Scathingly bad F911 "review" from MSN via Slate

[eeyore]

Anyone know who this guy is? This is total insanity. The guy sounds like he is itching to kick Mike's ass - really lengthy and over the top diatribe.

I found this on the MSN site right next to the video of Mike's interview with Katie Couric - it's from State. I think someone feels a little threatened. I fear for Mike with psychos like this frothing up the Timothy McVeighs of today.

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

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

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.

--snip--

Perhaps vaguely aware that his movie so completely lacks gravitas, Moore concludes with a sonorous reading of some words from George Orwell. The words are taken from 1984 and consist of a third-person analysis of a hypothetical, endless, and contrived war between three superpowers. The clear intention, as clumsily excerpted like this (...) is to suggest that there is no moral distinction between the United States, the Taliban, and the Baath Party and that the war against jihad is about nothing. If Moore had studied a bit more, or at all, he could have read Orwell really saying, and in his own voice, the following:

The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to taking life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists, whose real though unacknowledged motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration for totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writing of the younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States …

And that's just from Orwell's Notes on Nationalism in May 1945. A short word of advice: In general, it's highly unwise to quote Orwell if you are already way out of your depth on the question of moral equivalence. It's also incautious to remind people of Orwell if you are engaged in a sophomoric celluloid rewriting of recent history.

--snip--

[Zen]

This was discussed last night

This guy is just someone who has a tendency to get drunk and go off on people. He hates almost everybody - including himself.

[Trajan]

1. Hitchens is a rabid pseudo-intellectual hitman for the Right ....

His drunken diatribes dont pass for legitimate complaint ...

[SoFlaJet]

2. Snitchens

as we call him is a RW Bushite-no big surprise that he would give a scathing review of Moore's film.You should hear the stuff he's said about Clinton(both)Gore and pretty much any other"liberal"

[TryingToWarnYou]

5. Well the truth should be brought up

if there is any way to reply to the review, it should be mentioned that even Fox News gave their approval of it being factually correct.

Sounds to me like another conservative is lying his ass off. Im sick of them trying to get away with that crap. They need to be called on it.

[gauguin57]

14. actually ...

Hitchens used to be quite left-wing ... he used to be the unkempt liberal hippie in stark contrast to his nattily dressed, uber-conservative UK columnist brother, Peter Hitchens.

But I think Clinton and 9/11 did something bad to his brain. Now you never know WHAT's going to come out of the guy's mouth. He absolutely believes us going to Iraq was necessary. Oy.

Unfortunately, he has a big pulpit ... he writes articles for a lot of different publications, he's on C-Span and cable TV all the time, he cranks out the books ... he can be extremely funny, but I think he's lost his mind. He's looking more and more and MORE like an unmade bed.

[in_cog_ni_to]

3. Christopher Hitchens is a RWer

who shills for the WH. Ignore him. He hates Democrats. He's also a drunk and beats women. :grr:

[LittleApple81]

4. He used to be socialist (which he says he still is). His ramblings

go all over the place, but he has been an Iraq war/repug adm. apologist. He is a drunkard who has appeared several times on C-Span and other venues. Used to write really good "liberal" pieces, worked for the Nation, now I think he is just freelancing, drinking, smoking, shooting his mouth, trying to enunciate words when interviewed.

His statements in this article have already been debunked. He could have gone to Michael Moore's site to find rebuttals to his article.

[theboss]

6. Hitchens is a socialist

He has gone so far to the Left on some issues he's ended up on the Right Side. His ideology has become nearly impossible to identify at this point.

[ewagner]

7. I was dismayed about the review

until I saw that Hitchens wrote it.

My questions was: What the hell is he doing on Slate?

[tandot]

8. even Fox news had a very positive review of Fahrenheit 9/11

www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,122680,00.html

calling it brilliant and something every patriotic American should see.

[Scairp]

9. Oh YES, we know who Hitchens is

SCUMBAG.

[BlueEyedSon]

16. I second that

[Philostopher]

10. Yeah, good ol' Snitchens.

He's British, I believe. He used to be a liberal, if I recall correctly, or at least he was critical of conservatism at one time in the past. Hated Ronald Reagan -- if you pull up the articles at Slate/MSN, you'll find that he wrote a fairly scathing requiem to the empty suit.

He also used to be a good writer, and a reliable critic regardless of the focus. Sadly, it appears he's one of those people who had a '9/11 conversion' and has elected to let his fear of death determine everything he says from that point on. I'd think he has more to fear from liver failure (if the rumors, and I am being scrupulous about saying they're rumors, are correct) than he does from terrorists.

[AP]

11. The review is so crazy and convoluted it will be impossible for freepers

to reproduce in a coherent paragraph.

"Hitichens said it's bad" just isn't going to make a very good retort.

Hitchens flails about so much in that review that he has to resort to criticizing Moore's appearance, as if that has anything to do with the movie.

It also puts lots of words in Moore's mouth.

[Wickerman]

12. Who is Christopher Hitchens? A Neocon-like piece of shite

here is a bit from him on Scarborough:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5013506

And I must say, I object to the way that “The New York Times” sort of sneers at the idea that there were ever any sweets and flowers offered. But, you know, yesterday, we lost the temporary president of the country, blown up at the gates of the Coalition Provisional Authority, unable to protect him. It‘s wrong to expect the press not to focus on things as dramatic and horrible as that.

I think my quarrel with the media would be different from yours. I think what isn‘t conveyed enough is the sheer evil and ruthlessness and indeed brilliant organization of the enemy. The media cliche about the war is that it‘s like Vietnam. The Vietnamese were a very civilized foe and if they had had weapons of mass destruction, for example, wouldn‘t have used them and didn‘t target civilians, did use women as fighters and organizers, were not torturers and mass murderers and so forth.

The liberal reluctance I find is the unwillingness to admit how entirely hateful and unnegotiable with our enemy is and how necessary it is to defeat them not just in Iraq, but everywhere else.

[still_one]

13. Christopher Hitchens has been around for a while

He used to be an extremely liberal, very anti-Israelli reporter. Within the last several years, as though he has been paid off by the right wing, he has embraced almost everything that bush has done, though he still "hates" Israel with a passion...

I would not give him any credibility. He is definitely not mainstream.

Everyone else, including many right wingers believe this is Moore's best film. Extremely powerful.

Hitchens is a whore...

[Lydia Leftcoast]

15. Christopher Hitchens is an ex-lefty who has some serious

problems (I've seen him interviewed when he appeared to be drunk) and has evidently decided that he can make more money using his verbal skills spewing hatred on behalf of the right wing establishment.