Does Anyone Have a Rebuttal to Hitchen's Criticisms of F9/11?

[slinkerwink]

I got this annoying comment from a freeper in my blog:

(Anonymous)
2004-06-26 08:50 (from 63.159.48.80) (link) Select
I noticed on his website that Michael Moore said he has a rapid response team to handle all critics who attack his movie and/or him and that, in the tradition of liberalism, he will sue anyone that does. So far he has posted responses to a few of them but has not said one word about what Christopher Hitchens has said about it here: http://slate.msn.com/id/2102723/ Hitchens tears the movie and Moore apart but Moore hasn't said a word about it. Hitchens even challenges Moore to a debate and/or to sue him! Hitchens is no conservative, his liberal street cred is unquestioned. So it would seem that Moore is afraid of the Britt and the truth!

Since you screen anonymous posts and are afraid of anything that doesn't agree with you, I'm sure this post won't see the light of day. Very brave and typical Smith and liberal.

[Kagemusha]

1. The statement is factually incorrect, his cred is very questioned

Just so you know.

[slinkerwink]

2. I need data backing this up...and a concrete rebuttal

[Stocat]

7. Look it up

Here's a start: Hitchens once lambasted Clinton for bombing what tuned out to be an aspirin factory....


Years later he lambasted Clarke for claiming there was no connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda- claiming that hey look at the chemical factory we bombed in Sudan....Yup you guessed it, the same factory.

[Luminous Animal]

11. Response to Hitchens

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

The person in the above link in the Slate comments section addressed a lot of points.

[kodi]

44. hitchens got his ass cut up good by that guy, nice find

if hitchens can do to mother teresa much worse than what moore did to bush, why is that drunken sod bitching about moore?

now when i see hitchens he reminds me most of an unbathed, english version of w c fields.

[Wickerman]

3. uh, why would you worry about responding to Hitchen's opinion

piece? He offers alternative opinion and very little to no fact in his piece and what fact he does offer is largely subtly changing the subject.

Interesting that Hitchens lays out Moore's main points but doesn't respond to them in kind.

[slinkerwink]

9. I just want to stomp that freeper down into dirt with logic

;-)

[StandUpGuy]

33. he never said anything to get sued for

You won't win a law suit if all you have are infantile rants from a jealous almost was.
So Moore isn't going to lower himself to hitchens level by responding. It must piss hitchens off even more.

[FredScuttle]

4. Tell him that you usually wipe dogshit off your shoe

not rebut it

[patdem]

5. The film came out Friday and its...lets see...Monday?????

How rapid is rapid??? You expect Moore to pay his lawyers/advisors overtime on the weekend and advise about some lawsuit???

WOW....I love the smell of desperation in the morning!!!

[narcjen]

6. Hitchen's, the Iraq war's biggest cheerleader

he's not a liberal by any stretch of the imagination.

[Tummler]

8. Try these two

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1839623

http://www.hollywoodbitchslap.com/feature.php?feature=1150

[hiphopnation]

15. Wow.

Thanks for those links. I've never seen that site before.

:yourock:

[Stevendsmith]

10. Here's one

http://petey.dailykos.com/story/2004/6/22/42322/4684

And as soon as I find it again, I'll post one even better than this.

[BeyondGeography]

12. His liberal street cred is unquestioned!

That's funny. Hitch, the guy who supported Clinton's impeachment, who has been on the right side of the bottle for most of the last decade, has UNQUESTIONED liberal street cred.

Anyway, Hitchens is just trying to cover his droppy ass. My favorite part in his screed is when he compares Bush with Ike.

Earth to Hitch: Ike was an adult. Ike was a four-star general who won World War II. Ike could do whatever the fuck he wanted on the golf course, and no one would have found it juvenile. If Ike started a war (which he never did; he despised war), most of America would have trusted his judgment and stood by him far longer than they have with Junior.

Oh, and Ike also gave a famous speech about the potential of the military/industrial complex to distort policy and priorities.

Ike would've been excommunicated from the current version of the Republican Party. And he would probably be made sick at the spectacle of a callow draft dodger lying to get us into war.

Do NOT invoke Ike in defense of Bush ever again, Hitch.

[mmonk]

13. Hitchens is

a neoliberal or imperialist liberal. Check Michael's archives for info.http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/f911facts/index.php?archive=show

[K8-EEE]

14. Please Tell Me A Concrete Criticism.

I sort of waded through this very wordy and poorly written "review" and it just seemed like one big name-calling rant on Michael Moore.

From what I can see he accuses MM of supporting Saddam or portraying Baghdad as perfect before the invasion? No he did NOT! He showed footage of every day street scenes from Iraq, those scenes do not EXIST anymore. Women cannot walk around the streets anymore. It is NOT supporting Saddam; that's what Rumsfeld did in the 80's thank you very much!

That big lie "the world is a safer place" since the invasion, no, it really isn't. Even their own report on terror attacks "proving" the new safe GWB was itself disproved. Iraq AND America is in more peril now; Saddam was not a threat.

Also this charge of "exploitation" of the mom, she seemed like she wanted to tell her story; if he was not touched by it, IMO, he must have icewater in his veins.

[eleny]

16. Hitchens said he didn't see the film

He said this recently during an interview I watched on tv. So much for Hitchen's credibility.

[alarcojon]

22. Do you remember the show and the date?

I would love to know.

[eleny]

25. I'll do a search and let you know

There was a thread about that interview here in DU recently

[eleny]

28. The DU advanced search feature is not available

It's due to heavy server demand.

Anyhow, Hitchens was being interviewed along with the director of The Hunting Of The President. And it had to be within the past week. Maybe someone else will remember the show. I was skipping around the tv stations looking for F 9/11 interviews that evening.

[mzmolly]

30. They appeared together on Hardball but Matthews had a fill in that eve.

:hi:

[eleny]

34. Yes! That's where it was

He had a woman reporter on interviewing and we discussed the interview here in DU. I'm drawing a blank on her name but she's on a lot and has longish dark hair. Oy, my menmory is like a sieve!

[alarcojon]

39. I looked up the transcript and it says

the other guest (Harry Thomason) was the one who didn't see it.

THOMASON: Again, I have not seen Michael Moore‘s film. I know all documentary filmmakers owe him a debt, because he popularized the form.

...snip...

BROWN: And, Christopher, I want to ask you, when I saw the film, the crowd was enormously enthusiastic, presumably, when you saw it as well. What has he tapped into?

HITCHENS: Yes, there was a lot of easy applause with the one—the audience I was in. It was largely made up of Al Franken clones, I must say.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5286752

Oh well, I guess it was too good to be true....

[eleny]

40. Thanks for clearing it up!

I'd posted in the thread of the other day asking if I heard right - that Hitchens said he hadn't seen it. Someone said they heard the same. I'm glad it came up again and is cleared up via the tranny. Thanks again!

[alarcojon]

41. No problem!

We have enough arguments against Hitchens as it is.

[VolcanoJen]

17. Hollywood Bitchslap does an incredible job of rebuttal

Try this article, here:

Defending Truth: Slate's Chris Hitchens does a hatchet job on Michael Moore - by Chris Parry

[slinkerwink]

19. thanks! Just laid a huge smackdown on the freeper

;-)

[VolcanoJen]

20. More info, please!

I'm in the mood to read a freep-smack!

[slinkerwink]

24. check your inbox

:evilgrin:

[FizzFuzz]

42. I wouldn't mind seeing the freep-smack too.

please?!!! I love seeing them get undone.

on edit: reading the hollywood bitchslap rebuttal by Chris Parry. Woo! Its good! Dammit I wish responsible opinion like that got as big a market as Hitchens gets in Slate. How many more people are gonna read the Hitchens peice than will ever even HEAR about the Parry one?

[G_j]

36. a few points

..not sure if Hitchens addressed these points because I didn't read his piece and don't plan to.

http://www.alternet.org/movies/19062 /

Moore Light, Moore heat

The Progress Report. Posted June 28, 2004.


Even before 'Fahrenheit 9/11' opened at theaters, the White House and its right-wing allies tried to smear both the messenger and the message. But the facts support the film. Story Tools


Even before Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 opened in theaters last Friday, the White House and its right-wing allies sought to smear both the film and Moore personally. Last month, White House communications director Dan Bartlett said the movie "was so outrageously false it's not even worth comment," even though he had not yet seen the film. Meanwhile, the Hollywood Reporter discovered that "big-time conservative donors" are funding a slew of anti-Moore activities. Following the White House's tactic of attacking critics' patriotism, the right-wing is also apparently bankrolling a movie called "Michael Moore Hates America." But despite conservatives' best efforts to discredit the film, the NY Times notes, "central assertions of fact in 'Fahrenheit 9/11' are supported by the public record." When the movie was aired at the Cannes Film Festival, it won top prize from a panel made up of mostly American and British judges.

ACCURATE - NEW REPORT SAYS SAUDI FLIGHTS OCCURRED ON 9/13: Critics have accused Moore of wrongly claiming a group of Saudis were allowed to fly out of the United States on September 13, when much of American airspace was still closed. In fact, the movie accurately reports that 142 Saudis, including 24 members of the bin Laden family, were allowed to leave after September 13 - a fact well documented by the 9/11 Commission. Additionally, new reports prove that Saudi flights did occur on 9/13, despite three years of Bush administration denials. As the St. Petersburg Times reports, on September 13,"with most of the nation's air traffic still grounded, a small jet landed at Tampa International Airport, picked up three young Saudi men and left" for Lexington, KY. The Saudis "then took another flight out of the country." Because the information is so new, it was not in the 9/11 Commission's preliminary report. Subsequently, however, the commission has asked the Tampa airport "for any information about 'a chartered flight with six people, including a Saudi prince, that flew from Tampa, Florida on or about Sept. 13, 2001.'"

ACCURATE - BUSH WAS NOT FOCUSED ON TERRORISM: In the movie, Moore charges that President Bush did not pay enough attention to pre-9/11 warnings that al Qaeda was about to attack. Instead of focusing on terrorism, charges the movie, the president spent 42 percent of his first eight months in office on vacation. That figure "came not from a conspiracy-hungry Web site but from a calculation by The Washington Post." Read American Progress's report "Truth & Consequences: The Bush Administration and 9/11" for a comprehensive history of how the White House underfunded counter-terrorism and downgraded terrorism as a priority before 9/11. See American Progress's new "Complete Saudi Primer" - a guide to everything you always wanted to know about the Bush-Saudi connection but were afraid to ask.
<snip>

[Justitia]

18. Was he loaded? Hitchens is ALWAYS in the bag

and he has as much liberal street cred as Shithammer in my book.

How can he critique a film he HAS NOT SEEN?

Tell the freeper that bumbling idiots like Hitchens and Limbaugh are too chemically pickled to ever take seriously, brain rot is a non-starter for intelligent debate.

21. Hitchens knows he is lying.

This isn't exactly a refutation, but I find this sentence of his very revealing.

" A meeting with the prime minister of the United Kingdom, or at least with this prime minister, is not a goof_off. "

What is the point of the qualifier "or at least this prime minister"? Why didn't Hitchens just write "A meeting with the prime minister of the United Kingdom is not a goof off"? There is something very fishy about that interjection in my opinion. I think it reveals that Hitchens knows that a meeting is a goof off & that he slipped up by putting the qualifier in there.

Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but people's choice of words, especially in a written piece, can be very revealing. I bet if you applied a similar analysis to a lot of the other statements in that article you would find similar twisting and slanting occurring.

[Kurt Remarque]

23. does anyone care what hitchens says anymore?

[misanthrope]

26. I've got a great new job for Chris...

...all he has to do is hold some cans of paint while we put his liquor and cigarettes under lock and key.

[mmonk]

27. A good way to deal with a freeper concerning

the film and any accusation that it is all lies is to ask them to disprove any point of it.

[hunter]

29. Direct freepers to this article by Hitchins:

"The Stupidity of Ronald Reagan"

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

Hitchins calls Reagan a "cruel and stupid lizard" and other things that are not so nice.

It's not a rebuttal, but it will make the freepers head pop.

[mzmolly]

31. Ohhh, I like the way you think!

:evilgrin: :hi:

[Sweetpea]

49. Plus he went after Henry Kissenger in the "The Trials of Henry

Kissenger"

You know they are desparate for allies when someone like laura ingraham says she almost forgives him for his essay on Ronald Reagan because he is going after Michael Moore.

[Delano]

32. Who cares what that bloated lush says?

Isn't Tweety the only one who listens to him anymore?

[LoZoccolo]

35. A lot of his arguments are based on...

...implying that Moore is saying more than he really is (i.e. "Saudi's control foreign policy") and trying to draw contradictions from that. It's basically the strawman tactic - he says that Moore says things that he really doesn't to the degree Hitchens claims.

Then he sticks that lawsuit thing in there to make it look like he must be really sure that the movie is bullshit.

[0007]

37. Having the freepers yap yap yap and Hitchens doing his thing

is the greatest advertisement money can buy.

Keep up the good work you pussies, I love it!

[lojasmo]

38. That article is a meaningless screed.

Hitchens basically refuses to make any argument at all in that article, there is nothing to rebut.

[Zomby Woof]

43. Take some time-honored advice

You can't argue with a sick mind. Anyone who still thinks Hitchens is a liberal is full of their own shit.

Even if you offered the best point-by-point rebuttal, they are going tp keep living in denial and swathed in ignorance. They won't listen.

I used to argue with fundie Repukes when I lived in Virginia. I chalk it up to foolish idealism, lol. It just wastes energy.

I know why you want to refute ethe idiot, believe me. But it won't be worth it. I wish it was!

Best to let the fucker flap in the breeze. :-)

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

45. I am seeing that article cut and pasted by wingnuts to slam MM now. But I

am past the point where I have any interest in "debating" them.

[JPJones]

46. Mr. Hitchens (Imperialist) presents a series of false dilemmas

http://datanation.com/fallacies/distract/fd.htm

"Circling back to where we began, why did Moore's evil Saudis not join "the Coalition of the Willing"? Why instead did they force the United States to switch its regional military headquarters to Qatar?"

Well, because they supported taking out Saddam, but they didn't want to stir up radicals in their own country. Remember, Bandar was told about the war before Colin Powell.

[JPJones]

47. Another false dilemma

"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."

So the only choices were to read "The Pet Goat" or to adopt a Russell Crowe stance? How about consult with your staff? Order planes to scramble? Talk to the FAA?

[stickdog]

48. Here ya go, slink.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1839675

[Bush was AWOL]

50. I saw the Movie, but can't quite remember...

did Moore say we went to war in Afghanistan so that Unocal could put a pipeline in? I know the pipeline went in, but did Unocal have anything to do with it (I'm reading articles on BBC that says they pulled out in 98)? Sorry, I know I should know this, but I can't quite remember how this part of the movie went.

Another question...Lots of Republicans are trying to claim Clark flew the Saudi's out of the US and took responsibility for it...and they claim they were interviewed and questioned, and they were not flown out during the time when all flights were grounded. Is this true?

Please help me refute these claims, I'm trying to squash my Republican friends who refuse to see the movie, but insist on spreading propaganda about the film at work based on conservative hack articles they are reading.

[Jax]

51. kick

thanks for this thread slinkerwink.

Any rebuttal with links to counter the right wing lie machine is very helpful.

:thumbsup:

Jax

[gauguin57]

52. response to hitchens?

Easy. GET BACK ON YOUR MEDS, you twisted, unmade-bed-of-a-human-being.

He's gone to the dark side, pure and simple. Put him on cosmic "ignore."