Unfairenheit 9/11- The lies of Michael Moore

[Columbia]

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

Unfairenheit 9/11
The lies of Michael Moore.
By Christopher Hitchens

Moore: Trying to have it three ways

One of the many problems with the American left, and indeed of the American left, has been its image and self-image as something rather too solemn, mirthless, herbivorous, dull, monochrome, righteous, and boring. How many times, in my old days at The Nation magazine, did I hear wistful and semienvious ruminations? Where was the radical Firing Line show? Who will be our Rush Limbaugh? I used privately to hope that the emphasis, if the comrades ever got around to it, would be on the first of those and not the second. But the meetings themselves were so mind-numbing and lugubrious that I thought the danger of success on either front was infinitely slight.

Nonetheless, it seems that an answer to this long-felt need is finally beginning to emerge. I exempt Al Franken's unintentionally funny Air America network, to which I gave a couple of interviews in its early days. There, one could hear the reassuring noise of collapsing scenery and tripped-over wires and be reminded once again that correct politics and smooth media presentation are not even distant cousins. With Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, however, an entirely new note has been struck. Here we glimpse a possible fusion between the turgid routines of MoveOn.org and the filmic standards, if not exactly the filmic skills, of Sergei Eisenstein or Leni Riefenstahl.

To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of "dissenting" bravery...

___________________

Anyone know who this Christopher Hitchens character is? This is what I got from google:

http://www.thenation.com/directory/bios/bio.mhtml?id=21

Christopher Hitchens, longtime contributor to The Nation, has written his wide-ranging, biweekly column for the magazine since 1982. With trademark savage wit, Hitchens flattens hypocrisy inside the Beltway and around the world, laying bare the "permanent government" of entrenched powers and interests.

Born in 1949 in Portsmouth, England, Hitchens received a degree in philosophy, politics and economics from Balliol College, Oxford, in 1970.

His books include Callaghan: The Road to Number Ten (Cassell, 1976); Hostage to History: Cyprus From the Ottomans to Kissinger (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1989); Imperial Spoils: The Case of the Parthenon Marbles (Hill and Wang, 1989); Blood, Class and Nostalgia: Anglo-American Ironies (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1990); and The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice (Verso, 1995); as well as two collections including many Nation essays: Prepared for the Worst (Hill and Wang, 1989) and For the Sake of Argument: Essays & Minority Reports (Verso, 1993). His most recent book is No One Left to Lie To: The Values of the Worst Family (Verso, 2000).

Hitchens has been Washington editor of Harper's and book critic for Newsday, and regularly contributes to such publications as Granta, The London Review of Books, Vogue, New Left Review, Dissent and the Times Literary Supplement.

____________________

Isn't The Nation a liberal magazine? What gives?

[Pepperbelly]

1. Hitchens is a P.O.S.

He is dishonest, disingenuous, alcholic, and probably a crossdresser.

:D

[Dastard Stepchild]

25. I'm with ya....

but for the crossdresser bit. I happen to know some very lovely crossdressers, and they sound nothing like Hitchens.

[newyawker99]

108. Hi sjbech!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[w13rd0]

2. Christopher Hitchens...

...had something snap inside his head around Sept 11th. He became the "liberal cheerleader" for an Iraq War. And he's a boorish, arrogant prick.

[starroute]

16. Hitchens turned on Clinton first, then went downhill from there

http://www.salon.com/books/feature/1999/06/07/hitchens/print.html

"Like the Republicans who drove the impeachment machine, Hitchens is motivated by his disgust for the man. Like them he trots out the ludicrous rationale that Clinton's relations with Monica Lewinsky are the public's business both because they took place in a public building, the White House (are the relations between the president and his wife subject to the same scrutiny?), and because Clinton's efforts to involve Vernon Jordan in obtaining a job for Lewinsky amounted to obstruction of justice (though the time line Clinton's lawyers demonstrated in the Senate hearings pretty thoroughly demolished that supposition). And like the right-wingers who were determined to get Clinton, he refers to the president's head inquisitor with the respectful appellation 'Judge Starr' -- a correct title, to be sure, but one that tells us a good deal about the person who uses it."

An interesting piece, and still worth a read.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

68. Agreed. He caught 'Dennis Miller syndrome.'

But he's smart enough to write that Kissenger is a war criminal.

9/11 brought out the thirst for a global lynching in Hitchens as it did in so many others.

I suspect that his contempt for Moore is an impatience with what might be the oversimplification of cultural issues to fit them on to the screen that some critics claimed marred 'Bowling for Columbine.'

I can't say one way or the other myself since I just rented 'Bowling' to catch up on Moore's latest work and I can't see F9/11 until next week.

But thank goodness for Moore on principle even if he isn't perfect.
Now I'm off to go 'Bowling'...

[AlCzervik]

yes christopher

go and crawl back into your bottle and finish yourself off ala leaving las vegas.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

3. Hitler Hitchens is a lying SOB!!!!!!

[walldude]

6. This guy is hardly Liberal

My favorite thing is "Where is our firing line show? Who is going to be our Rush Libmaugh.. Please if we did shows the way they did we'd be slammed for being mean-spirited, nasty, partisan, anti-american yadda, yadda, yadda. We do have a Rush Limbaugh on the left. Alex Jones. He has the attitude of Rush and about the same amount of facts...

[burythehatchet]

4. Hitchens was the guy you knew in college

who was just a little too cool, a little too sleazy, and a just a bit smarter than you. He was the guy who looked down on you but was always hanging around. You felt sorry for him then, you hate the little fucker now.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

You make him sound like James Spader in Pretty in Pink

[burythehatchet]

24. Very good Chavez

that's exactly the picture I had in mind. Well done.

:thumbsup:

[RBHam]

5. He's getting paid...

He has an expensive lifestyle, y'know.

[mhr]

7. This Sums It Up For Me

"It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of "dissenting" bravery..."


Abject political cowardice - C'mon, that is the biggest load of crap I've seen in a long time.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

44. How is Moore supposed to be cowardly? No way I'm reading his "review".

I mean, whether the movie is good or not, MM has nothing if not balls.

[mzmolly]

8. Hitchens is a Bushlover.

That's all I need to know.

[qwertyMike]

9. So what are the lies. .

Christoper Robin??

Film footage?

[buycitgo]

10. so, uh, where are the lies?

not going to wade through his bibulously spawned dreck to find said "lies"

you named the thread--as Ronald Reagan said, in one of his less memorable B movie appearances, "Hand it over!"

what are the lies, bra?

[Columbia]

15. That's the name of the article

Just following the rules "bra" - go read them yourself.

[Wonk]

20. The New York Times: Will Michael Moore's Facts Check Out?

(snip)

Mr. Moore is readying for a conservative counterattack, saying he has created a political-style "war room" to offer an instant response to any assault on the film's credibility. He has retained Chris Lehane, a Democratic Party strategist known as a master of the black art of "oppo," or opposition research, used to discredit detractors. He also hired outside fact-checkers, led by a former general counsel of The New Yorker and a veteran member of that magazine's legendary fact-checking team, to vet the film. And he is threatening to go one step further, saying he has consulted with lawyers who can bring defamation suits against anyone who maligns the film or damages his reputation.


"We want the word out," says Mr. Moore, who says he should have responded more quickly to allegations of inaccuracy in his Oscar-winning 2002 anti-gun documentary, "Bowling for Columbine." "Any attempts to libel me will be met by force," he said, not an ounce of humor in his familiar voice. "The most important thing we have is truth on our side. If they persist in telling lies, knowingly telling a lie with malice, then I'll take them to court."

(/snip)

This could get interesting :think:

[Columbia]

23. So is he going to take Hitchens to court?

A libel suit is pretty tough to prove/win isn't it?

[wtmusic]

36. That would be schweeeet...

Libel is fairly easy to prove; unfortunately there is nothing particularly libelous in the review.

Hitchens doesn't like the fact that his Oxford-educated worldview is being upstaged by a blue-collar fellow from Detroit. Someone needs to lock him in a closet.

[Pachamama]

75. Now that's a legal fund I'd be happy to donate to....n/t

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

101. That applies only to LBN. Here, you can title your thread at will. (nt)

[thebigidea]

11. Snitchy is probably feeling a bit cheated by now

Probably thought this whole "PNAC" thing would go a lot smoother.

[JHBowden]

12. After being WRONG on Iraq,

Hitchens has lost what little credibility he initially had with me.

Allying oneself with the conservatives doesn't mean one is a lefty that can see through it all. It only means you've allied yourself with the conservatives.

[davekriss]

13. Dontcha' know?

Christopher Hitchens was long ago "disappeared" and replaced by a CIA Operation Mockingbird sop...

;)

[AP]

14. Hitchens is and ass. My first problem witht he articles is that he says

that he "had an onstage debate with Michael Moore at the Telluride Film Festival. In the course of this exchange, he stated his view that Osama Bin Laden should be considered innocent until proven guilty." Then he says, Moore "has since apparently persuaded Moore that Osama Bin Laden is as guilty as hell" in order to suggest that Moore is inconsistent.

Hello? Emphasis is on PROVEN.

Moore -- and all Americans -- should be upset that Bush didn't seem to care about investigating anything or proving anything. Americans are right to expect that it's government cares about investigations, facts, and basing actions and foreign policy on them. And dropping bombs all over Afghanistan isn't the same thing as finding perpetrators and arresting them.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

45. Right, like the CIA being "fairly confident" that al-Z is the guy sawing

Nick Berg's head off in the movie. How so?

[riverwalker]

17. Christopher Hitchen

is one of those former "liberals" that jumped off the train after 9/11, like Dennis Miller, like Geraldo Rivera. They went running to the nearest Paternalistic Protector in their panic, and became daddy's good little boys to feel safe once again. Their beliefs and values are shallow and superficial, no matter whose side they are on at the moment.

[Nevernose]

18. Read the dispute in Slate's replies section -- ut's pretty good (n/t)

[minkyboodle]

59. A Link to a good refutation of the article in the slate Replies

Found this there Agumentus thanks for the heads up. Hope I can link to this successfully, let me know everyone if this doesn't work. Props to the poster calgodot for this reply
http://fray.slate.msn.com/?id=3936&m=11200541

[AP]

19. Chris, none of this explains what's wrong with the 7 minute leadership lag

"The president is also captured in a well-worn TV news clip, on a golf course, making a boilerplate response to a question on terrorism and then asking the reporters to watch his drive. Well, that's what you get if you catch the president on a golf course. If Eisenhower had done this, as he often did, it would have been presented as calm statesmanship. If Clinton had done it, as he often did, it would have shown his charm. More interesting is the moment where Bush is shown frozen on his chair at the infant school in Florida, looking stunned and useless for seven whole minutes after the news of the second plane on 9/11. Many are those who say that he should have leaped from his stool, adopted a Russell Crowe stance, and gone to work. I could even wish that myself. But if he had done any such thing then (as he did with his "Let's roll" and "dead or alive" remarks a month later), half the Michael Moore community would now be calling him a man who went to war on a hectic, crazed impulse. The other half would be saying what they already say—that he knew the attack was coming, was using it to cement himself in power, and couldn't wait to get on with his coup. This is the line taken by Gore Vidal and by a scandalous recent book that also revives the charge of FDR's collusion over Pearl Harbor. At least Moore's film should put the shameful purveyors of that last theory back in their paranoid box."

[AP]

21. "I never quite know whether Moore is as ignorant as he looks" -- you ass!

Hitchens looks like an alcoholic and a bumb half the time. He should be the last person making this comment.

[fujiyama]

61. Hitchens

really is a grade A asshole.

[Nlighten1]

22. Strawmen aplenty.

[ConsAreLiars]

26. You use Hitchens to express your viewpoint ??? !!!!

Surely you can't be as ill-informed as posing those questions suggests.

Surely you've heard his addled rephrasings of the latest Fundicon talking points more than once or twice during the past decade.

But even if your awareness of things political is as limited as you pretend, and even if your reading experience is limited to DU, surely any curiosity you may have had about him could have been satisfied by any number of threads here about him over the years.

Surely ....

[Columbia]

27. Sorry

I've never heard of the guy at all.

Neither here, nor there, or anywhere.

[ConsAreLiars]

38. Sorry, I assumed you were better informed

In the past you've pointed to your high post count at DU as evidence of your credibility and general knowledge (not that I take that as a valid argument) so I just assumed a comparably high level of reading - another fallacy on my part.

Do you have any opinion of Hitchens views now that you've read a bit of what he says?

(edit: typu)

[LoZoccolo]

42. Bah come on.

I actually searched for a thread about this article because I think it needs to be discussed too. If it's gonna be used as some big thing against the movie, we're gonna need to try to take it apart.

[ConsAreLiars]

50. What did Hitchens say about the documentary that you find important or

or hard to "take apart"? Or even worth repeating? Anything different than the usual noise?

He misrepresents everything, documents nothing. He has no credibility.

You might as well go to any bar around midnight and demand coherence from a belligerent drunk.

[LoZoccolo]

98. That doesn't matter at all.

What matters is if other people do.

(You forgot to end one of your sentences with "...so stop saying that!")

[Columbia]

56. What?

When have I ever used post count as a determination of anything whatsoever? In fact, I utterly despise people who even mention things like that as a measure of an opinion's worth. Take this as a public challenge to find one instance where I have done this, or apologize for it.

As for Hitchens, I really don't know what to think of him. He seems to be all over the place and hard to pin down as anything but someone with a lot of hatred and contempt in him.

[ConsAreLiars]

62. When you were defending dist of religious tracts by Nat'l Park bookstores

On this thread: "Park Service book says "Noah's flood" created the Grand Canyon" http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1172874

..."do you honestly believe that zwade and I have been here lying in wait and posting hundreds of messages and getting ready to spring into action when a thread magically appears about the Grand Canyon? You're just kidding right? I hope so anyway.."

There was no mention of post count before you brought it up.

(edit out stray ';')

[Columbia]

64. Oh please

And just how in the world is that any close to your accusation of: "In the past you've pointed to your high post count at DU as evidence of your credibility and general knowledge"???

That quote was in response to your absurd claim that I was part of some vast NPS Grand Canyon conspiracy and nothing to do with validation of opinion.

So how about that apology?

[ConsAreLiars]

67. Your apology obscurely phrased, but is accepted

But then you misrepresent my prior post by alleging that I made "absurd claim that {you were} part of some vast NPS Grand Canyon conspiracy" in that thread, and perhaps should apologize again. I said nothing about any "vast NPS Grand Canyon conspiracy." It is sort of silly to misrepresent the content of that thread in this one. The link is there for anyone actually interested.

As for your defense that bringing up your post count to bolster your creds doesn't count because it was it was because I challenged your view, well....

You asked for a citation. You got it.

[Columbia]

69. Grow up

Yes, I implore anyone to read that thread for further investigation.

As for you... good night.

[TreeHuggingLiberal]

104. Let's see...

the original poster has now misrepresented you about a prior post just as you have misrepresented him/her...I say call the pissing contest a draw.

edit: typo

[Sterling]

110. Ouch.

I agree though if someone has 1000 plus posts here they should know that turd Hitchens by now.

[Zinfandel]

28. Does this drunken prick, Hitchens, ever tell the truth?

There are many here who actually believe he's a liberal and fair...but I guess they don't want to believe the weasel, Hitchens is a lying slob, no different then say, Dick Morris!!

[peacebuzzard]

29. Hitchins reads more like a mediocre Weekly Standard

(and not even that!) critic/writer.

[Octafish]

30. Hitch wasn't always a turd of the BFEE...

... once he actually busted Poppy in the chops, writing about the 1963 FBI "Mr. George Bush of the CIA" memo.

He fell a long way from then. Today he's reduced to working as a shill for the extreme right.

Did you notice he doesn't argue with the film's basic premise?

The fact is: The Bush Organized Crime Empire is completely in bed with the petrodollars of the Middle East and the corruptions from Old Europe and New Europe and North America and the Mafia and the NAZIs and the klan and the Fundie nutjobs and the Military-Industrial-Intelligence-Media-Complex Drug-Running Money Laundering scum they are.

No. Instead Hitchens attacks Moore, personally. Truly a nice job.

The only reason I can see Christopher Hitchens falling so low as to take it is the Bushes probably have 8X10 glossies of Hitchens and a small quadraped. Or else the BFEE warned him and his family to stay out of small airplanes.

[MercutioATC]

31. "herbivorous"???

I thought that was a diet choice, not an insult...

It just goes to show how far these right-wingers will go to try to support their silly tirades.

[Zen]

32. The Hedgehog

Not Even a Hedgehog
The stupidity of Ronald Reagan.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, June 7, 2004, at 10:03 AM PT
...
"The fox, as has been pointed out by more than one philosopher, knows many small things, whereas the hedgehog knows one big thing. Ronald Reagan was neither a fox nor a hedgehog. He was as dumb as a stump. He could have had anyone in the world to dinner, any night of the week, but took most of his meals on a White House TV tray. He had no friends, only cronies. His children didn't like him all that much. He met his second wife—the one that you remember—because she needed to get off a Hollywood blacklist and he was the man to see. Year in and year out in Washington, I could not believe that such a man had even been a poor governor of California in a bad year, let alone that such a smart country would put up with such an obvious phony and loon."
...

http://slate.msn.com/id/2101842/

I don't see much in that article that is complimentary of Reagone.

Is this the guy who hates himself (gay Republican)??

[immoderate]

35. Hitchens was at one time a legitimate lefty,

a self professed socialist. He wrote for the Village Voice and was really left wing.

He really hates Reagan. He also hates Mother Theresa.

Sometime during Clinton he snapped and has been going downhill since. He is not really a right winger. But he's followed the terrorist hard line and supported Bush. It's hard to figure as he must know what an idiot Bush is. Drunk could explain it. I mean really, really drunk.

--IMM

[Lone_Wolf_Moderate]

33. Chris Hitchens

In a nutshell, Chris Hitchens is a leftist one some days, a conservative on others. Honestly, I don't know where he stands. I hates the Clintons, but he's no right-winger. I think he's a leftist who hates Clinton, but is pro Iraq war. I think.

[Zorra]

34. Here is the essence of the Hitchen's article:

"However, I think we can agree that the film is so flat-out phony that "fact-checking" is beside the point."

Seems like Hitchen's should reconsider not checking the facts before he writes. He doesn't really present any to support his rhetoric. His subtitle is "The Lies Of Michael Moore", yet he fails to specify what is a lie. Maybe because he knows if he points out anything specific, someone will debunk it.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

46. Why should we agree on that when he shirks any repsonsibility of listing

specifics or providing supporting facts?

[yankeedem]

78. Examples of Hitchens "fact checking"

"Then again, "You said there was an alliance between Bin Laden and Saddam, and now people think that Saddam was behind 9/11." Well, the administration hasn't said there was a 9/11 connection, but there are reams of verifiable contact between al-Qaida and Baghdad."
http://slate.msn.com/id/2091988/

[Stuckinthebush]

37. A lot of big words, but very little substance

I don't understand this man. He is a conundrum.

[Zen]

39. I just remembered Andrew Sullivan is the Republican...

who is gay and clearly has a self-hatred that is unexplainable.

[al bupp]

40. Hitchens Called Kissinger a War Criminal

In a series of excerpts published in Harpers and then released as a book before 9/11, Hitchens made a strong case that Kissinger ought to be judged a War Criminal for his involvement of the secret bombings of Loas and the invasion of East Timor during the Nixon admin. Of course not much was made of this in the major media at the time.

I used to religiously read his pieces in the Nation during the Eighties, when he reliably exoriated the Reagan admin for its misadventures in Central America.

I'm not at all sure what came over him w/ regards to the Iraq war. He seems to have been won over by Blair's rhetoric. I think he honstly believes what he says about it, not that I agree w/ him. I have to say that he makes an effective critic of the left. I think we write him off at our own risk, although it appears that Moore's prepared to defend against his and other's assaults on the films integrity.

[fujiyama]

63. I thought

Hitchens had some interesting points immediately following 9/11 regarding the left and Islamic terrorism and theocratic fascism.

However, once he started supporting the administration on the war, it was obvious he had completely gone over to the other side. He began sounding nuttier and nuttier. I think it's fair to completely write him off at this point.

Either way, I never really liked him. He was a complete ass hole regarding Clinton and was a Naderite during the '00 elections.

[RapidCreek]

74. Yea, well even a blind pig finds an acorn now and then.

Woopteedo! Shit, I said Kissinger was a war criminal before Hitchens ever did...and it didn't take me an Oxford diploma to make that rather elementary observation or six pages of mind numbing, literary masturbation to express it.

RC

[blindpig]

107. hey! I resemble that remark.

Apostate "lefties" like Hitchen, Miller & O'Rourke don't know nothin' about acorns. They are craven punks devoured by Fear and hoping that their spittle on their Master's shoes will save them.

[Carl Brennan]

100. "The Trial of Henry Kissinger" is

an excellent book. Hitchen's really kicks ass.

[Cat Atomic]

41. He doesn't point out any inaccuracies, just makes a vague smear.

If the past is any indication, that means the film points out some obvious truths that make influential people look bad.

[Swamp Rat]

43. No substance to the charge of "lies"

Hitchens said absolutely nothing about Moore but a whole lot about himself.

"WHERE"S THE BEEF?"

[ithinkmyliverhurts]

47. I'm sure I'll get flamed, as is my custom, but

all I see here are ad hominem attacks against Hitchens. Rather than pointing out that he's a slob (true) and a drunk (again, true), and a turncoat (alas, true again), I'd hope that the experts on all things 9/11 could refute at least the basic premise of the drunk's rantings.

I don't want to defend Hitchens, not at all. And maybe no one here desires to refute his claims point by point (I'm not equipped to do so in a forthright manner, and it would take me quite awhile to prepare to do so) because we all "know better" (MIHOP, LIHOP).

But, if I were an objective reader of these (and I'm not; I want to give DU the benefit of the doubt), I'd say that there's been no response thus far to Hitchens' poppycock.

I imagine this paragraph can be easily dissected:
"Thus, in spite of the film's loaded bias against the work of the mind, you can grasp even while watching it that Michael Moore has just said, in so many words, the one thing that no reflective or informed person can possibly believe: that Saddam Hussein was no problem. No problem at all. Now look again at the facts I have cited above. If these things had been allowed to happen under any other administration, you can be sure that Moore and others would now glibly be accusing the president of ignoring, or of having ignored, some fairly unmistakable 'warnings.'"
***My objection: Hitchens offers no sense, at all, of historical context. He offers no context to the SUCCESS of inspections. None. The best argument one could put forward against our containment policy of Iraq is that we were successful even beyond our wildest imagination. But all of this has little to do with the centrality of his claims. I'm not the sharpest marble in the box (see, I can't even get my metaphors correct), so I chose the easiest example to refute, in the most cursory way.

Some of his stuff is easy to refute, and his rhetoric is hyperbolic at best (the comparison to Riefensthal is laughable). I think a good task for those at DU, who are so inclined, is to parse this review (the most powerful critique offered thus far, in my opinion) and to expose its fallacies.

[SpiralHawk]

51. Saddam was a problem

but mainly to his own people, not to America exclusively, and certainly not for 9/11. There is no proven connection. And there are no WMDs.

Saddam as a problem should have been dealt with on a international, cooperative level, not by wasting the lives of 837 (and counting) US men and women, the maiming of many thousands of US soldiers (not to mention the thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens killed and maimed), and the trashing of the US Treasury to fund this lunacy predicated on lies.

I think this is what Moore is trying to get across, and what Hitchens is -- intentionally -- missing.

I have tickets for a 6:30 showing of F9/11 on Friday. I think we will all debate its points and it truthfulness more effectively after we have all seen it.

[thebigidea]

58. well don't assign us homework, do it yourself

doublespaced, if you can.

[FredScuttle]

66. Extra credit

if you can name the family of slug Hitchens most closely resembles.

[Cat Atomic]

70. There's nothing to refute.

The paragraph you posted is a strawman argument. Moore never said Hussein was "no problem"- Hitchens did. Then he pontificates about how wrong that statement is.

His article is nothing but strawman arguments and ad hominem attacks. There's no meat in it.

[K8-EEE]

72. I Agree!! It's The Old "You're All Saddam Lovers" Bullshit...

When in actuality it was BUSH I and his crew (now with Bush II) who actually supported Saddam and his atrocities, not us!

[MadChatter]

48. Hitchens-

Who gave him a dictionary? He reminds me of a woman at a board I used to post on. She used $1.00 words because she thought they made her look smart. Instead they made her look like a pretentious ass.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

49. HE'S A DRUNKEN BRIT

[Rex]

52. Hitchens...never heard of em.

He sounds like a nobody who speaks of the Left and loathes/yearns to be a part of it.

[DrWeird]

53. While I don't know anything about Hitchens or The Nation...

that's the worst punny title I think I've ever read.

[wtmusic]

54. This is laughable

"Moore asserts that Iraq under Saddam had never attacked or killed or even threatened (his words) any American...Saddam boasted publicly of his financial sponsorship of suicide bombers in Israel. (Quite a few Americans of all denominations walk the streets of Jerusalem.)"

I guess there is a Russian or two in Jerusalem too, so Saddam threatened Russians! Get him, Putin!

[Norquist Nemesis]

55. As soon as I saw Hitchens is the author

I knew it wasn't worth the paper (or bandwith). Hitchens is a neocon snob.

[wtmusic]

57. Too many bloated adjectives to achieve any degree of credibility

but Moore seems to certainly have gotten his goat. There is entertainment value in that.

[TrustingDog]

60. Itchin' for Hitchen...

you think Lahane - Mikey's spin doc defensive extradinaire, has some good meat to go after with this guy?
The MikeCamp have vowed to defend against loose accusations such as this.
I don't think Moore likes being called a liar.....


hahahah. poor chris hitch. You stuck your own foot in it, didn't ya?

[K8-EEE]

71. God His Shitty Writing Is Unreadable!

Did anybody get through this "review?" What exactly ARE the lies, does he say specifically or is it all just bluster and name-calling?

[Media_Lies_Daily]

65. Ah, yes...that paragon of truthfulness, Christopher Hitchens.

[RapidCreek]

73. Chris is an effete, elitist ,quasi intellectual who has confused

verbosity for sharply honed wit. If you care to spend the time reverse engineering his Thesauratic blather into something resembling modern English, you shall discover he is nothing more than Rush Limbaugh wrapped in and Oxford Diploma. That is...Dishonest, Dumb and Wrong almost all of the time.

RC

[Pachamama]

76. Hitchens reminds me of David Horowitz....

...who was once a radical liberal at Berkeley and raising money for the Black Panthers...now he is another neocon piece of Sh*t who bashes the Left, but uses his "past" as a credential for why he must be "right".....

The BFEE and Bush Mafia must have pix of him, just like they probably do of Horowitz from his communist days....

[REP]

77. Hitchens Hasn't Been With The Nation for Two Years

He had a big public fight with a bunch of people and slunk off in a huff. Strange that he still has The Nation on his bio.

[thebobartist]

79. About Farenheit 9-11

I want to see it. OMFGWTFLOLD <3 MICHAEL MORE HE AR A GENUS!!!1!

Actually, I want to see it because I hate him that much. I like to watch things I hate, kind of like I want to go see that "White Chicks" movie when it comes out, both because I hate the concept and I hate the kind of girl they are parodying.

Except that in this case, I hate Michael Moore more than I could possibly hate either of those things, even when combined into their final supermecha form, the BLAXPLOITRON 4000.

Michael Moore is a telling sign of how pseudointellectualism and sheer, unmasked stupidity have mingled over the American masses like some kind of noxious vapor. It's almost like Pseudointellectualism and Sheer, Unmasked Stupidity got together and engaged in a disgusting, alien mating ritual to create the pop-culture beast that is Michael Moore.

Basically, he's popular because he makes stupid, vapid people who are easily swayed by "BREAKING NEWS REPORTS!" feel smarter, by making "BREAKING NEWS REPORTS!" about how evil and misleading "BREAKING NEWS REPORTS!" are. He also succeeds because the people he's marketing to don't exactly catch on to unintentional ironies very well.

Gotta give him props though, he's a better Republican than any I've ever seen. I've never seen someone do as good of a job of getting rich off of stupid people as he has.

[theoceansnerves]

80. what

the fuck?

[OKNancy]

81. Go to her profile

then go to the website...explains a lot.

[thebobartist]

82. CONFUSION MAGIC!

You mean... deviantart?

[OKNancy]

85. Sure

Wouldn't you say it offered insight? "Iconoclast" comes to mind.
Silly question: How did you get a star so fast? You joined today
( the day is only six hours old) and you already got your star.

[thebobartist]

88. Star? I donated 10 bucks.

I'm proud to be an iconoclast, then.

Well, not really. It's just something that I end up doing a lot. Michael Moore is just a man with ideas and goals, like any other. I disapprove very strongly of his feverish worship as a god-figure on this forum. Very few people seem to actually think about anything of Michael Moore's on this site; they just automatically go "YAY MICHAEL MOORE GOOD YAY YAY YAY" instead, which is not politically or intellectually stimulating.

I just want people to think a little more.

[thebobartist]

83. I'm sorry, my opinion is different than yours. ONOES!!1!!

What, is it shocking that someone dislikes Michael Moore?

[theoceansnerves]

84. nah

i couldn't give a shit what you think about moore. i was just surprised to see the ironic use of 12 year old internet-speak on DU. i thought that was left behind on livejournal and SA.

[thebobartist]

89. ::shrug::

That's nice.

[Sparkly]

87. Enlighten us

I haven't seen the film. How is he "misleading" the "stupid people," exactly?

[thebobartist]

90. Oops

The heading was unclear. I'm actually just predicting the situation of the movie, but the majority of the post was actually about my feelings on his previous movie, Bowling for Columbine, my reasons for disliking it are already detailed in the post.

Obviously I haven't seen it either, because it isn't out yet. I'm basing my opinion on it on his previous work. For instance, in Stupid White Men, he calls AIM a monopoly.

Not AOL.

AIM.

...

EDIT: Also, the beginning of the post says "I want to see it", which implies that I haven't seen it yet.

[charlie]

91. That's it?

You consider that an egregious lapse? Do you go off on people who refer to the Windows Monopoly?

Secretary of State—Colin Powell

When not fighting wars, Powell sat on the boards of Gulfstream Aerospace and AOL. Gulfstream makes jets for both Hollywood honchos and foreign governments like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. During his time at AOL the company merged with Time Warner, and Powell’s stock rose in value by $4 million. At the time, Colin’s son, Michael Powell, had been the only Federal Communications Commission (FCC) member who advocated that the AOL/Time Warner merger go through without question. Powell’s son has since been named chairman of the FCC by George W. Bush; part of his job is to oversee the activities of AOL/Time Warner. He will also oversee any regulation of A0L’s monopolistic "instant messaging" technology.

-- Stupid White Men

Wired News -- AOL's Instant Messaging Monopoly?

[wtmusic]

109. Oh sorry, I thought your post was going to be "About Farenheit (sic) 9-11"

Putting aside the observation that the first sign of pseudointellectualism is bad spelling, as you imply in the first line of your post (now THAT'S unintentional irony!), I was disappointed to see the body of the post had nothing about the movie. Just boring, unfounded insults that I really hope made you feel better about yourself.

Thanking you in advance for going to see the film, and making Michael a little richer! :toast:

[Sparkly]

86. What lies?

I couldn't read the entire "review," but did he ever get to the part where he said what the "lies" were?

[doni_georgia]

92. My problem with Hitchens - objective points - you asked you got em

Hitchens was a regular columnist for the Nation, but he gave up his column when he switched sides. This switch of sides is documented in his final Nation column - "Taking Sides," where he tells why he is supporting Bush.

Hitchens began his move to the right during the Clinton impeachment where he sided against Clinton. He even contributed to the effort against Clinton by trying to find evidence to pin perjury charges against Clinton.

During the 2000 election, Hitchens criticized the Democrats for daring to complain about the stealing of the election. Evidently Democrats who were concerned about the outcome should have just sat quietly and done nothing. By 9/11 he was solidly supporting Bush.

For a good summary of what's wrong with Hitchens, read this review in the Scotsman -
http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/thereview.cfm?id=734252003

[Bridget Burke]

93. Hitchens certainly has a large vocabulary....

But he doesn't make his points with any skill. Yes, I read the whole thing.

Afghanistan is going swimmingly, we were right to invade Iraq & let's hear it for those great American heroes who said "Let's Roll". He also lectures Moore on how a documentary should present both sides, using "his" documentary as the example. IMDB.COM shows Hitchens' part in "The Trial of Henry Kissinger" as "appearing as himself"--not Writer, Director, or anything more substantive.

Hitchens seems to believe that Moore is inconsistent & contradictory. At least, I think he does. He used to be able to compose effective prose, but this essay is almost incoherent.

[robbedvoter]

94. Real name: Snitchens. Actively helped the VRWC by making up

his own lies against personal friend Sidney Blumenthal - tried to get him on perjury. Failed and started to hate everyone to the left of Gingis Han.

This last bunch of slop makes me - strangely- think of Lieberman. Joe once railed against Dem candidates who give this war a bad name
You see, Chris is not attacking Moore (he has no cogent argument). He is just defending his beloved war. It's "good name" as it were.

[Kimber Scott]

95. Sounds like he's turned into a Neo-Con.

nt

[noonwitch]

96. Hitchens-the only person who held a grudge against Mother Theresa

I never understood why he hated her so much.

[Trajan]

97. Hitchen's is a self aggrandizing fool ....

This hit piece is full of ad hominem and various other fallacies; from strawman to non sequitur .... The left is 'monochrome' ? ... chuckles .... yeah: right ....

Something is 'excremental' here all right: Hitchen's vile and self righteous bashing is his trademark 'excrementalism' ...

[Carl Brennan]

99. Hitchens backed the Iraq "war", and now

he must defend his support of this disaster, even obliquely, as he does here.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

102. REPLIES.

http://fray.slate.msn.com/?id=3936&m=11200541

[SideshowScott]

105. OMG thats a fantastic reply!

Lets see if snitch reads or replys to it..I doubt it hes just another Bush flunkie who got his marching orders to attack Moore no matter if its truthful or not.

[Selwynn]

103. Someone should tell him that's very bad writing.

It's ok to be sophisticated and use complicated language when it's warranted. But there is a difference between sophistication and really bad writing dressed up in verbiage.

I'm curious - does he ever get to a point and deal specifically with lies, inconsistencies or distorted information in the Moore film? Does he ever point to direct evidence to support his claim? Or does he just continue to try to sound like the stylized contemporary writer that he will never be?

[kaitykaity]

106. Turgid, self-important hogwash.

citing the Clarke statement about the flights
out being on him alone? please.

then he minimizes the seven minute scared-deer
act?

:puke: