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Not hard Googling up a refutation of the Taliban aid myth

... Michael Moore has shown on several occasions his willingness to blatantly distort information to prove his point. This is beyond mere interpretive bias.

Moore seems to thrive on controversy and the influence he's gained by being in the spotlight several times. However, his misrepresentation of truths has done a great disservice to himself by sullying his credibility. He does often have interesting views on social issues. Really, it's a damned shame. Also, I really dislike calling his films documentaries. Docudramas, or mockumentary is about as far as I'd go. And its not just drama or bias, again. (eg, in BfC, making it appear as if he got the gun directly at the bank immediately after opening an account. more examples from BfC here: http://www.spinsanity.org/post.html?2002_11_24_arc hive.html )

What is more important in documentary filmmaking as well as other documentary enterprises is the ability for the viewer/reader to be able to identify probable biases.

I propose instead:

It is important that the consumer of any information be able to skeptically approach and critically analyze said information, especially when its aim is to influence opinion and belief.

http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20021119.html - here you go. Educate yourself on the man.

Note: These are the same people who wrote this - no fans of the current president.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5335853/site/newsweek/

Michael Isikoff, co-writer of the MSNBC piece, also wrote this.

There're your specifics, sir. The man is not a true documentarian, and makes the whole practice look worse than Geraldo Rivera journalism.

Interesting, in that John Kerry was rated the most liberal member of the Senate

That claim derives from cherry-picked data.

brief commentary, longer commentary

What is said in the home is private, what is said on the internet is public.
Should web browser caches be illegal?
btw, the whitehouse.gove opts out of the archive cause they have been caught before trying to revise history. http://www.spinsanity.org/posts/2003_08_24_archive .html

Actually, Spinsanity's RSS feed is pretty good. They tend to bash both sides. :)

If only factcheck.org would make a feed...

Actually, Spinsanity's RSS feed is pretty good. They tend to bash both sides. :)

If only factcheck.org would make a feed...

The problem, some casual readers might think this is a professional news site and not realize its a news & gossip site from a man (Matt Drudge) with right wing view.

If you go over to Drudge.com You can read the Drudge Retort, a counter view from the left side.

I read many blog/news/gossip sites, but I like to know the views of the editors and owners. Would you blindly trust everything you read on the Internet? Most sites are not non-partisan, they lean and have viewpoints which cloud true reporting of the issues.

True non-partisan sites like Factcheck.org and Spinsanity.org have cleared up a some "Sound bites" from both sides. Why can't I get a news channel like this?

-
Partisan

Coulda fooled me. That seems to be all our esteemed candidates do.

And when you are done, why don't you guys try being honest with the public for once. After being bombarded with your flagrant lies to the American public, I am only encouraged to vote third party. Try being leaders instead of misleaders for a change. "I actually voted for the 87 Billion dollars before I voted against it." Yeah, and we all know the final approval for the bill in the Senate was a voice vote, that Kerry didn't even attend. Of the 6 senators that bothered to show up, Byrd was the only one to vote against it.

To be fair, this is one of the examples of Cheney saying A, but being quoted as saying B. Whether it was deliberate or just poor wording is an exercise for the reader, as is determining if various media outlets realize that the trailing ellipsis is important. A google search on the phrase is interesting for just how many sites leave out the ellipsis entirely.

Spinsanity
has more.

Spinsanity - Fahrenheit 9/11: The temperature at which Michael Moore's pants burn

Note: generally I avoid reading or recommending political sites, but Spinsanity seems to fairly hold *both* sides accountable for their 'spin,' analyzing rhetoric from both campaigns, pointing out inaccuracies in media reporting on politics, taking on books and documentaries, etc. Nice to see someone seeking to document truth so twisted and lost in the political battles... Anyway, a site to watch)

Flame-Retardent Disclaimer: I'm not saying what's true and I haven't seen the movie yet, nor do I plan to. Just providing this link as a resource for the discussion.

If you must know, the claims of the "swift boat veterans for pulling stuff out of their asses" claims have been challenged. And guess what? They're about as accurate as bush's grammar. Check out Spinsanity.org and read a little. You'll see the ties between the Republican party and the "Swift" veterans are more than coincidental. Legal aid, financial aid, you name it. As for their claims, most of them were in Vietnam at the same time, not on the same boat.

Anyway, it's all moot, as while Kerry was getting shot at, Bush was in the US doing cocaine, boasting of his drinking and pissing on cars and abusing police officers. Of course, I wait for your response outlining how those are actions befitting the future President of the USA.

Kerry actually went to Vietnam. Bush chickened out, and behaved like a complete ass. Now, Republicans are trying to diminish his achievements (and the achievements of every individual who's ever earned a purple heart - not very Military-Friendly, is it?). Even McCain said the tactic was ridiculously underhanded. It's funny, seeing as Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney et al haven't served a day in combat, yet they'll quickly pour all their collective efforts into trying to refute or somehow diminish Kerry's record. It's pathetic.

Here's an idea - why doesn't the Bush campaign focus on actual issues? The War on Terror? Oh, wait - it's fucked. America is more at danger now than on 9/10, has many fewer friends, and lots more enemies. How about the economy? Shit. That nice pre-Bush surplus turned into a massive, humongous defecit, which us and our kids (and most likely their kids) will be bailing out for years to come. Jobs? Nope. Millions upon millions of jobs have been lost under Bush.

This is what it boils down to - Bush has screwed up the US, and a good part of the world, and the only way he can get public support is to attack Kerry's war record, as it's an emotive subject and (even though completely devoid of politics) is something Bush can use to leverage support from military-friendly Americans. If you think that's how a political party should act, you really should read a book or two.

If you get modded down, it's more due to you spouting bullshit than having a controversial view ;)

I subscribe to both factcheck and spinsanity's email lists. Spinsanity puts out fewer emails but they are of slightly higher quality. But both are excellent.

I didn't offer any sources for what I was talking about, as google is rather good at stepping up to that challenge. Not only is it unselective with its sources, it's impartially available to everyone. I guess I should include more links, though.

I know about the three religions - I've studied them in school. If you look at them, they have more similarities than differences. The same god, the same ideals, the same messages. Sure, the corruption of men over the centuries has added different ceremonies, editied the holy scriptures, etc, but a Christian would agree with a Muslim about the basic way to live your life. They'd also both agree with the Jewish angle, too. They really aren't that different.

The left doesn't discriminate. I vehemently stand by that. I do support the Freepers, and would gladly protest to allow them the right to protest. I don't support their racist attack of my wife, or censorship of my sign (they put their US flags in front of it - made me chuckle, at least), but I do support their right to say it. Can you see my point? My mentioning the "Swift boat veterans for truth" was more of an indictment of the horrific engine the republicans use to assassinate (without evidence) those who oppose them. You can read on www.spinsanity.org about the whole deal.

Throughout all of this left vs. right debate, I truthfully try and stay as objective as I can.

You can have opinions of your own and still support everyone. It's just that some of those people who you support might not agree with the way they are being supported. After all, I didn't say they would represent the constituents as the constituents saw fit, but that they would honestly try and protect those constituents, and their best interests (income, taxation, food, security, everything). I understand it's a grey area, but I feel it's an absolutely massive one that no-one seems to want to talk about.

You write out those three points, and I agree with them totally. I've also seen each and every one of them demonstrated by left-leaning individuals, and yet to see them in right-leaning individuals.

I never once contradicted myself in my statement, sure, some of my words weren't as clear-cut as they should have been, but I certainly never meant to contradict myself. Probably too much cola.

I'm very tolerant of assholes. I understand some people were brought up with different values. I find it very easy to put myself in their shoes, and see the world from their perspective.

I'm just gonna shut up now.

Then, in a televised address to the nation in October 2002, Bush declared, "We know that Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network share a common enemy--the United States of America. We know that Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade. Some al Qaeda leaders who fled Afghanistan went to Iraq. These include one very senior al Qaeda leader who received medical treatment in Baghdad this year, and who has been associated with planning for chemical and biological attacks. We've learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases. And we know that after September the 11th, Saddam Hussein's regime gleefully celebrated the terrorist attacks on America."

Each of these statements was true, but Bush's words were carefully constructed to leave a false impression. Without ever stating that there was a direct connection between Iraq, al Qaeda, and September 11, the President artfully linked them together with a series of carefully chosen phrases. After the war, Bush told an interviewer from Polish television that "We found the weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq. But he was not reporting the discovery of drums of chemical weapons or artillery shells filled with anthrax. Rather, Bush was referring to a pair of trailers that some analysts thought might have been used to produce biological weapons. While experts debated the purpose of the trailers, the President of the United States was falsely claiming that WMD had been found.

So yes, he did technically tell the truth, but his use of language deceived the entire world. If he has/had nothing to hide, why choose those words?

Funny how its the left who continually bitch about being "censored," yet they're quite willing to squelch anyone else's speech who they consider apostate.

You misspelled a word. It should be spelled 'thugs', not 'left'. They come in all flavors: 'left', 'right', 'communist', 'fascist', 'patriots', 'democrats', 'republicans', 'greens', etc.

Please don't buy into the whole 'left - right' dichotomy, it just encourages a dangerous simplicity of attitude in politics. If politicos can continue to paint people with broad negative labels and condemn them with straw-man arguments and ad-hominem attacks then we will continue down this wide road of political madness we are on now.

The extensive use of modern marketing (eg creative lying) techniques has hi-jacked political discourse and turned it into the capitalist version of '1984'.

Whatever your beliefs, I suggest you visit spinsanity.com. Its your best innoculation against US political spin from ALL sides. In particular, check out their topics section.

Cheers,
I.V.

No one has discredited Moore's statements, or even argued coherently with them.

This turns out not to be the case. See here,here, here,here, and here.

Then, do a google search for "Michael Moore liar".

-jcr

Spansanity.org has a good writeup of some of the many problems with Fahrenheit 9/11.

Faced with this kind of intellectual dishonesty day in and day out from the right wing media it's disheartening to see these practices used by people on the left.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There is little else to say.

The parent was written by Rich Lowry, an op/ed writer for the National Review magazine. The original article, published 22 Sep 03. Lowry appears several times on Spinsanity.

To be fair, I should mention that the National Review is not on my list of trusted news sources. But then, so are a lot of sources. Meh.

will no doubt appear at spinsanity.org, where you will find criticisms of Moore's work, including BfC. Read the criticisms of Novak and other conservatives there also, and you will see they are truly unbiased.

Of course time shifting can also be used to highlight a point that is important that people would miss otherwise.

Take for example a recent CNBC interview where Dick Cheney was caught lying about something he said on Meet the Press earlier which was also a lie about the Al Qaeda Iraq meeting in Praque.

The Daily show caught him at it and showed the video side by side. It was a very effective and legitimate technique for shooting down all the Bush fanboys like Twirlip who insist the Bush administration never lies. The video was replayed on Larry King this weekend when he was interviewing John Daily.

The best right up I've seen on it is on spinsanity.

"During the CNBC interview, Cheney also dissembled in the following exchange about Mohammed Atta, an Al Qaeda member who was allegedly involved in the September 11 attacks (a witness claimed that Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in the spring of 2001, a heavily disputed assertion that the FBI and CIA have questioned):"

BORGER: Well, let's get to Mohamed Atta for a minute because you mentioned him as well. You have said in the past that it was, quote, "pretty well confirmed."

CHENEY: No, I never said that.

BORGER: OK.

CHENEY: I never said that.

BORGER: I think that is...

CHENEY: Absolutely not. What I said was the Czech intelligence service reported after 9/11 that Atta had been in Prague on April 9 of 2001, where he allegedly met with an Iraqi intelligence official. We have never been able to confirm that nor have we been able to knock it down, we just don't know.

But as a White House transcript demonstrates, Cheney said in a December 9, 2001 interview on "Meet the Press" that, "Well, what we now have that's developed since you and I last talked, Tim, of course, was that report that's been pretty well confirmed, that [Atta] did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack." (our emphasis)

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.

[Christopher] HITCHENS: 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 [Moore], as their representative American someone who actually embodies all of those qualities.

Jean-Luc Godard, the legendary French director who helped to launch the New Wave movement in the 1960s, had harsh words for Moore this week. Godard's latest film, Notre Musique, premiered on Monday, the same day as Fahrenheit 9/11. Later in the week, Godard lashed out at Moore at a press conference, calling him "halfway intelligent." Godard went on to say that the Flint, Mich.-born director lacks subtlety. "Moore doesn't distinguish between text and image," Godard argued. "He doesn't know what he's doing." "Post-war filmmakers gave us the documentary, Rob Reiner gave us the mockumentary and Moore initiated a third genre, the crockumentary."

In two places in Dude, Where's My Country?, Moore implicitly acknowledges mistakes in his earlier works. On several occasions over the past two years, Moore has asserted that (as he put it on "Politically Incorrect") "the Bush Administration gave $43 million in aid to the Taliban in part to -- give money to the poppy growers for the money they would lose because they can't grow heroin anymore." "Bowling for Columbine" continued the canard, asserting that the US gave $245 million in aid to the Taliban government of Afghanistan. Both of these are false; the aid, intended to help relive famine, was given to non-governmental organizations, not the Taliban. In his latest book, Moore finally gets it right, noting that the aid "was to be distributed by international organizations."

[...]

Just how did Moore get so many of his facts wrong? Lazy cribbing from media outlets and the Internet seems the most likely culprit, as evidenced by a four-page list of allegedly dubious policy accomplishments by President Bush, including cutting funds from libraries and appointing former business executives to regulatory posts. All but one of the 48 accusations appear in the same order and with very similar phrasing to a list that has been printed this winter (but before Moore's book came out) on liberal Web sites and, according to Dr. David A. Sprintzen (often wrongly cited, though not by Moore, as its author), was circulating via e-mail last summer. Belying a lack of original research, Moore even apes many of the negative characterizations of individuals, calling judicial appointee Terrence Boyle a "civil rights opponent," for example (the list refers to him as a "foe of civil rights"), with absolutely no context for why exactly Boyle deserves that moniker (one certainly has to wonder whether Moore himself knows). Curiously, Moore cites no source for this list. He only notes that readers "can keep track of what Bush did and does during his administration" by reading Molly Ivins' syndicated column and the Web sites smirkingchimp.com and bushwatch.com. The latter two did print the list, but not until this winter, well after Moore wrote his book, though before it was published.

But he's a hero on slashdot. No surprise there.

Corrected link. Sorry.

I guess I just find it amusing when someone will jump up to defend Moore and say "you shouldn't insult people, you should argue with facts," and yet Moore loves to call everyone under the sun "liars" and "greedy" and actually invents facts and splices together speeches for his own agendas.

You say attack him for his facts, well:

Here you go. Here's more.

There's a reason he gave back his award for Best Documentary...it wasn't a documentary.

That's why he's called a nutcase. He will distort facts, then justify it as "comedy." If some right-wing nut twisted facts to make Kerry look bad, then justified it by saying "there aren't falsehoods in comedy," lefties would be all over it in a heartbeat.

There's a reason Michael Moore's fanbase has dwindled so.

You say attack him for his facts, well:

Here you go. Here's more.

There's a reason he gave back his award for Best Documentary...it wasn't a documentary.

That's why he's called a nutcase. He will distort facts, then justify it as "comedy." If some right-wing nut twisted facts to make Kerry look bad, then justified it by saying "there aren't falsehoods in comedy," lefties would be all over it in a heartbeat.

There's a reason Michael Moore's fanbase has dwindled so.

That whole network is only opening on four stations...Franken has said his contract his for a year, then after that, in his own words--"Who knows?"

This is just a silly political year thing. Franken's already doing the self-righteous "we're here to battle the liars and cheats" thing, as though Republicans are the only lying scumsuckers ever to have graced the White House. Especially since the Democrats' latest brochure has an outright falsehood in it, claiming that students were kicked off of Pell Grants under Bush.

For unbiased criticism of both sides of the looney bin we call the two-party system, as well as explanation of the falshood described above, visit Spinsanity. This shit like "O'Franken Factor" is a partyline joke that will die quickly.

It is funny that the Republicans are using the fact that the Kerry family had a house in France as a campaign issue :). What's next, maybe to claim Kerry is a nazi since he has a German grandfather (who was Jewish)? I guess if you don't have anything to run on, smear the opponent with anything you can find.

Review 1

As I say, it's easy to explain why this book is bad. What is much, much harder to explain is why so many people think this book is good, or at least why so many people are buying it. After all, if you want to read a book about why the left was wrong and Sen. McCarthy was right, far better ones are out there. Making use of Soviet archives, John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr have teamed up to write several excellent books about the American Communist Party over the past several years. Even if you prefer to get your history from a female conservative columnist, Mona Charen published a far more thoughtful attack on the post-war left last fall. In Useful Idiots, Charen covered some of the same ground as Coulter, but she did it logically, chronologically and without failing to notice that there were some important differences between Robert Kennedy and, say, Abbie Hoffman.

For that matter, even if you want to read a conservative rant, there are better ones -- Tammy Bruce's The Death of Right and Wrong, for example. If Coulter's shtick is that she's a right-wing blonde, Bruce's shtick is that she's a right-wing lesbian. The formula is the same: quotes picked out from newspaper articles, research that consists largely of extensive Internet surfing. But because Bruce is writing about pop culture, and not accusing the entire post-war Democratic Party of high treason, the end result is somehow less irritating.

Another Review

In short, Ann Coulter has once again revealed herself as one of the most destructive forces in American politics, repeatedly making outrageously irrational arguments and demonstrably false claims. Treason is the culmination of a dismaying trend toward factually misleading and inflammatory books from pundits such as Michael Moore, Sean Hannity and Michael Savage (Salon Premium subscription or viewing of ad required for Savage column). These authors may delight partisans and make their publishers rich, but their work impoverishes our political discourse.

BTW, that's also a reason why I don't Stupid White Men or Dude, Where's my Country.

Ann Coulter is, however, a liar. And a mean one at that. She's got a definate political agenda, and she won't let the truth get in the way of that. Her tactic, when confronted with her lies, is generally to claim she was misunderstood, or to claim it's all a tactic by the "liberal media" to discredit her.

Spinsanity.org has several many good articles about these things, in case you want to make sure we're not slandering her or anything.

Ann Coulter is, however, a liar. And a mean one at that. She's got a definate political agenda, and she won't let the truth get in the way of that. Her tactic, when confronted with her lies, is generally to claim she was misunderstood, or to claim it's all a tactic by the "liberal media" to discredit her.

Spinsanity.org has several many good articles about these things, in case you want to make sure we're not slandering her or anything.

Ann Coulter is, however, a liar. And a mean one at that. She's got a definate political agenda, and she won't let the truth get in the way of that. Her tactic, when confronted with her lies, is generally to claim she was misunderstood, or to claim it's all a tactic by the "liberal media" to discredit her.

Spinsanity.org has several many good articles about these things, in case you want to make sure we're not slandering her or anything.

Read the Kay report. The sanctions worked. Iraq was no immediate danger. Hunting Osama would have made more sense.

But it's simply wrong. The problem isn't Clinton cutting the military in half (actually I have no idea what he did with the military) but what Rumsfeld did with the military. The US military proved to be more than adequate at defeating the Iraqi army the problem is that they lack the know how for occupying and administrating the country and Rumsfeld himself reduced the part of the US Army which specializes in that.

With the current army the only way to secure Iraq would be more soldiers but the reason that only 150000 were used wasn't something Clinton did but the all new shiny Rumsfeld doctrine.

I agree, in the sense that information overload is a bigger problem than "bad" or meaningless information on the Net.

However, the bigger problem is a lack of information litarcy. It never ceases to amaze me how many people do not know how to evaluate information sources. It is fine to use biased information, if one is aware that it is biased, and in what manner. I have come to the conclusion that there is very little information out there that is not biased in some way or another. Humans are fallible and spin is everywhere. A fairly good look at how both sides of US politics use spin, check out Spin Sanity. Ben Fritz, Bryan Keefer and Brendan Nyhan have impressed me with their willingness to expose many figures, despite party affiliation.

Personally, I try to balance the situation by seeking information from both sides of the issue. For example, both Free Republic (a conservative US site) and Alternet (a progressive site) are politicaly biased. Neither one should be used without verifying facts and occurances from other sources.

More notable is the failure of the US media to cover international stories that are vital to our understanding of world events. Personally, whenever we are treated to a deluge of one story on every channel, station and newpaper, I think.."what aren't you telling me." That is why I go to the net and read news sources from international sources.

A worse situation is evidenced by the number of people, of all ages, who are unable to discern when someone is trying to sell them something, or persuade them of some idea; rather than truly inform them. A prime example is how many people will locate sites that claim to be offering great hhealth information, but are also trying to sell eeither pharmacauticals or herbal remedies. While the information may be "correct" they are far more likely to only present information supporting the use of their products. Commercially supported sites can be great for gaining ideas and facts that one can then follow up by perusing other sites.

Colleges and Universities libraries in many US states are now offering information literacy classes. I know of several that have added this to required courses. However, this doesn't touch the large groups of credulous people who graduated years ago, who are not attending college and whose secondary schools do not include this skill in their curriculum.

Many people fall for scams, precisely because they do not realize that they ought to research this information-- much less do they know how to do such a thing! I think I reccomend Snopes at laest once a month in response to an email sent to me by friends and family!

Do not rely upon just one web search. No engine is able to scour the entire net, for a variety of reasons. There are information sources with primary sources of data on the Net. However, many of them are prohibitively expensive for an individual. This is where a local public and/or academic library can assist users.

Don't get me wrong, I've often gained additioanl ideas and insight from small weblogs and personal sites. These are especially good for comparing notes with others in similar situations. Sometimes I do not need authoritative data. For example if I want tips on refurbishing furniture Do it Yourself is a great source. On the other hand, if I was a carpentry apprentice, there are probably other sources better suited for a professional. Similarly, if I want to connect with others who are dealing with specific health problems, or simply want basic introductory information Web MD is good enough. However, if I'm making treatment decisions, I'd do better to go to a National or Internations association of folks dealing with the syndrome, as well as sites of doctors and researchers in

We're doing quite a poor job. All the 'humanitarian' things we've done also has an ulterior motive. I know it sounds cynical, but there looks like there's more evidence to support that than refute it.

We're not helping peace in Israel and Palestine, or else we'd be more like Europe and condemn the apartheid wall and Israeli airstrikes in civillian areas. Bush is too quiet, because he doesn't want to upset the Christian/Jewish/Zionist voters. He's not hard enough on Sharon

We're not helping in Afghanistan, and when we do we are doing it for our own interests and not theirs. Go read "Dude, where's my country?" and you'll see how Afghanistan is a mess of special interests, oil pipelines, and skeletons in Bush's closet.

We're not giving jobs to Iraqis. In fact, we fired everyone in the army, instantly putting thousands out of jobs, and making thousands of 6-person families unemployed. That made about 250,000 people (soldiers and their families they support) into enemies instantly.

Not only that, but instead of hiring Iraqis to rebuild the country like after the first Gulf War (Iraq has a very high percentage of Civil engineers), the US hired US companies, specifically Halliburton, to do the job. While it cost something like $50,000 to rebuild a bridge after the first Gulf War, using only Iraqi resources, it will supposedly cost millions for Halliburton to do it. Who's going to bleed in debt from this? Certainly not the US, the cost will be passed on to the Iraqis, who will go from a not-badly-off country to a poor one.

We're doing quite a poor job. All the 'humanitarian' things we've done also has an ulterior motive. I know it sounds cynical, but there looks like there's more evidence to support that than refute it.

We're not helping peace in Israel and Palestine, or else we'd be more like Europe and condemn the apartheid wall and Israeli airstrikes in civillian areas. Bush is too quiet, because he doesn't want to upset the Christian/Jewish/Zionist voters. He's not hard enough on Sharon

We're not helping in Afghanistan, and when we do we are doing it for our own interests and not theirs. Go read "Dude, where's my country?" and you'll see how Afghanistan is a mess of special interests, oil pipelines, and skeletons in Bush's closet.

We're not giving jobs to Iraqis. In fact, we fired everyone in the army, instantly putting thousands out of jobs, and making thousands of 6-person families unemployed. That made about 250,000 people (soldiers and their families they support) into enemies instantly.

Not only that, but instead of hiring Iraqis to rebuild the country like after the first Gulf War (Iraq has a very high percentage of Civil engineers), the US hired US companies, specifically Halliburton, to do the job. While it cost something like $50,000 to rebuild a bridge after the first Gulf War, using only Iraqi resources, it will supposedly cost millions for Halliburton to do it. Who's going to bleed in debt from this? Certainly not the US, the cost will be passed on to the Iraqis, who will go from a not-badly-off country to a poor one.

No, this is the truth about Moore's "truth" about Bowling for Columbine.

And this article shows what's really been going on with this whole "imminent threat" argument.