people who believe in their opinions think they're being fair. You have chosen to adhere yourself to the left, and so you think they're fair.

The Right has constant access to the airwaves, Moore does not.

Give me a break. The journalism industry is dominated by liberals, and a recent poll even proved this. If a conservative filmmaker made a "documentary" that stretched the truth like Moore did, papers like the L.A. Times would be all over it. Hell, did you even know Moore gave back his documentary Oscar? Of course you didn't, because the liberal media didn't report on it. If a conservative filmmaker had done that, it would, again, be on the front pages as "SO-AND-SO GIVES BACK OSCAR."

Bush and company lies, constantly, incontravertibly. Moore does not.

Ah, and so your biased agenda emerges. You don't want to see truth, you just want to believe everything Moore says because, again, he tells you what you want to hear. I already gave you lies that Moore has told, including a link to an even bigger list on Bowling For Columbine as well as a Slate article that listed Fahrenheit 9/11's lies (Iraq never threatened a single American?).

After the 9/11 Commission determined that there was nothing wrong with the Saudi flights, suddenly Moore changed his tune, and the film was an "op-ed piece."

Moore is one man, and the radicals are legion. They are not equivalent.

You are biased. Believe what you want about Moore, even in the face of truth. I've offered you facts. All you've offered with your post can be summed up as, "Nuh-uh, the Right lies and Moore doesn't. So there!" You're sure convinced me.

...because Michael Moore himself said it wasn't. It's, according to his own words, an "op-ed piece on the last four years of the Bush administration." It's his political pamphlet.

Hell, one lie I can think off the top of my head immediately is his assertion that Saddam's Iraq never killed or threatened a single American. Things like that made my jaw drop in the theater, but of course, the Moore fans sitting around me were just spellbound and didn't question. I guess people ignore truths when it supports their viewpoint, ignoring the Western hostages during the Kuwait invasion, the decade of firing up at our fighters in the no-fly zone, Saddam's boasting of terrorist sponsorship.

For the record, Bowling For Columbine wasn't a documentary either, and Moore has even stopped pretending it was. He even gave back his Oscar, though none of the liberal media reported it so it seems nobody even knows he did (surprise).

If a conservative filmmaker made the same stretches of truth Moore did, most people here would be all over it, calling it "another case of the conservative scumbag liars" or other such vitriol. But because this place is generally left of center and Moore tells them what they want to hear, suddenly it's a truthful documentary. Nobody seems to care that the 9/11 Commission already released their conclusion about the Saudi flights--that nothing wrong happened. And Richard Clarke, painted as a moral hero in the film? He's the guy who personally authorized the flights to begin with! That fact is not mentioned.

If people want to hear about stretches of truth in Fahrenheit 9/11, check out this Slate article. I think the silliest thing I saw in the film, which actually made me laugh out loud (much to the chagrin of the liberals there) is when Iraq was protrayed as this peaceful Eden with kids flying kites and nothing but peace and quiet, then suddenly come rolling the US tanks. Pure propaganda, plain and simple, and for a website full of people who complain about, say, Microsoft propaganda, it's surprising so many people are quite okay with propaganda when it voices a viewpoint they themselves already agree with. Personally, I don't believe in propaganda in any form. But that's just me--a level-headed guy who doesn't drop down and suck the dick of anyone who makes a film that plays yes-man to me, left or right.

Michael Moore's career as a rabble-rousing populist has been marked by a frequent pattern of dissembling and factual inaccuracy. He distorted the chronology of his first movie, "Roger & Me"; repeatedly peddled the myth that the Bush administration gave $43 million to the Taliban; published two books, Stupid White Men and Dude, Where's My Country? , that were riddled with factual errors and distortions; and won an Academy Award for "Bowling for Columbine," a documentary based on a confused and often contradictory argument that features altered footage of a Bush-Quayle campaign ad, a misleading presentation of a speech by National Rifle Association president Charlton Heston, and other factual distortions.

With his new documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11," which won the prestigious Palme D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and was #1 at the US box office last week, Moore has surged to new prominence -- and come under increasing scrutiny. His staff has made much of elaborate fact-checking that was reportedly conducted on the film. And fortunately, it appears to be free of the silly and obvious errors that have plagued Moore's past work, such as the claim in Stupid White Men that the Pentagon planned to spend $250 billion on the Joint Strike Fighter in 2001, a sum that represented over 80 percent of the total defense budget request for the year.

However, "Fahrenheit 9/11" is filled with a series of deceptive half-truths and carefully phrased insinuations that Moore does not adequately back up. As Washington Monthly blogger Kevin Drum and others have noted, the irony is that these are the same tactics frequently used by the target of the film, George W. Bush. Moore and his chief antagonist have more in common than viewers might think.

The 2000 Florida recount

Reviewing the 2000 election during the opening of the film, Moore uses a quote from CNN legal commentator Jeffrey Toobin to make a deeply misleading suggestion about the results of the media recounts conducted in Florida:

Moore: And even if numerous independent investigations prove that Gore got the most votes --

Toobin: If there was a statewide recount, under every scenario, Gore won the election.

Moore: -- it won't matter just as long as all your daddy's friends on the Supreme Court vote the right way.

But the recount conducted by a consortium of media organizations found something quite different, as Newsday recently pointed out. If the statewide recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court had gone ahead, the consortium found that Bush would have won the election under two different scenarios: counting only "undervotes," or taking into account the reported intentions of some county electoral officials to include "overvotes" as well. During the CNN appearance from which Moore

It's only a documentary if it's factual. It is trivially shown that Moore manipulates facts, fabricates figures and rewrites history to communicate his opinion in his movies. That means that either Moore's films are fiction or he's lying . . . or he's just plain stupid.

It's okay to have an opinion. It's okay to share your opinion with other people. It's not okay to fabricate things and pretend they're the truth - that's called a lie.

Moore holds up Clark as a hero, and blames Bush for letting bin Laden's family out of the country.

Clark says he was the sole decision-maker.

Therefore, Moore is either misinformed, or a liar.

Given that he is already a proven liar, I'll lean towards the latter.

Hardylaw's famous Bowling For Columbine critique

This page is the stuff Michael Moore has yet to address.

I've love to see him justify splicing two Heston speeches an entire year apart so that they seem like one speech happening right after the Littleton shootings. His suit even changes midway through!

Or how about how he claims the factory was making weapons of mass destruction, when really it was producing rockets for TV satellites? It's almost silly enough to make you think he was doing it on purpose.

If a conservative did that sort of truth-twisting in his "documentary," the media would be all over it, and it wouldn't have won an Oscar. Just something to think about.

Funny, I would say the same thing about Moore. He can't even read a plaque and quote it right, do you think I would trust him to recall a conversation?

Quote, point #7

While we're at it: Bowling shows footage of a B-52 on display at the Air Force Academy, while Moore scornfully intones that the plaque under it "proudly proclaims that the plane killed Vietnamese people on Christmas Eve of 1972." The plaque actually reads that "Flying out of Utapao Royal Thai Naval Airfield in southeast Thailand, the crew of 'Diamond Lil' shot down a MIG northeast of Hanoi during 'Linebacker II' action on Christmas eve 1972." This is pretty mild compared to the rest of Bowling, but the viewer can't even trust Moore to honestly read a monument. (As Spinsanity notes, Moore goes even farther in his add-on DVD. There, he tells us, "And they've got a plaque on there proudly proclaiming that this bomber, this B-52, killed thousands upon thousands of Vietnamese -- innocent civilians.")

...everyone should know about Michael Moore's record for twisting facts.

Hardylaw's famous Bowling For Columbine critique.

Not to mention the fact that Moore started accusing Disney of "censoring" him days before Cannes, even though Disney told him LAST YEAR that they wouldn't be distributing the movie. Suddenly it became an issue right before Cannes...pretty convenient timing.

I agree that he is great at directing and editing an interesting picture. He even seems to make attempts at being independent (he voted for Nader in 2000). But even this time around he's not pretending it's a "documentary" anymore--just his opinion, a political pamphlet for Democrats that won't be changing anybody's minds. In other words, preaching to the choir. Hell, he thinks Kerry isn't left-wing ENOUGH. The guy is the Ann Coulter of the extreme left. For some reason, liberals have become completely radicalized since the 2000 election, and it's turning people off.

First of all, it's not made clear that he's showing Heston at a seperate, later speach, and it seems quite likely he expected the audience to be confused by the editing technique. However what's really dishonest and wrong it's the part right _after_ that where he splices together three sentences that were originally scattered about a 13 paragraph speach, in order to make Heston sound as bad as possible.

Ethically that is completly abhorent to me. I agree with Moore's politics in both Bowling For Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11, however that does not excuse lies and/or misrepresentations in order to convince people you're right. If you can't support it with the truth, don't support it at all.

Sure what Heston actually said isn't great, but it's a lot nicer and more reasonable than what Moore made him out to have said. And Moore's only defense was that Heston said every word that Moore used.

In the same vein Micheal Moore has said,
"One thing you get used to when you're a snowman is to fantasize about Bush." and "I've enjoyed knowingly making up lies and repeating them over and over in the hopes that people will believe them. Look, I accept the fact that I'm a "crapweasel," and a "fat fucking piece of shit""

After all, Moore said every word right here. However i wouldn't accept putting the words together in that way to be good journalism anymore than i support what Moore did to Heston's speach, which ironicly ends "Our words and our behavior will be scrutinized more than ever this morning. Those who are hostile toward us will lie in wait to seize on a soundbite out of context."

There isn't a single word in F911 that hasn't been thoroughly researched and verified by a team of fact checkers.

Given your claim, it's interesting to note that "Joanne Doroshow, an associate producer of the film, says the sequence is "somewhat confusing, admittedly."" when speaking of the sequence that _seems_ to say that members of the bin Laden famil were flown out of the US after 9/11 while civilian flights were still grounded. (It's from this article about the movie.)

That's not as bad as what he did to Heston's speach, but it still seems disreputable and detracts from the things he says that are actually true.

Oh, and here's the comparison of what Moore put in the film and what Heston actually said, and it even included a mid-sentence cut which i'd forgotten about, which makes the words i put in Moore's mouth even more appropriate.

Nothing in Moore's own defense contradicts the criticisms and the facts he avers to bely his arguments. Moore is intelligent and knows how to make an obfuscated argument with the partial truth. He implies that the bank has guns on the premises without directly stating it because that would be an outright lie (something he's not afraid of doing in any case). Moore is great at editing footage from various times and contexts to tell his 'truth'. You have to look at the components to see what he has done.

There was news coverage of this bank giving away guns, long before I even shot the scene there.

Yes, the bank was giving out guns but they didn't hand the actual guns out themselves. The bank gave certificates redeemable for a gun with an affiliated gun store where the guns were kept if you bought one of several types of CD's and passed a federal background check.

The Chicago Sun Times wrote about how the bank would "hand you a gun" with the purchase of a CD.

Funny, Ebert writes for the times.

Those are the precise words used by a bank employee in the film.

That's true but it's not the whole truth. That employee has since revealed that Moore asked him to say that.

The bank is a licensed federal arms dealer and thus can have guns on the premises and do the instant background checks (the ATF's Federal Firearms database--which includes all federally approved gun dealers--lists North Country Bank with Federal Firearms License #4-38-153-01-5C-39922).

You need a Federal Firearms License (FFL) to transfer ownership of the gun; you don't actually have the gun itself. Moore doesn't say that the bank has guns on its premises, only that it is legal for them to. As noted earlier, the bank didn't hand out actual guns.

Moore harangues an employee of the bank about it being dangerous and odd for a bank to give out guns in his earlier film Bowling for Columbine. On its face, a gun promotional by a bank is absurd but given all the facts and context it's not as absurd. (With all those militias in Michigan, it's not a bad promotional.) You have to go through a background check and deposit at least a thousand dollars to get a certificate for a gun. But even if they did hand you a gun, they don't give you any ammo; you've already ID'ed yourself by going through that background check; and given up a good chunk of money. Not even the stupidest bankrobber would rob a bank that way.

You can't say that Moore lies outright about the bank promotional in his film or those defenses. He makes use of partial truths to make a point but also lies outright when even partial truths don't support his position. He defends himself by saying that he's making a mockumentary but most people don't know that.

It's kind of interesting, IMHO... the hardylaw and "Wacko Attacko" links are brought out often, but it's not often I see anyone bring out Hardy's response to Moore, which is linked to on his original page. He does concede the point concerning the bank scene, but he brings up a list of valid criticisms that Moore didn't accurately answer or ducked entirely.

http://www.hardylaw.net/replytomoore.html

I'm against the war in Iraq too, but after he passed off Bowling for Columbine as a documentary, yet blatantly falsified a significant portion of the content, I have no interest in seeing Farenheit 9/11 and supporting this boob.

Frankly, I think you leftists would do your cause better justice to tout someone a bit more reputable than Michael Moore. He's the leftist equivilant of Rush Limbaugh. The fact that he's against Bush makes me question my own contempt for Bush.

http://www.hardylaw.net/Truth_About_Bowling.html

Here are all the things found wrong with Bowling. Some news sources have accused Fahrenheit of doing the same thing.

Worst front page slashdot post ever.
News for nerds?

Oh well.

Whatever your opinion of the Iraq war, Moore isn't the most reliable source of information:

http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20021119.html
http://www.hardylaw.net/Truth_About_Bowling.html
http://www.politicalusa.com/columnists/schlussel/s chlussel_014.htm


If anyone cares to read some REAL research and analysis from an anti-war perspective, why not try the Cato Institute? http://www.cato.org/current/iraq/index.html


Taking Michael Moore seriously is like getting all your news from Kurt Loder and that "Sway" guy on MTV.

The empire will crumble all because the neo-conservatives in our country are too stupid to know when the hell to shut up.

Funny, I was thinking the same thing about neo-liberals like Michael Moore who are well-known for distorting facts. Hell, the 9/11 Commission's own findings contradict Fahrenheit 9/11. Liberals are going to get Bush re-elected, because people don't respond to this propaganda garbage. Put liberal policy up for public vote, it would be voted down. That's why they have to resort to judges, lawyers, and lawsuits to push their views on everyone, as well as Hollywood and movies.

But, hey, truth doesn't matter when you're a sheep member of a political party. Politics are like battles of organized religions now. Kerry vs. Bush. I'm voting for Nader again out of spite.

You've put a huge light on this and many people want the truth and many want to put it in the closet, just walk away. [emphasis added]

documentary - Presenting facts objectively without editorializing or inserting fictional matter, as in a book or film.

I have not seen "Farenheit 9/11", but if it is anything like "Bowling for Columbine" and Moore's other films, it is all about editorializing and there is insertion of some fictional matter. For instance an ad that Moore portrays as being run by George Bush Sr. when facing Dukakis wasn't run by the campaign, is enterspliced with another ad, and has an inflammitory subtitle added. This is not presenting facts, but distorting the truth in the worst way.

I don't even know if he believes what he is expressing in his films, after all he is a multi-millionaire with a million dollar apartment in NYC, he is not "one of us".

It would be helpful if you'd point to some f a c t s to support your position. Others have tried... and failed miserably.

No, they did not. I especially like the sentence So your defense amounts to 'except for the segment that wasn't from Denver, my footage was from Denver.". The facts are that Moore heavily doctored Heston's speech (claiming he said in Denver something he did not say there), he manipulated his statistical data on homicide rates to the point of their complete irrelevance, he faked the history of the NRA completely etc. Sometimes Moore makes me ashamed of having, after all, similar views on Iraq or corpotate America. I would feel much more comfortable if Moore have used similar strategy to defend some ultraconservative agenda - ah, how nice would it to expose him then! Now it's just embarrasing for me.

It would be helpful if you'd point to some f a c t s to support your position. Others have tried... and failed miserably.

No, they did not. I especially like the sentence So your defense amounts to 'except for the segment that wasn't from Denver, my footage was from Denver.". The facts are that Moore heavily doctored Heston's speech (claiming he said in Denver something he did not say there), he manipulated his statistical data on homicide rates to the point of their complete irrelevance, he faked the history of the NRA completely etc. Sometimes Moore makes me ashamed of having, after all, similar views on Iraq or corpotate America. I would feel much more comfortable if Moore have used similar strategy to defend some ultraconservative agenda - ah, how nice would it to expose him then! Now it's just embarrasing for me.