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FOXTtf'AN&LER
Bret Furtwancler | Graphics editor
NO
more
Moore
Recent months have brought big
names in politics to town: Democratic
presidential nominee John Kerry, for
mer Vermont governor Howard Dean
and vice presidential nominee John
Edwards. On Monday, Eugene will
play host to another political guest:
Michael Moore.
Moore — the lugubrious, self-indul
gent court jester of the American left
— will discuss his inflammatory doc
umentary “Fahrenheit 9/11,” and no
doubt fling intermittently deserved
barbs at the Bush administration’s in
termittently effective policies.
In light of Moore’s visit, I’d like to
offer an inoculation against his litany
of oversimplified innuendoes and
misleading non sequiturs, and, in the
interest of fairness, give credit in some
of those places where it’s due.
In “Fahrenheit,” Moore paints him
self as a plucky and patriotic muck
raker, a cinematographic sage illumi
nating the incestuous catacombs of
corporate self-interest and blundered
foreign policy and the blood rites
sacrificing hapless American soldiers
and Iraqi civilians for fossil fuel.
(These profanities are all, of course,
orchestrated by a cabal of Republican
policy-makers and defense contractor
executives.)
This story is, of course, largely
ridiculous: Moore’s absurd criticisms
begin as early as the film's opening
scene.
“Everything seemed to be going as
planned,” Moore explains, launching
into a montage of clips of networks
projecting Democratic nominee A1
Gore as the winner of Florida’s elec
toral votes in the 2000 election. But
then he screens a clip of the Fox News
Channel projecting now-President
Bush as the state’s winner.
“All of a sudden,” Moore explains,
“the other networks said, ‘Hey, if Fox
said it, it must be true.’”
The man at Fox’s “decision desk”
on election night, it turns out, was
John Ellis, a Bush first cousin. The
TRAVIS WILLSE
RIVALLESS WIT
sequence spirals into incoherence
from there, eventually implicating the
Supreme Court in a procedural coup
d’etat: “(Independent recounts don’t)
matter, as long as all of your daddy’s
friends on the Supreme Court vote the
right way.”
This sequence’s innuendo is largely
spurious: The media, even if (or
when) they behaved in the monolithic
follow-the-leader scheme that Moore
implies, had little say over the final
vote count. Ellis’ assignment to the
“decision desk” was thus unwise for
a channel that prides itself on “fair
ness and balance,” but also irrelevant
to the wider discussion. Worse, Moore
reduces the sober legal attention of
the land’s highest court to an unrealis
tic exercise in third-grade playground
politics. (Absent, too, is the thornier
notion that if court’s 5-4 ruling implies
that the more conservative justices let
their politics interfere with their judi
cial sense in Bush v. Gore, then it sug
gests the more liberal ones yielded to
the same temptation.)
Worse, this nonsense overshadows
Moore’s too-brief discussion of the
most legally and ethically dubious
problems with Florida’s election:
Katherine Harris’ double-duty as both
vote-count chief and Bush’s campaign
chair for the state, and the
overzealous purging of state voter
rolls that left probably thousands
disenfranchised.
Moore’s self-portrait fails in other
ways, too. The best muckrakers pres
ent the facts and help to resolve them
cogently. Moore does neither. And
such is his central failing in “Fahren
heit.” While Moore has honed his
prodding and instigating to near-per
fection, he lacks an ability to provide
coherent, logical conclusions.
One of Moore’s slick but problem
atic assessments is his take on Saudi
influence on American policy. While
Saudi Arabia enjoys evident fa
voritism from the United States (de
spite the former’s marginal-to-poor
human rights record), differences in
aims strain relations between the
countries. If Saudi interests were as
potent here as Moore suggests, Amer
ican policy in both Afghanistan and
Israel would be starkly different. At
the least, Saudi Arabia wouldn’t have
forced the United States to move its
regional military headquarters out of
the country.
These and countless other devices
of equal intellectual frivolity make
Moore less a respectable critic of na
tional policy gone awry and more a
partisan gadfly with a flair for
“gotchas” and parlor tricks. This ex
cess leaves “Fahrenheit 9/11” far from
the critical and emotional tour de
force Moore wanted it to be — and
from, to Moore’s credit, the one it
could have been.
Moore’s most remarkable failing in
“Fahrenheit,” though, is also the most
ironic. He tenders a half-true narra
tive: Bush is a leader certain in his
mission to protect his interests, but
suffers from a misplaced sense of pa
triotism and is shamefully willing to
deceive the American public when
convenient for his ideologically moti
vated agenda.
In succumbing to the excesses of
paranoia and style that dominate the
movie, Moore renders himself not as
a person certain in his mission to dis
credit Bush, but as a filmmaker that
suffers from a misplaced sense of pa
triotism and who is shamefully will
ing to deceive his audience when con
venient for his own ideologically
motivated agenda.
traviswUlse@dailyemerald.com
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■ Editorial
In Senator
McCain's
holy name
we trust
After the president’s dramatic May 1 land
ing on an aircraft carrier, the media was ob
sessed with “Bush’s Bulge.” Who could have
predicted that yet another suspicious presi
dential bunching of fabric would steal so
much spotlight once again last week? Fortu
nately, this time it is a bulge north of the
border.
Internet conspiracy theorists are saying that
a visible protrusion on Bush’s back during the
first presidential debate is evidence that he is
getting feed information through a wireless
earpiece.
The finest evidence against this theory is in
plain sight — the President’s atrocious per
formance during the first debate.
If Bush was cheating during any of the
presidential debates, it was last night’s. For
the duration of the 90-minute pissing contest
he performed much better, in style, but not in
content. His smirks seemed a bit more presi
dential as he and Kerry flung lie after lie, re
peating lies from other debates that had been
previously discredited and even lying about
their lies.
For those of you who missed the debates to
watch the Sox and Yanks “debate” on the
baseball field, we cannot blame you. For the
rest of you, here is a list of awards from the
last debate:
The Name Most Dropped Award goes to ...
John McCain by a nose, with All Mighty God
a close sepond. Ironically, McCain had the ad
vantage over The Omiscient One. Perhaps it
was because he was in the audience, but the
two candidates fell all over each other to men
tion McCain. Too bad we can’t vote for Mc
Cain instead of those other two ass kissers.
The I’m Here Too Award goes to ... Rudy
Guiliani, who was sitting right next to McCain
but was never mentioned by the candidates.
The Most Telling Phrases Award goes to ...
Bush with “freedom is on the march” and
“armies of compassion.” Bush can’t even
talk about positive things without using war
metaphors. I know he said he is a “war
president... (with) war on my mind,” but this
is ridiculous.
The Worst Anachronistic Muckraking Ques
tion Award goes to ... Bob Schieffer for asking
Kerry what he thought of Catholic bishops
who that say voting for him is a sin. By the
way Bob, 1960 called — they want their ques
tion back.
The Worst Answer Award goes to ... Kerry
for answering Schieffer’s bishop question
with “I respect their views.”
The Lowest Blow Award goes to ... Kerry by
a mile for bringing up Dick Cheney’s daugh
ter when asked if homosexuality is a choice.
Don’t bring the man’s daughter into this.
Above the belt John. Keep it clean.
The Misdirected Attack Award goes to ...
Bush for saying he is going to restore “fiscal
sanity” to Congress. Uh, could somebody tell
Bush he has been president for four years and
that the Congress is Republican controlled.
You can’t run as an outsider-incumbent.
The Worst Joke of the Night Award goes to
... Kerry for: “Being lectured by the president
on fiscal responsibility is a little bit like Tony
Soprano talking to me about law and order.”
The Talking For 90 Minutes But Saying
Nothing New Award goes to ... of course, a
tie. The Emerald would like to retract our orig
inal call for more debates. No more debates!
For the love of John McCain, no more
debates!