Monday, March 17, 2008

Random Michael Moore Deceits [#36]

Saudi embassy [from Fahrenheit 9/11]
The scene: Moore and Craig Unger are standing across the street from the Saudi embassy in D.C. Uniformed officers congregate across the way, confer for a moment and one of them makes his way to Michael, where he asks if they’re making a documentary about the Saudi Arabian embassy. Moore says that are making a documentary, and part of it is about the Saudis.

Then comes the voiceover:

“Even though we were no where near the White House, for some reason the Secret Service had shown up to ask us what we were doing standing across the street from the Saudi Embassy.”
What. A. Crock.

Let’s examine the language. Moore has carefully crafted this to imply something nefarious...but let’s break it down.

“Even though we were no where near the White House.”

So? Completely inflammatory language designed to have you connect theses police officers with having been somehow “sent” by Bush to “silence” Moore.

“for some reason the Secret Service had shown up”

For some reason? We covered this awhile ago here at MOOREWATCH, and it took me five. That’s 1, 2, 3, 4, FIVE minutes with Google to get the full story on who that guard is. You can read all about it for yourself, right here. [http://www.secretservice.gov/ud.shtml]

If Moore has such a fantastic team of fact checkers, and he’s so concerned with accuracy, why is he maligning the Uniformed Secret Service? Why is he implying that they should not be be where they are?

Their mandate:

"In 1970, Public Law 91-217 expanded the role of the White House Police, newly named the Executive Protective Service, to include protection of diplomatic missions in the Washington, D.C.,area. Congress later added the protection of the Vice President’s immediate family to the Executive Protective Service’s growing responsibilities in 1974.

After several name revisions, the force officially adopted its current name, the United States Secret Service Uniformed Division in 1977. While protection of the White House Complex remains its primary mission, the Uniformed Division’s responsibilities have expanded greatly over the years.

They now protect the following:

* the White House Complex, the Main Treasury Building and Annex, and other Presidential offices;
* the President and members of the immediate family;
* the temporary official residence of the Vice President in the District of Columbia;
* the Vice President and members of the immediate family; and
* foreign diplomatic missions in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area and throughout the United States, and its territories and possessions, as prescribed by statute.

Why is it that I, some doofus sitting in a living room in Hamden, CT, can find this information that clears up the “some reason” why a Uniformed Secret Service officer would be asking what a camera crew is doing outside a foreign embassy, but Moore cannot seem to explain it?

And finally,

to ask us what we were doing standing across the street from the Saudi Embassy.

And? That would be their job. Did Moore stand across the street from any other embassy that day, filming, pointing and conferring with another guy only to be ignored by the Uniformed Secret Service? Consider the fact that a terrorist or a militia nut might do the same damned thing in order to case the building. If the building, or any embassy, had been attacked by someone who scoped it out by behaving the same way Unger and Moore behaved, everyone would wonder what the cops didn’t at least stop and ask the guy why he was filming an embassy.

What we have here is a segment that lasts 2:28. As we’ve been told, 7 minutes is an eternity, so 2:28 is a significant chunk of a film to devote to this segment. One problem, though...the only thing wrong in this segment is the words chosen by Moore in the voiceover. Moore and Unger did nothing wrong by filming the buildings and talking, and the officers did nothing wrong by asking him what he was doing.

So why even use the footage? No one did anything wrong or anything that could be misinterpreted as wrong. What is the point?

The point was to connect the Secret Service with guarding the Saudis, and to plant the impression that Moore was being harassed, possibly by the White House, since that’s where the Secret Service should be according to Moore.

A simple Google search...35 seconds of his time, would have resulted in this segment being rendered useless.

Unless…

He already knows the guards are supposed to be there. And he’s hoping, once again, that the American people will be too dumb or too lazy to find out the truth.
source
Moore shows himself filming the movie near the Saudi embassy in Washington, D.C.:

Moore as narrator: Even though we were nowhere near the White House, for some reason the Secret Service had shown up to ask us what we were doing standing across the street from the Saudi embassy….

Officer: That’s fine. Just wanted to get some information on what was going on.
Moore on camera: Yeah yeah yeah, I didn’t realize the Secret Service guards foreign embassies.
Officer: Uh, not usually, no sir.

But in fact:

Any tourist to Washington, DC, will see plenty of Secret Service Police guarding all of the other foreign embassies which request such protection. Other than guarding the White House and some federal buildings, it’s the largest use of personnel by the Secret Service’s Uniformed Division.

Debbie Schlussel, "FAKEN-heit 9-11: Michael Moore’s Latest Fiction," June 25, 2004.

According to the Secret Service website:

Uniformed Division officers provide protection for the White House Complex, the Vice-President's residence, the Main Treasury Building and Annex, and foreign diplomatic missions and embassies in the Washington, DC area.

So there is nothing strange about the Secret Service protecting the Saudi embassy in Washington—especially since al Qaeda attacks have taken place against Saudi Arabia. According to Article 22 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, an international agreement which has been ratified by the United States, every host country (including the United States) is obliged to protect every embassy within its borders.
source
Moore tried yet again to gull his audience into believing that the Saudis receive special treatment from President Bush. Moore and his camera crew went to Washington where they made a show of loitering in front of the Saudi embassy until they provoked a response from the U.S. Secret Service. Moore feigns innocence: “Even though we were nowhere near the White House, for some reason the Secret Service had shown up to ask us what we were doing standing across the street from the Saudi embassy.” When a uniformed Secret Service guard approaches, Moore says wonderingly that he “didn’t realize the Secret Service guards foreign embassies,” to which the guard replies, “Not usually, no Sir.”

Moore skillfully exploits this exchange to suggest that the Saudis enjoy special protection from displaced White House guardians. It’s another Moore deception. Any wandering tourist can spot many uniformed Secret Service guards protecting foreign embassies in our capital city. According to article 22 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, to which the United States is a signatory, every host nation must protect every embassy within its borders. There are 170 foreign embassies in Washington, D.C.; most of them need no more protection than can be summoned by a phone call to the Secret Service. Some embassies warrant a more immediate Secret Service presence. Because al Qaeda has threatened and attacked Saudi Arabia, its embassy, among others, is guarded more closely. This is not evidence of a personal preference on the part of George Bush. As the Secret Service explains its functions: “Uniformed Division officers provide protection for the White House complex, the Vice President’s residence, the Main Treasury Building and its Annex, and foreign diplomatic missions and embassies in the Washington, D.C. area.” Moore would have you believe that the Secret Service is just George Bush’s personal Praetorian Guard
source

Random Michael Moore Deceits [#35]

Iraq before Liberation [from Fahrenheit 9/11]
Moore shows scenes of Baghdad before the invasion (read: liberation) and in his weltanschauung, it’s a place filled with nothing but happy, smiling, giggly, overjoyed Baghdadis. No pain and suffering there. No rape, murder, gassing, imprisoning, silencing of the citizens in these scenes. When he exploits and lingers on the tears of a mother who lost her soldier-son in Iraq, and she wails, "Why did you have to take him?" Moore does not cut to images of the murderers/terrorists (pardon me, "insurgents") in Iraq…or even to God; he cuts to George Bush. When the soldier’s father says the young man died and "for what?", Moore doesn’t show liberated Iraqis to reply, he cuts instead to an image of Halliburton.

Jeff Jarvis, "Watching Michael Moore," Buzz Machine weblog, June 24, 2004.

The most offensive sequence in "Fahrenheit 9/11"’s long two hours lasts only a few minutes. It’s Moore’s file-footage depiction of happy Iraq before the Americans began their supposedly pointless invasion. You see men sitting in cafes, kids flying kites, women shopping. Cut to bombs exploding at night.

What Moore presumably doesn’t know, or simply doesn’t care about, is that the building you see being blown up is the Iraqi Ministry of Defense in Baghdad. Not many children flew kites there. It was in a part of the city that ordinary Iraqis weren’t allowed to visit—on pain of death.

…Iraq was ruled by a regime that had forced a sixth of its population into fearful exile, that hanged dissidents (real dissidents, not people like Susan Sontag and Tim Robbins) from meathooks and tortured them with blowtorches, and filled thousands of mass graves with the bodies of its massacred citizens.

Yes, children played, women shopped and men sat in cafes while that stuff went on—just as people did all those normal things in Somoza’s Nicaragua, Duvalier’s Haiti and for that matter Nazi Germany, and as they do just about everywhere, including in Iraq today.
source
In one of his love letters to Saddam’s homicidal regime, Michael Moore presents prewar Iraq as an idyll of kite-flying children, happy newlyweds and just regular folks living their lives. Then he jolts his audience with a display of precision bombing as a building is reduced to rubble. The Moore message: America is a nasty intruder in Paradise. What Moore is careful to keep secret from his audience is that the building being hit is the Iraqi Ministry of Defense in Baghdad, the longtime central command for genocide and mass murder in Iraq. There were no kite-flying children nearby; the ministry building was in a section of Baghdad that was off limits to the average Iraqi . . . on penalty of death. Moore makes no mention of Saddam’s children’s prisons where five and seven-year-old children were held captive; neither does he mention the children who were tortured in front of their parents. Now reflect on the fact that Moore made certain to exclude from Fahrenheit 9/11 any images of the terrorist jetliner fuel-bombs striking the World Trade towers. That’s because any reminder that we were provoked by a surprise attack launched by Muslim bigots would undermine Moore’s brainless thesis that the only reason America overran Osama bin Laden’s base of operations in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan was to enhance the prospects for a long-defunct pipeline proposal that had been scrapped way back in 1998. That’s how truly stupid this movie is. It’s a political Looney Tune.

It should be noted that during the Battle of Baghdad civilian areas of the city were showered with Iraqi anti-aircraft shells that had missed their intended targets and had fallen back into Baghdad neighborhoods. Moore uses Iraqi footage of civilian injuries inflicted by these errant shells in new contexts that suggest that these injuries were inflicted by indiscriminate American bombardment.
source
After showing us footage of armaments cut together with footage of President Bush preparing for a speech, Moore makes one of the most outrageous and despicable moves of the entire film—second only to his decision not to show the attacks of September 11th. For his depiction of Iraq under the rule of Saddam Hussein, Moore does not show poison gas attacks against civilians, aggression against neighbors, atrocious human rights violations on a scale barely conceivable (see, for instance, http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/iraq/tales.html, and http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-04-13-saddam-secrets-usat_x.htm), he does not show Saddam’s palaces, or his son’s perverted torture chambers. He makes no mention of political oppression, or of a regime that funded suicide bombers and offered shelter to terrorists who had murdered Americans, or even just of Saddam Hussein’s violation of his international agreements or the sanctions regimes. Instead, amazingly, Moore shows us happy scenes of children at play, families celebrating weddings, busy restaurants—as if to say there was nothing wrong with Iraq until we, for no apparent reason, started bombing it. As we watch a child flying a kite, we hear President Bush say, “At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger. On my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Saddam Hussein’s ability to wage war.” We then see rockets launching, and explosions over Baghdad, as if the children flying kites and playing on a slide were the targets of the bombs rather than (as is actually the case in the footage he shows) Saddam Hussein’s defense ministry.
source

Random Michael Moore Deceits [#34]

manufactured censorship controversy
Less than 24 hours after accusing the Walt Disney Company of pulling the plug on his latest documentary in a blatant attempt at political censorship, the rabble-rousing film-maker Michael Moore has admitted he knew a year ago that Disney had no intention of distributing it.

The admission, during an interview with CNN, undermined Moore’s claim that Disney was trying to sabotage the US release of Fahrenheit 911 just days before its world premiere at the Cannes film festival.

Instead, it lent credence to a growing suspicion that Moore was manufacturing a controversy to help publicise the film, a full-bore attack on the Bush administration and its handling of national security since the attacks of 11 September 2001.

In an indignant letter to his supporters, Moore said he had learnt only on Monday that Disney had put the kibosh on distributing the film, which has been financed by the semi-independent Disney subsidiary Miramax.

But in the CNN interview he said: “Almost a year ago, after we’d started making the film, the chairman of Disney, Michael Eisner, told my agent he was upset Miramax had made the film and he will not distribute it.”

Nobody in Hollywood doubts Fahrenheit 911 will find a US distributor. His last documentary, Bowling for Columbine , made for $3m (�1.7m), pulled in $22m at the US box office.

But Moore’s publicity stunt, if that is what is, appears to be working. A front-page news piece in The New York Times was followed yesterday by an editorial denouncing Disney for censorship and denial of Moore’s right to free expression.

Moore told CNN that Disney had “signed a contract to distribute this [film]” but got cold feet. But Disney executives insists there was never any contract. And a source close to Miramax said that the only deal there was for financing, not for distribution.
source

Random Michael Moore Deceits [#33]

Air Laden [from Fahrenheit 9/11]
In another scene, Moore suggests that members of Osama Bin Laden's family and other Saudis were able to fly out of the country while air traffic was grounded after September 11. After an initial report in Newsweek inaccurately characterized the scene, saying it had made a direct claim to that effect, Moore's staff replied with a legalistic parsing. The film does accurately date the Saudi flights out of the country to "after September 13" as they claim (flights leaving the country resumed on the 14th), but Moore does not take the important step of explaining the meaning of this date in the film:

"Moore: In the days following September 11, all commercial and private airline traffic was grounded... [video clips] Not even Ricky Martin could fly. But really, who wanted to fly? No one, except the Bin Ladens.

Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND): We had some airplanes authorized at the highest levels of our government to fly to pick up Osama Bin Laden's family members and others from Saudi Arabia and transport them out of this country.

Moore: It turns out that the White House approved planes to pick up the Bin Ladens and numerous other Saudis. At least six private jets and nearly two dozen commercial planes carried the Saudis and the Bin Ladens out of the US after September 13th. In all, 142 Saudis, including 24 members of the bin Laden family, were allowed to leave the country."


Given that Moore states that "In the days following September 11, all commercial and private airline traffic was grounded," how are viewers to know that this description did not include the Saudi flights out of the country? The "after September 13th" clause may show that Moore's claim was technically accurate, but it leaves viewers with the distinct impression that the Bin Ladens left the country before others were allowed to.
source
Moore then tells us that, “In the days following September 11th, all commercial and private air line traffic was grounded” but that a group of Saudis, including Bin Laden family members staying in America, was permitted to fly out of the country. He then implies that something was wrong with these flights, that the people who departed were not properly interviewed by the FBI, and that this happened because the Saudis used their influence with the White House. He even has a former FBI agent (whom he admits was no longer in the FBI by the time of the attacks and so would have no direct knowledge of what happened) say that these people should have been interviewed.

But Moore’s assertions are all wrong. First of all, the flights carrying Bin Laden family members did not take place while other civilian flights were grounded, as Moore suggests. The one flight that actually carried Bin Laden family members took place on September 20, a week after flight restrictions had been lifted. Flights carrying other Saudis also occurred on or after September 13, when flying was no longer restricted. Also, all the Saudis who left the country on the flights Moore mentions were in fact thoroughly interviewed by the FBI before leaving. And finally, the flights were approved personally (and exclusively) by White House counterterrorism head Richard Clarke, whom Moore later cites with approval as an authority.

The 9/11 Commission Report makes short shrift of all of Moore’s accusations, stating that the commission “found no evidence that any flights of Saudi nationals, domestic or international, took place before the reopening of national airspace on the morning of September 13, 2001. To the contrary, every flight we have identified occurred after national airspace reopened.” It states further that there was “no evidence of political intervention” to permit the flights, and finally observes that, “the FBI interviewed all persons of interest on these flights prior to their departures. They concluded that none of the passengers was connected to the 9/11 attacks and have since found no evidence to change that conclusion. Our own independent review of the Saudi nationals involved confirms that no one with known links to terrorism departed on these flights” (http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf, pp. 329-30; also see pp. 556-558). In response to this, a spokeswoman for Moore told the Washington Post that “Moore did not intend to suggest that the Bin Ladens flew away while civilian flights were grounded”—which is preposterous given what is plainly said in the film, and also fails to address all of the film’s other false claims on this issue (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10070-2004Jul23.html)."
source
Moore is guilty of a classic game of saying one thing and implying another when he describes how members of the Saudi elite were flown out of the United States shortly after 9/11.

If you listen only to what Moore says during this segment of the movie—and take careful notes in the dark—you’ll find he’s got his facts right. He and others in the film state that 142 Saudis, including 24 members of the bin Laden family, were allowed to leave the country after Sept. 13.

The date—Sept. 13—is crucial because that is when a national ban on air traffic, for security purposes, was eased

But nonetheless, many viewers will leave the movie theater with the impression that the Saudis, thanks to special treatment from the White House, were permitted to fly away when all other planes were still grounded. This false impression is created by Moore’s failure, when mentioning Sept. 13, to emphasize that the ban on flights had been eased by then. The false impression is further pushed when Moore shows the singer Ricky Martin walking around an airport and says, "Not even Ricky Martin would fly. But really, who wanted to fly? No one. Except the bin Ladens."

But the movie fails to mention that the FBI interviewed about 30 of the Saudis before they left. And the independent 9/11 commission has reported that "each of the flights we have studied was investigated by the FBI and dealt with in a professional manner prior to its departure."

McNamee, Chicago Sun-Times. (Note: The Sun-Times article was correct in its characterization of the Ricky Martin segment, but not precisely accurate in the exact words used in the film. I have substituted the exact quote. On September 13, U.S. airspace was re-opened for a small number of flights; charter flights were allowed, and the airlines were allowed to move their planes to new airports to start carrying passengers on September 14.)

Tapper: [Y]our film showcases former counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke, using him as a critic of the Bush administration. Yet in another part of the film, one that appears in your previews, you criticize members of the Bush administration for permitting members of the bin Laden family to fly out of the country almost immediately after 9/11. What the film does not mention is that Richard Clarke says that he OK’d those flights. Is it fair to not mention that?

Moore: Actually I do, I put up The New York Times article and it’s blown up 40 foot on the screen, you can see Richard Clarke’s name right there saying that he approved the flights based on the information the FBI gave him. It’s right there, right up on the screen. I don’t agree with Clarke on this point. Just because I think he’s good on a lot of things doesn’t mean I agree with him on everything.

Jake Tapper interview with Michael Moore, ABC News, June 25, 2004. In an Associated Press interview, Clarke said that he agreed with much of what Moore had to say, but that the Saudi flight material was a mistake. Clarke testified to the September 11 Commission, on September 3, 2003, that letting the Saudis go "was a conscious decision with complete review at the highest levels of the State Department and the FBI and the White House." It's possible to read Clarke's 2003 statement as consistent with his 2004 statements; if you believe that what Clarke is saying now contradicts what he said in 2003, then Clarke is a liar, and all other claims he makes in Fahrenheit are discredited. Although he really did not make those claims for Fahrenheit; according to National Public Radio:

"I think Moore's making a mountain of a molehill," he said. Moreover, said Mr. Clarke, "He never interviewed me." Instead, Mr. Moore had simply lifted a clip from an ABC interview.

Fahrenehit includes a brief shot of a Sept. 4, 2003, New York Times article headlined "White House Approved Departures of Saudis after Sept. 11, Ex-Aide Says." The camera pans over the article far too quickly for any ordinary viewer to spot and read the words in which Clarke states that he approved the flights.

Like Clarke, most of the political figures in Fahrenheit 9/11 were not filmed by Moore; he used footage which had been shot by news organizations. The Internet Movie Database lists 40 public figures in the "cast" of Fahrenheit; of these, 37 are listed as from "archival footage."

Some Saudis left the U.S. by charter flight on September 14, a day when commercial flights had resumed, but when ordinary charter planes were still grounded. When did the bin Ladens actually leave? Not until the next week, as the the 9/11 Commission staff report explains:

"Fearing reprisals against Saudi nationals, the Saudi government asked for help in getting some of its citizens out of the country….we have found that the request came to the attention of Richard Clarke and that each of the flights we have studied was investigated by the FBI and dealt with in a professional manner prior to its departure.

No commercial planes, including chartered flights, were permitted to fly into, out of, or within the United States until September 13, 2001. After the airspace reopened, six chartered flights with 142 people, mostly Saudi Arabian nationals, departed from the United States between September 14 and 24. One flight, the so-called Bin Ladin flight, departed the United States on September 20 with 26 passengers, most of them relatives of Usama Bin Ladin. We have found no credible evidence that any chartered flights of Saudi Arabian nationals departed the United States before the reopening of national airspace.

The Saudi flights were screened by law enforcement officials, primarily the FBI, to ensure that people on these flights did not pose a threat to national security, and that nobody of interest to the FBI with regard to the 9/11 investigation was allowed to leave the country. Thirty of the 142 people on these flights were interviewed by the FBI, including 22 of the 26 people (23 passengers and 3 private security guards) on the Bin Ladin flight. Many were asked detailed questions. None of the passengers stated that they had any recent contact with Usama Bin Ladin or knew anything about terrorist activity.

The FBI checked a variety of databases for information on the Bin Ladin flight passengers and searched the aircraft. It is unclear whether the TIPOFF terrorist watchlist was checked. At our request, the Terrorist Screening Center has rechecked the names of individuals on the flight manifests of these six Saudi flights against the current TIPOFF watchlist. There are no matches.

The FBI has concluded that nobody was allowed to depart on these six flights who the FBI wanted to interview in connection with the 9/11 attacks, or who the FBI later concluded had any involvement in those attacks. To date, we have uncovered no evidence to contradict this conclusion."


The final Commission Report confirms that Clarke was the highest-ranking official who made the decision to let the Saudis go, and that Clarke's decision had no adverse effect on September 11 investigations. See pages 328-29 of the Report.

Finally, Moore's line, "But really, who wanted to fly? No one. Except the bin Ladens," happens to be a personal lie. Stranded in California on September 11, Michael Moore ended up driving home to New York City. On September 14, he wrote to his fans "Our daughter is fine, mostly frightened by my desire to fly home to her rather than drive." Moore acceded to the wishes of his wife and daughter, and drove back to New York. It is pretty hypocritical for Moore to slam the Saudis (who had very legitimate fears of being attacked by angry people) just because they wanted to fly home, at the same time when Moore himself wanted to fly home."
source

Random Michael Moore Deceits [#32]

Saudi Investments in the United States [from Fahrenheit 9/11]
Moore asks Craig Unger: "How much money do the Saudis have invested in America, roughly?"

Unger replies, "Uh, I've heard figures as high as $860 billion dollars."

What is the basis of Unger's claim? The $860 billion figure appears on page 28 of Unger's House of Bush, House of Saud. He cites two sources: The Saudi Ambassador's 1996 speech to the U.S.-Saudi Arabian Business Council. In that speech, Prince Bandar discussed the Saudi economy, but said nothing about the size of Saudi investment in the U.S.

Unger's other cited source is a February 11, 2002, Washington Post story, titled "Enormous Wealth Spilled Into American Coffers." The $860 billion figure does not appear there, either. The article states:

After nearly three decades of accumulating this wealth, the group referred to by bankers as "high net worth Saudi individuals" holds between $500 billion and $1 trillion abroad, most of it in European and American investments. Brad Bourland, chief economist of the Saudi American Bank (one-quarter owned by Citibank), said in a speech in London last June that his bank's best estimate of the total is about $700 billion, with the possibility that it is as much as $1 trillion.

Raymond Seitz, vice chairman of Lehman Brothers in London and a former U.S. ambassador to Britain, gave a similar estimate. Seitz said Saudis typically put about three-quarters of their money into the United States, the rest in Europe and Asia. That would mean that Saudi nationals have invested perhaps $500 billion to $700 billion in the American economy.

In short, Unger's cited sources do not support his $860 billion figure. He may have "heard" the figure of $860 billion dollars, but only from people who were repeating the factoid which he invented.

According to the Institute for Research Middle Eastern Policy (a pro-Saudi think tank which tries to emphasize the importance of Saudi money to the United States), in February 2003 total worldwide Saudi investment was at least $700 billion, conservatively estimated. Sixty percent of the Saudi investments were in the United States, so the Saudis had at least 420 billion dollars invested in the U.S. (Tanya C. Hsu , "The United States Must Not Neglect Saudi Arabian Investment," Sept. 23, 2003.)

Unger is asked "what percentage of our economy is that?" (Meaning the supposed $860 billion.)

He replies, "Well, in terms of investments on Wall Street, American equities, it's roughly six or seven percent of America. They own a fairly good slice of America." A little bit later, Moore states that "Saudi Prince Bandar is perhaps the best protected ambassador in the US...Considering how he and his family, and the Saudi elite own seven percent of America, it's probably not a bad idea."

According the Census Bureau, the top countries which own U.S. stocks and bonds are the United Kingdom and Japan. Foreign investors owned $1,690 billion in corporate bonds in 2002. The Census Bureau lists the major national holders, and then groups all the minor holders--including Saudi Arabia--into "Other Countries." All of these other countries combined (including Saudi Arabia) account for only 6 percent of total foreign ownership of U.S. corporate bonds. Likewise, all "Other Countries" combined account for only 7 percent of total foreign ownership of corporate stocks. (And of course the large majority of U.S. corporate stocks and bonds are owned by Americans.) Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States, table 1203.

According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, total foreign investment in the United States in 2003 was $10,515 billion dollars. This means that even if the figure that Unger "heard" about Saudis having $860 billion is correct, then the Saudis would only have about 8 percent of total foreign investment in the United States. Unless you believe that almost all American assets are owned by foreigners, then it cannot possibly be true that Saudis "own seven percent of America."
source
But Moore won’t give it up; he quips: “Saudi Prince Bandar is perhaps the best protected ambassador in the U.S. Considering how he and his family, and the Saudi elite own seven percent of America, it’s probably not a bad idea.” Huh? He’s talking rubbish. Moore got this bogus factoid from an author whose two cited sources don’t support his conjecture. The author had guessed that the Saudis may have $860 billion invested in America. Even if that were true, the Bureau of Economic Analysis puts total foreign investment in the U.S. at $10,515 billion in 2003, which would peg the Saudi share of only foreign investment at eight percent. That’s a long way from Moore’s assertion that the Saudis “own seven percent of America.”"
source
Speaking of the Saudis, Moore now launches on yet another disconnected line of argument. Standing with Craig Unger in front of the Saudi Arabian embassy in Washington, Moore asks Unger how much money the Saudis have invested in the United States. Unger replies: “Uh, I’ve heard figures inside of $860 billion dollars.” Moore certainly could have looked up the real figure, rather than rely on what someone else has “heard.” Unger offers no source, and his figure is not correct. Saudi investment in the U.S. is generally estimated at around $450 billion (http://www.saudi-american-forum.org/Newsletters/SAF_Essay_22.htm). Moore then asks him what portion of the U.S. economy the $860 billion would be, and Unger replies: “Well, in terms of investments on Wall Street, American equities, it’s roughly 6 or 7 percent of America.” This appears to be simple confusion. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, total foreign investment in the United States in 2003 was about $9.7 trillion. Unger’s (inflated) figure for Saudi investment would therefore be about 5 percent of that, i.e. 5 percent of foreign investment, not by any means 6 or 7 percent of the American economy—far from it (http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040709-033853-6363r.htm).
source

Random Michael Moore Deceits [#31]

Bush and the Saudis [from Fahrenheit 9/11]
Where is all this going? Moore soon tells us, by unfurling one of his most absurd and insulting slurs. He asks:

"Okay, so let’s say one group of people, like the American people, pay you $400,000 a year to be President of the United States. But then another group of people invest in you, your friends, and their related businesses $1.4 billion dollars over a number of years. [Footage of former Secretary of State James A. Baker, III, and Vice President Dick Cheney.] Who you gonna like? Who’s your daddy? Because that’s how much the Saudi royals and their associates have given the Bush family, their friends, and their related businesses in the past three decades. [Footage of President Bush and Saudi Prince.] Is it rude to suggest that when the Bush family wakes up in the morning they might be thinking about what’s best for the Saudis instead of what’s best for you? Or me? ’Cuz $1.4 billion just doesn’t buy a lot of flights out of the country, it buys a lot of love."

This is accompanied by pictures of both Bushes—as well as James Baker, Colin Powell, and Donald Rumsfeld—shaking hands with various individuals in Arab dress. Here again Moore makes no specific allegation, but he suggests that both the current and former presidents and their Secretaries of State and Defense are simply for sale to the highest bidder. He conveniently ignores all the ways in which the Bush foreign policy is opposed by the Saudis (they objected, for instance, to the American invasion of Afghanistan, and to the newly assertive American role in the region more generally). And as ever, Moore’s facts, let alone his implications, are completely wrong. As Newsweek put it:

"Moore derives the $1.4 billion figure from journalist Craig Unger’s book, House of Bush, House of Saud. Nearly 90 percent of that amount, $1.18 billion, comes from just one source: contracts in the early to mid-1990’s that the Saudi Arabian government awarded to a U.S. defense contractor, BDM, for training the country’s military and National Guard. What’s the significance of BDM? The firm at the time was owned by the Carlyle Group, the powerhouse private-equity firm whose Asian-affiliate advisory board has included the president’s father, George H.W. Bush. Leave aside the tenuous six-degrees-of-separation nature of this “connection.” The main problem with this figure, according to Carlyle spokesman Chris Ullman, is that former president Bush didn’t join the Carlyle advisory board until April, 1998—five months after Carlyle had already sold BDM to another defense firm. True enough, the former president was paid for one speech to Carlyle and then made an overseas trip on the firm’s behalf the previous fall, right around the time BDM was sold. But Ullman insists any link between the former president’s relations with Carlyle and the Saudi contracts to BDM that were awarded years earlier is entirely bogus. “The figure is inaccurate and misleading,” said Ullman. “The movie clearly implies that the Saudis gave $1.4 billion to the Bushes and their friends. But most of it went to a Carlyle Group company before Bush even joined the firm. Bush had nothing to do with BDM.” (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5335853/)"
source
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? If the Bush family and the al-Saud dynasty live in each other's pockets, as is alleged in a sort of vulgar sub-Brechtian scene with Arab headdresses replacing top hats, then how come the most reactionary regime in the region has been powerless to stop Bush from demolishing its clone in Kabul and its buffer regime in Baghdad? The Saudis hate, as they did in 1991, the idea that Iraq's recuperated oil industry might challenge their near-monopoly. They fear the liberation of the Shiite Muslims they so despise. To make these elementary points is to collapse the whole pathetic edifice of the film's "theory."
source

Random Michael Moore Deceits [#30]

the Carlyle Group [from Fahrenheit 9/11]

Once again, without a logical transition, Moore moves on—this time, to talk about the Carlyle Group, on whose advisory board both George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush sat at different times. Moore tells us that members of the Bin Laden family were at one point among the investors in the Carlyle Group. We are told that the Carlyle Group was holding an investor conference in Washington, D.C. on September 11, in which the elder Bush participated, as did one of Osama bin Laden’s many half-brothers. (To give a sense of the size of the Bin Laden family, the 9/11 Commission Report points out that Osama was “the seventeenth of 57 children” of the Bin Laden patriarch, http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf, p. 55.) Apparently the fact that Bush’s father and a member of the Bin Laden family were together that day is expected to have a major effect on us, though no reasons are given for why it should. We are only told that the elder Bush has a lot of influence with his son … so again, as we were told earlier in reverse, the influence of one George Bush upon the other is somehow sinister, and connected to evil Saudis. But how?

In this segment Moore also says that the Carlyle Group and their Bin Laden investors profited from September 11, by taking a subsidiary named United Defense public in October of 2001. It is not made clear why the stock offering is related to the 9/11 attacks. Moore also fails to mention that United Defense actually lost about $11 billion as the result of a decision by George W. Bush’s administration to cancel the company’s Crusader artillery system, one of the only defense programs the Bush Administration cut (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5251769/). In addition, Moore fails to inform us that George Soros, the left-wing icon, is also a major investor in the Carlyle Group, and former Clinton chief of staff Mack McLarty is also a senior advisor—so the company is hardly a global conspiracy of right-wingers. Moore also suggests that “sadly, with so much attention focused on the Bin Laden family being important Carlyle investors, the Bin Ladens eventually had to withdraw,” implying that they withdrew after the IPO he has just described. In fact, they withdrew before it (http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/278rxzvb.asp?pg=2).
source
But, points out Newsweek, former president Bush didn't join the Carlyle advisory board until April, 1998 -- five months after Carlyle had already sold BDM to another defense firm.

As for the sitting president's own Carlyle link, his service on the board ended when he quit to run for Texas governor -- a few months before the first of the Saudi contracts to the unrelated BDM firm was awarded.

The Carlyle Group is hardly a "Bush Inc," noted Newsweek - but rather features a roster of bipartisan Washington power figures. Its founding and still managing partner is Howard Rubenstein, a former top domestic policy advisor to Jimmy Carter. Among the firm's senior advisors is Thomas "Mack" McLarty, Bill Clinton's former White House chief of staff, and Arthur Levitt, Clinton's former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. One of its other managing partners is William Cannard, Clinton's chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.
source
The Carlyle Group is an international investment corporation that manages about $18 billion in private equity. As the Carlyle Group expanded and prospered its successes attracted ever more investors. As it so happened, the sprawling bin Laden family plunked $2 million into Carlyle funds; for the bin Ladens that’s chump change. The Bush family also had some money invested in the same big international investment firm. Three members of Carlyle’s board of directors had once worked for the first president Bush back when he was the CIA director and vice president.

The Carlyle Group has a wide-ranging roster of executives that includes both Republicans and Democrats such as Bill Clinton’s former SEC chairman Arthur Levitt and Clinton’s senior advisor Thomas “Mack” McLarty. Its founding and longtime managing partner is David Rubenstein, a former ranking domestic policy advisor to Jimmy Carter. One of its managing partners is William Kennard, Clinton’s chairman of the FCC. Clinton-era spokesman Chris Ullman was a Carlyle spokesman. Michael Moore takes care not to mention any of these Democrats. At one time George Herbert Walker Bush was an adviser to an Asian affiliate of the Carlyle Group. He has long since terminated his investment in Carlyle. George W. Bush’s link to the Carlyle Group ended when he quit the Caterair board to run for governor of Texas, which was months before Carlyle awarded the first Saudi contract with the unrelated BDM firm. The piddling $2 million that the bin Laden family invested with Carlyle was profit from their humongous construction business in Saudi Arabia.

Like Rumplestiltskin who spun straw into gold, Moore bent to the task of spinning these few facts into a golden conspiracy theory that he could take to the bank. In Fahrenheit 9/11 Michael Moore asserts that the Carlyle Group “gained” from the September 11th terrorist attacks on New York and Washington because Carlyle owned the military contractor United Defense and war is good for military contractors. What Moore chose to keep secret from his audience was the fact that the $18 billion Crusader self-propelled artillery system was one of the weapons projects cancelled by the Bush administration. That cancellation had a powerful negative impact on Carlyle which still owns 47 percent of United Defense. The bin Ladens had withdrawn from Carlyle before Carlyle took United Defense public, so they did not profit from the offering. The same can not be said for the Bush-hating billionaire financier George Soros about whom Michael Moore is totally silent.

George Bush’s outspoken enemy George Soros has one hundred million dollars invested in the Carlyle Group, which is vastly more than the combined investments of the Bush and bin Laden families. Does the presence of his money in the Carlyle fund also make Soros a secret co-conspirator in the bin Laden plot? George Soros is the shadowy billionaire financier who bankrolled Moveon.org, the group that drummed up mountains of soft money from the far Left to fund the Democrat Party. With his thick foreign accent and his furtive financial dealings Soros reeks of international intrigue. So why doesn’t Michael Moore include Soros in his tenuous and paranoid vision? By Moore’s logic the Soros-Carlyle connection should implicate Moveon.org as a bin Laden sympathizer. Michael Moore himself was once on the payroll of General Motors (he lasted one day working alongside real working people). Doesn’t this mean he was secretly in league with Roger Smith, the GM bossman? Of course not; that’s called “guilt by association” and it’s considered a cheap form of the ad hominem attack, which is what people stoop to when they are unable to argue using facts and logic. It’s a trashy appeal to the darker emotions."
source

Random Michael Moore Deceits [#29]

Porter Goss [from Fahrenheit 9/11]

He next shows us an interview with Rep. Porter Goss, who defends the Patriot Act, saying it offers full transparency and that there’s nothing in the act that he is ashamed of in any way. Goss then says “I have a 1-800 number. Call me. I’m the guy you call if there’s a violation or an abuse. If you’ve got a poster child on this, I want to see it. That’s what I do. I’m hired by the people of the United States to provide oversight, I provide oversight,” but as he speaks about the 800 number, Moore flashes text on the screen saying “he’s lying” and claiming Goss does not actually have an 800 number, giving his normal office number. But Goss (who was then a Member of Congress, and is now Director of Central Intelligence) actually did have an 800 number: Anyone wishing to call his office, or any other congressional office, could reach the congressional switchboard at 800-839-5276. What’s more, the committee Goss chaired—the intelligence committee—also has a toll-free number: 877-858-9040 (http://intelligence.house.gov/ContactUS.aspx). So anyone wishing to make a toll-free phone call to report a Patriot Act abuse could easily do so, but none of the supposed abuses reported so far has panned out (http://www.justice.gov/oig/special/0409/index.htm).
source

Random Michael Moore Deceits [#28]

Peter Damon [from Fahrenheit 9/11]

Moore does not stop to let us judge his distorted claims, but rather brings back Rep. McDermott to say, “They say they’re not gonna leave any veteran behind, but they’re leaving all kinds of veterans behind,” without explaining what he has in mind. Rather than explain, Moore cuts to a scene at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, to give the impression that the veterans there have been “left behind.” He shows soldiers saying that not enough attention has been paid to the injured by the public and the press—which certainly seems a valid point—and he shows an interview with a soldier who has lost parts of both arms speaking about his therapy and recuperation. This interview, as it turns out, was done by NBC and aired on an NBC News program. Moore reused the footage without asking the consent of the soldier being shown, Army reservist Peter Damon. Damon and his wife were surprised to learn that the footage appeared in the film, and a family friend told a Boston newspaper, “I was shocked. I would have expected if Peter was in the movie that someone would have at least talked to him about it, which I thought was kind of unfair. … I think for Michael Moore to portray Peter in there without any knowledge is terrible” (http://enterprise.southofboston.com/articles/2004/07/15/news/news/news02.txt). Moore then shows several other recovering injured soldiers, including one who says he used to be a Republican but now, “I’m gonna definitely do my best to insure that the Democrats win control.” Moore offers no context for these soldiers’ remarks, and no further evidence that the injured have been “forgotten.” Counter-evidence, of course, abounds. (Moore might, for instance, have told this story: http://www.techcentralstation.com/071504C.html, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/04/images/20040414-7_a5bu9736-677v
source
Major Gregory Stone and Reservist Peter Damon

Exploitation and Invasion of Privacy

The family of U.S. Air Force Maj. Gregory Stone was shocked to learn that video footage of the major's Arlington National Cemetery burial was included by Michael Moore in his movie "Fahrenheit 9/11."
Maj. Stone was killed in March 2003 by a grenade that officials said was thrown into his tent by Sgt. Hasan K. Akbar, who is on trial for murder.
"It's been a big shock, and we are not very happy about it, to say the least," Kandi Gallagher, Maj. Stone's aunt and family spokeswoman, tells Washington Times reporter Audrey Hudson.
"We are furious that Greg was in that casket and cannot defend himself, and my sister, Greg's mother, is just beside herself," Miss Gallagher said. "She is furious. She called him a 'maggot that eats off the dead.'"
The movie, described by critics as political propaganda during an election year, shows video footage of the funeral and Maj. Stone's fiancee, Tammie Eslinger, kissing her hand and placing it on his coffin.
The family does not know how Mr. Moore obtained the video, and Miss Gallagher said they did not give permission and are considering legal recourse.
She described her nephew as a "totally conservative Republican" and said he would have found the film to be "putrid."
"I'm sure he would have some choice words for Michael Moore," she said. "Michael Moore would have a hard time asking our family for a glass of water if he were thirsty."

John McCaslin, "Inside the Beltway," Washington Times, July 13, 2004. Sgt. Stone was killed by an American Muslim soldier, who threw a grenade in his tent while he was sleeping.

Fahrenheit shows an interview in Walter Reed Army Medical Center with Massachusetts National Guardsman Peter Damon. Damon lost parts of both his arms in Iraq, and is learning how to use prosthetic arms. The footage comes from an interview Damon granted to NBC Nightly News. Damon's wife says that he never granted Moore permission to use the footage, was never asked, and strongly objects to being used in the film. As of July 15, it is not clear whether Moore's usage of the footage was illegal. But it hardly seems ethical for a film-maker who dedicates his film to the soldiers in Iraq to put a double-amputee veteran into the film without even bothering to ask for permission. Damon complained, "The whole movie makes soldiers look like a bunch of idiots...I'm not a child. We sent ourselves over there...It was all our own doing. I don't appreciate him calling us children...."I agree with the President 100%. A lot of the guys down at Walter Reed feel the same way.""
source

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Random Michael Moore Deceits [#27]

Saddam and America [from Fahrenheit 9/11]

"Moore asserts that Iraq under Saddam had never attacked or killed or even threatened (his words) any American. I never quite know whether Moore is as ignorant as he looks, or even if that would be humanly possible. Baghdad was for years the official, undisguised home address of Abu Nidal, then the most-wanted gangster in the world, who had been sentenced to death even by the PLO and had blown up airports in Vienna* and Rome. Baghdad was the safe house for the man whose "operation" murdered Leon Klinghoffer. Saddam boasted publicly of his financial sponsorship of suicide bombers in Israel. (Quite a few Americans of all denominations walk the streets of Jerusalem.) In 1991, a large number of Western hostages were taken by the hideous Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and held in terrible conditions for a long time. After that same invasion was repelled—Saddam having killed quite a few Americans and Egyptians and Syrians and Brits in the meantime and having threatened to kill many more—the Iraqi secret police were caught trying to murder former President Bush during his visit to Kuwait. Never mind whether his son should take that personally. (Though why should he not?) Should you and I not resent any foreign dictatorship that attempts to kill one of our retired chief executives? (President Clinton certainly took it that way: He ordered the destruction by cruise missiles of the Baathist "security" headquarters.) Iraqi forces fired, every day, for 10 years, on the aircraft that patrolled the no-fly zones and staved off further genocide in the north and south of the country. In 1993, a certain Mr. Yasin helped mix the chemicals for the bomb at the World Trade Center and then skipped to Iraq, where he remained a guest of the state until the overthrow of Saddam. In 2001, Saddam's regime was the only one in the region that openly celebrated the attacks on New York and Washington and described them as just the beginning of a larger revenge. Its official media regularly spewed out a stream of anti-Semitic incitement. I think one might describe that as "threatening," even if one was narrow enough to think that anti-Semitism only menaces Jews. And it was after, and not before, the 9/11 attacks that Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi moved from Afghanistan to Baghdad and began to plan his now very open and lethal design for a holy and ethnic civil war. On Dec. 1, 2003, the New York Times reported—and the David Kay report had established—that Saddam had been secretly negotiating with the "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il in a series of secret meetings in Syria, as late as the spring of 2003, to buy a North Korean missile system, and missile-production system, right off the shelf. (This attempt was not uncovered until after the fall of Baghdad, the coalition's presence having meanwhile put an end to the negotiations.)

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.""
source
Fahrenheit asserts that Saddam’s Iraq was a nation that "had never attacked the United States. A nation that had never threatened to attack the United States. A nation that had never murdered a single American citizen." Each of these assertions is false.

Jake Tapper (ABC News): You declare in the film that Hussein’s regime had never killed an American …

Moore: That isn’t what I said. Quote the movie directly.

Tapper: What is the quote exactly?

Moore: "Murdered." The government of Iraq did not commit a premeditated murder on an American citizen. I’d like you to point out one.

Tapper: If the government of Iraq permitted a terrorist named Abu Nidal who is certainly responsible for killing Americans to have Iraq as a safe haven; if Saddam Hussein funded suicide bombers in Israel who did kill Americans; if the Iraqi police—now this is not a murder but it’s a plan to murder—to assassinate President Bush which at the time merited airstrikes from President Clinton once that plot was discovered; does that not belie your claim that the Iraqi government never murdered an American or never had a hand in murdering an American?

Moore: No, because nothing you just said is proof that the Iraqi government ever murdered an American citizen. And I am still waiting for you to present that proof.

You’re talking about, they provide safe haven for Abu Nidal after the committed these murders, uh, Iraq helps or supports suicide bombers in Israel. I mean the support, you remember the telethon that the Saudis were having? It’s our allies, the Saudis, that have been providing help and aid to the suicide bombers in Israel. That’s the story you should be covering. Why don’t you cover that story? Why don’t you cover it?

Note Moore’s extremely careful phrasing of the lines which appear to exonerate Saddam, and Moore’s hyper-legal response to Tapper. In fact, Saddam provided refuge to notorious terrorists who had murdered Americans. Saddam provided a safe haven for Abu Abbas (leader of the hijacking of the ship Achille Lauro and the murder of the elderly American passenger Leon Klinghoffer), for Abu Nidal, and for the 1993 World Trade Center bombmaker, Abdul Rahman Yasin. By law, Saddam therefore was an accessory to the murders. Saddam order his police to murder former American President George Bush when he visited Kuwait City in 1993; they attempted to do so, but failed. In 1991, he ordered his agents to murder the American Ambassador to the Philippines and, separately, to murder the employees of the U.S. Information Service in Manila; they tried, but failed. Yet none of these aggressions against the United States "count" for Moore, because he has carefully framed his verbs and verb tenses to exclude them.

According to Laurie Mylroie, a former Harvard professor who served as Bill Clinton's Iraq advisor during the 1992 campaign (during which Vice-Presidential candidate Gore repeatedly castigated incumbent President George H.W. Bush for inaction against Saddam), the ringleader of the World Trade Center bombings, Ramzi Yousef, was working for the Iraqi intelligence service. Laurie Mylroie, The War Against America: Saddam Hussein and the World Trade Center Attacks: A Study of Revenge (N.Y.: HarperCollins, 2d rev. ed. 2001).

Also, Saddam's military constantly shot at (and therefore attempted to kill) American and British pilots enforcing the "no-fly zone" over portions of Iraq. The no-fly zone was created to prevent Saddam's air force from being able to mass murder Iraqis; Saddam agreed to the no-fly zone as a condition of the ceasefire in the 1991 Gulf War, but then refused to abide by the ceasefire conditions. (As he likewise refused to abide by the conditions requiring him to prove that he had destroyed all his weapons of mass destruction.) One could argue about whether it is attempted "murder" to break the terms of a ceasefire and to attempt to kill foreign soldiers who are attempting to prevent you from perpetrating mass murder.

But even with Moore’s clever phrasing designed to elide Saddam’s culpability in the murders and attempted murders of Americans, Tapper still catches him with an irrefutable point: Saddam did perpetrate the premeditated murder of Americans. Every victim of every Palestinian terrorist bomber who was funded by Saddam Hussein was the victim of premeditated murder—including the American victims. Because Saddam's reward system for the families of deceased terrorists was known and publicized, the reward system amounted to a before-the-fact inducement for additional terrorist bombings.

So what does Moore do? He tries to change the subject. Moore makes the good point that the U.S. media should focus more attention on Saudi financial aid to Palestinian terrorists who murder Americans in Israel. On NRO, I’ve pointed to Saudi terror funding, as have other NRO writers. But pointing out Saudi Arabia’s guilt does not excuse Moore’s blatant lie about Saddam Hussein’s innocence.

...

Moore’s pro-Saddam allegation that Saddam "never threatened to attack the United States" is true in the narrow sense that Saddam never gave a speech in which he threatened to, for example, send the Iraqi navy and army to conduct an amphibious invasion of Florida. But although Saddam never threatened the territorial integrity of America, he repeatedly threatened Americans. For example, on November 15, 1997, the main propaganda organ for the Saddam regime, the newspaper Babel (which was run by Saddam Hussein's son Uday) ordered: "American and British interests, embassies, and naval ships in the Arab region should be the targets of military operations and commando attacks by Arab political forces." (Stephen Hayes, The Connection: How al Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein has Endangered America (N.Y.: HarperCollins, 2004), p. 94.) On November 25, 2000, Saddam declared in a televised speech, "The Arab people have not so far fulfilled their duties. They are called upon to target U.S. and Zionist interests everywhere and target those who protect these interests."

On the first anniversary of the September 11 attacks, a weekly newspaper owned by Uday Hussein said that Arabs should "use all means-and they are numerous-against the aggressors...and considering everything American as a military target, including embassies, installations, and American companies, and to create suicide/martyr [fidaiyoon] squads to attack American military and naval bases inside and outside the region, and mine the waterways to prevent the movement of war ships..."

Moreover, the Saddam regime did not need to make verbal threats in order to "threaten" the United States. The regime threatened the United States by giving refuge to terrorists who had murdered Americans, and by funding terrorists who were killing Americans in Israel. Saddam gave refuge to terrorists who had attacked the United States by bombing the World Trade Center. In addition:

In 1991, a large number of Western hostages were taken by the hideous Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and held in terrible conditions for a long time. After that same invasion was repelled—Saddam having killed quite a few Americans and Egyptians and Syrians and Brits in the meantime and having threatened to kill many more…

….Iraqi forces fired, every day, for 10 years, on the aircraft that patrolled the no-fly zones and staved off further genocide in the north and south of the country. In 1993, a certain Mr. Yasin helped mix the chemicals for the bomb at the World Trade Center and then skipped to Iraq, where he remained a guest of the state until the overthrow of Saddam….On Dec. 1, 2003, the New York Times reported—and the David Kay report had established—that Saddam had been secretly negotiating with the "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il in a series of secret meetings in Syria, as late as the spring of 2003, to buy a North Korean missile system, and missile-production system, right off the shelf. (This attempt was not uncovered until after the fall of Baghdad, the coalition’s presence having meanwhile put an end to the negotiations.)

Hitchens, Slate. The cited article is David E. Sanger & Thom Shanker, "A Region Inflamed: Weapons. For the Iraqis, a Missile Deal That Went Sour; Files Tell of Talks With North Korea, New York Times, Dec. 1, 2003.

As French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin stated on November 12, 2002, "The security of the United States is under threat from people like Saddam Hussein who are capable of using chemical and biological weapons." (Hayes, p. 21.) De Villepin's point is indisputable: Saddam was the kind of person who was capable of using chemical weapons, since he had actually used them against Iraqis who resisted his tyrannical regime. As de Villepin spoke, Saddam was sheltering terrorists who had murdered Americans, and was subsidizing the murder of Americans (and many other nationalities) in Israel."
source

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Random Michael Moore Deceits [#26]

Bush's vacation [from Fahrenheit 9/11]

Fahrenheit 9/11 states, "In his first eight months in office before September 11th, George W. Bush was on vacation, according to the Washington Post, forty-two percent of the time."

Shortly before 9/11, the Post calculated that Bush had spent 42 percent of his presidency at vacation spots or en route, including all or part of 54 days at his ranch. That calculation, however, includes weekends, which Moore failed to mention.

Tom McNamee, "Just the facts on ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ Chicago Sun-Times, June 28, 2004. See also: Mike Allen, "White House On the Range. Bush Retreats to Ranch for ‘Working Vacation’," Washington Post, August 7, 2001 Many of those days are weekends, and the Camp David stays have included working visits with foreign leaders. Since the Eisenhower administration, Presidents have usually spent many weekends at Camp David, which is fully equipped for Presidential work. Once the Camp David time is excluded, Bush's "vacation" time drops to 13 percent.

Much of that 13 percent was spent on Bush's ranch in Texas. Reader Scott Marquardt looked into a random week of Bush's August 2001 "vacation." Using public documents from www.whitehouse.gov, here is what he found:

Monday, August 20
Spoke concerning the budget while visiting a high school in Independence, Missouri.
Spoke at the annual Veteran's of Foreign Wars convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Signed six bills into law.

Announced his nominees for Chief Financial Officer of the Department of Agriculture, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Financial Management, member of the Federal Housing Finance Board, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Disabled Employment Policy, U.S. Representative to the General Assembly of the U.N., and Assistant Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development for the Bureau of Humanitarian Response.

Spoke with workers at the Harley Davidson factory.
Dined with Kansas Governor Bill Graves, discussing politics.

Tuesday, August 21
Took press questions at a Target store in Kansas City, Missouri.
Spoke with Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien on the matter of free trade and tariffs on Canadian lumber.

Wednesday, August 22
Met with Karen Hughes, Condi Rice, and Josh Bolten, and other staff (more than one meeting).
Conferenced with Mexico's president for about 20 minutes on the phone. They discussed Argentina's economy and the International Monetary fund's role in bringing sustainability to the region. They also talked about immigration and Fox's planned trip to Washington.
Communicated with Margaret LaMontagne, who was heading up a series of immigration policy meetings.
Released the Mid-Session Review, a summary of the economic outlook for the next decade, as well as of the contemporary economy and budget.
Announced nomination and appointment intentions for Ambassador to Vietnam, two for the Commission on Fine Arts, six to serve on the Commission on the Future of the United States Aerospace Industry, three for the Advisory Committee to the Pension Benefits Guaranty Corporation, one to the Board of Directors of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and one to the National Endowments for the Arts.
Issued a Presidential Determination ordering a military drawdown for Tunisia.
Issued a statement regarding the retirement of Jesse Helms.

Thursday, August 23
Briefly spoke with the press.
Visited Crawford Elementary School, fielded questions from students.

Friday, August 24
Officials arrived from Washington at 10:00 AM. Shortly thereafter, at a press conference, Bush announced that General Richard B. Myers will be the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and General Pete Pac will serve as Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He also announced 14 other appointments, and his intentions for the budget. At 11:30 AM these officials, as well as National Security Council experts, the Secretary of Defense, and others, met with Bush to continue the strategic review process for military transformation (previous meetings have been held at the Pentagon and the White House). The meeting ended at 5:15.
Met with Andy Card and Karen Hughes, talking about communications issues.
Issued a proclamation honoring Women's Equality Day.

Saturday, August 25
Awoke at 5:45 AM, read daily briefs.
Had an hour-long CIA and national security briefing at 7:45
Gave his weekly radio address on the topic of The Budget.

Having shown a clip from August 25 with Bush explaining how he likes to work on the ranch, Moore announces "George Bush spent the rest of the August at the ranch." Not so, as Scott Marquardt found by looking at Bush's activity for the very next day.

Sunday, August 26
Speaks at the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
Speaks at the U.S. Steel Group Steelworkers Picnic at Mon Valley Works, southeast of Pittsburgh. He also visits some employees still working, not at the picnic.

Marquandt looked up Bush's activities for the next three days:

Declared a major disaster area in Ohio and orders federal aid. This affects Brown, Butler, Clermont and Hamilton counties.
Sent a report on progress toward a "solution of the Cyprus question" to the Speaker of the House and the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
Announced his intention to nominate Kathleen Burton Clarke to be Director of the Bureau of Land Management (Department of the Interior).
Spoke at the American Legion's 83rd annual convention in San Antonio, discussing defense priorities. Decommissioned the Air Force One jet that flew 444 missions, from the Nixon administration to Bush's retirement ceremony for the plane in Waco, Texas.
Attended the dedication ceremony of the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park in San Antonio.
Announced appointment of 13 members of the Presidential Task Force to Improve Health Care Delivery for Our Nations Veterans.

It is true in a sense that the Presidency is a "24/7" job. But this does not mean that the President should be working every minute. A literal "24/7" job would mean that the President should be criticized for "sleeping on the job 33 percent of the time" if he slept for eight hours a day.

Christopher Hitchens notes:

[T]he shot of him "relaxing at Camp David" shows him side by side with Tony Blair. I say "shows," even though this photograph is on-screen so briefly that if you sneeze or blink, you won’t recognize the other figure. A meeting with the prime minister of the United Kingdom, or at least with this prime minister, is not a goof-off.

[...]

Moore wraps up the vacation segment: "It was a summer to remember. And when it was over, he left Texas for his second favorite place." The movie then shows Bush in Florida. Actually, he went back to Washington, where he gave a speech on August 31.
source
It's obvious that these "vacation days" include weekends. (You can do the math: 250/x=42/100; x=595 days=1.63 years). Okay, 42% is a lot of vacation, but weekends account for 29% of our time. I'm sure that a lot of this "vacation" time is just Bush going to Camp David for the weekend. Can we really fault the President for going to Camp David on weekends? If you take out weekends, you get 42%-29%, or 13% of the time that Bush was on vacation. Okay, this is still a lot, although 13% looks a lot better than 42%. Over a year, 13% is about 6.76 weeks of the year--which is still much more than most of us. But we know that Bush's vacations are generally working vacations. For example, he has hosted visits from leaders like Putin, Fox, and many others there. This hardly seems like a real vacation.
source
Here’s the first actual lie I found in the movie transcript. Not only is it factually untrue, but it’s also wrong in spirit. The Presidency travels with the President. He had daily security briefings ( except sunday). His staff was with him, along with a bunch of reporters. He did work most days, and TRAVELED away from the ranch.

He did not stay at the ranch for the rest of August. He was in and out.

FROM THE MOVIE:

"George Bush spent the rest of August at the ranch where life was less complicated."

This is said to give the impression that Bush wasn’t working for a whole month,and never traveled away from the ranch.

BUT.............

From the Official White House Press Briefing for August travel arrangements;

"While in Texas, he will have a working vacation there. I was going to do this at the end of the briefing. Let me give you some information now. But the President will travel for approximately two days a week each week during his visit to Texas. The upcoming week, he will travel one day to build a house in nearby Waco, Texas, to participate in a Habitat for Humanity event.

The following week, the President will travel to Colorado and New Mexico. The week following that, the President will travel roughly three days to Wisconsin and other locations TBD. He’ll also travel to Pennsylvania that week.

The following week, the President will have an event in nearby San Antonio, and you can also anticipate travel overLabor Day weekend to some unnamed cities as of this point."
source

Random Michael Moore Deceits [#25]

Bush Presidency before September 11 [from Fahrenheit 9/11]

About eight minutes into the film we have Michael Moore’s thumbnail look at Bush’s first eight months in office. Let’s take a look at the accuracy of his portrayal.

"He couldn’t get his judges appointed."

Absolutely not true. While there was indeed some issues where Democrats obstructed some of Bush’s judicial nominees, Bush did indeed get a number of judges appointed and confirmed by Congress. This DOJ page shows the judicial confirmations that took place during the 107th Congress. Every one of these was a Bush appointee.

"He had trouble getting his legislation passed."

At this point Moore shows a clip of an unfurling Greenpeace banner protesting drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve. However, what Moore fails to mention is that during this time period Bush got a massive tax cut passed, the Economic Growth and Tax Reform Reconciliation Act of 2001. Even if this was the only thing Bush accomplished during this time period (it wasn’t) it would show Moore’s assertion to be patently untrue.

"And he lost Republican control of the Senate."

Here Moore shows a clip of Sen. Jim Jeffords, who defected from the GOP to become an independent who caucused with the Democrats. While this is factually accurate, it is worthwhile to note that the first election cycle after the defection saw the American people return control of the Senate to Republican hands, and Jim Jeffords making overtures to his former party to keep his committee chairmanship.
source
Moore claims Bush “lost Republican control of the Senate,” which is only true in the sense that Republicans lost control of the Senate after formerly Republican Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont (shown briefly on-screen) became an independent in early 2001.

Moore claims Bush’s “approval ratings in the polls began to sink” and shows a graph on the screen suggesting Bush’s job approval rating was 45%. This is certainly a distortion. Bush’s ratings in the first few months fluctuated up and down, as do those of most presidents in most times, but the 45% figure Moore shows was clearly an aberration. As this chart of approval ratings in various polls (http://www.hist.umn.edu/~ruggles/Approval.htm) shows, President Bush’s approval rating rose quite substantially in April (when he overcame his “trouble getting his legislation passed” and got the tax cut passed in Congress) and throughout the eight month period in question his approval rating was in the 50% to 60% range, as it had been when he took office.

Moore completes this parade of distortion by saying “he was already beginning to look like a lame-duck president” which of course is an absurd thing to suggest about a president in his first few months of office.
source

Random Michael Moore Deceits [#24]

Inaugural Deceits [from Fahrenheit 9/11]

The movie lauds an anti-Bush riot that took place in Washington, D.C., on the day of Bush’s inauguration. He claims that protestors "pelted Bush's limo with eggs." Actually, it was just one egg, according to the BBC. According to Moore, "No President had ever witnessed such a thing on his inauguration day. " According to CNN, Richard Nixon faced comparable protests in 1969 and 1973. According to USA Today, the anti-Bush organizers claimed that they expected 20,000 protesters to show up, whereas the anti-Nixon protest in 1973 drew 60,000 people. (USA Today, Jan. 20, 2001).

Moore says, "The plan to have Bush get out of the limo for the traditional walk to the White House was scrapped. But according to the BBC, "Mr. Bush delighted his supporters by getting out of his limousine and walked the last block of the parade, holding hands with his wife Laura."
source

Random Michael Moore Deceits [#23]

2000 Election Recount [from Fahrenheit 9/11]

How did Bush win Florida? "Second, make sure the chairman of your campaign is also the vote count woman." Actually Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris (who was Bush's Florida co-chair, not "the chairman") was not the "vote count woman." Vote counting in Florida is performed by the election commissioners in each of Florida's counties. The Florida Secretary of State merely certifies the reported vote. The office does not count votes.

A little while later, Fahrenheit shows Jeffrey Toobin (a sometime talking head lawyer for CNN) claiming that if the Supreme Court had allowed a third recount to proceed past the legal deadline, "under every scenario Gore won the election."

Fahrenheit shows only a snippet of Toobin's remarks on CNN. What Fahrenheit does not show is that Toobin admitted on CNN that the only scenarios for a Gore victory involved a type of recount which Gore had never requested in his lawsuits, and which would have been in violation of Florida law. Toobin's theory likewise depends on re-assigning votes which are plainly marked for one candidate (Pat Buchanan) to Gore, although there are no provisions in Florida law to guess at who a voter "really" meant to vote for and to re-assign the vote.

A study by a newspaper consortium including the Miami Herald and USA Today disproves Fahrenheit's claim that Gore won under any scenario. As USA Today summarized, on May 11, 2001:
"Who would have won if Al Gore had gotten manual counts he requested in four counties? Answer: George W. Bush."

"Who would have won if the U.S. Supreme Court had not stopped the hand recount of undervotes, which are ballots that registered no machine-readable vote for president? Answer: Bush, under three of four standards."

"Who would have won if all disputed ballots — including those rejected by machines because they had more than one vote for president — had been recounted by hand? Answer: Bush, under the two most widely used standards; Gore, under the two least used."

Throughout the Florida election controversy, the focus was on "undervotes"--ballots which were disqualified because the voter had not properly indicated a candidate, such as by punching out a small piece of paper on the paper ballot. The recounts attempted to discern voter intentions from improperly-marked ballots. Thus, if a ballot had a "hanging chad," a recount official might decide that the voter intended to vote for the candidate, but failed to properly punch out the chad; so the recounter would award the candidate a vote from the "spoiled" ballot. Gore was seeking additional recounts only of undervotes. The only scenario by which Gore would have won Florida would have involved recounts of "overvotes"--ballots which were spoiled because the voter voted for more than one candidate (such as by marking two names, or by punching out two chads). Most of the overvotes which were recoverable were those on which the voter had punched out a chad (or made a check mark) and had also written the candidate's name on the write-in line. Gore's lawsuits never sought a recount of overvotes, so even if the Supreme Court had allowed a Florida recount to continue past the legal deadline, Bush still would have won the additional recount which Gore sought.

A separate study conducted by a newspaper consortium including the New York Times and Wall Street Journal found that if there had been a statewide recount of all undervotes and overvotes, Gore would have won under seven different standards. However, if there had been partial recounts under any of the various recounts sought by Gore or ordered by the Florida Supreme Court, Bush would have won under every scenario.

A very interesting web widget published by the New York Times allows readers to crunch the data any way they want: what standards for counting ballots, whose counting system to apply, and how to treat overvotes. It's certainly possible under some of the variable scenarios to produce a Gore victory. But it's undeniably dishonest for Fahrenheit to assert that Gore would win under any scenario.
source
Moore then suggests the Bush team fought unethically in the post-election process in Florida, though he offers no specific charges, and only shows a snippet of a television interview with James Baker, Bush’s representative in the process, in which Baker says, “I think all this talk about ‘legitimacy’ is way overblown.” This implies that Baker was saying that the legitimacy of the election itself doesn’t matter. But that’s not what he was saying. The sound bite came from an interview with Baker on ABC’s This Week program on December 10, 2000. Baker was asked by Sam Donaldson whether he thought that having the Supreme Court decide the Florida recount question would take away from the legitimacy of whoever would be the winner. Baker answered:

Well, Sam, I think all this talk about legitimacy is way overblown. Whoever wins this election, and particularly if they should win it as a consequence of a decision of the highest court in the land, which everybody has said that they—that they intend to respect, I think that the country will come together behind that leader. Yes, we’ve lost 50 percent of the time normally reserved for transition. Yes, it’ll be harder than it normally is, but I don’t think that we will have questions of legitimacy about the president. Yes, there—there will be hard feelings regardless of which side wins and which side loses. But I think the country’s strong enough and our democracy’s strong enough we’ll over come that.

These are hardly the words of a heartless fiend, and Baker is not suggesting that the legitimacy of the election is irrelevant. He is, instead, arguing that the post-election process will produce a president that the American people will consider legitimate, no matter who wins. Moore’s careful cutting of this statement presents a totally misleading impression.
source

Random Michael Moore Deceits [#22]

John Ellis [from Fahrenheit 9/11]

Within the first few frames of F9-11, Moore attempts to deliver with some success his first roundhouse punch, aimed at Bush: The “John Ellis is Bush’s cousin and called the election for him.” conspiracy.

Here is what he said:

"Now what most people don’t know is that the man who was in charge of the decision desk at Fox that night, the man who called it for Bush was none other than Bush’s first cousin, John Ellis. How does someone like Bush get away with something like this?

(Cut to scene of Bush laughing)"

I would contend that what most people don’t know is who John Ellis really is. Moore gives the impression that he is one of the most pivotal characters in the biggest conspiracy in the American electoral process. To see how Moore slips his name into the scheme makes it look as if his hiring was actually because he was Bush’s cousin, and therefore was on “stand-by” to take action , just in case it was a close election. Moore also puts forth the notion that Ellis was the one who made the decision to “call the election” for Bush.

Indeed, if all you ever knew about the Florida vote was gleaned from the few minutes Moore dedicated to it in his movie, you’d surely think that this was certainly a “gotcha”. It set the tone for the rest of the movie. Moore says: “ What most people don’t know...” insinuating that he was somehow responsible for digging up this secret information, especially for you. This first dramatic “revelation” in the film lures the viewer in to an expectation of a movie full of “gotchas”. Moore obliged with more stories, and the average liberal viewer was in for a ride beyond their wildest left-wingy dreams.
The average liberal viewer, or most viewers for that matter wouldn’t bother to take three hours out of their busy schedule to google and read all of the available information concerning Ellis, Bush, Fox, and the 2000 election.

Luckily for you, your humble servant Paratrooper has done it for you.

Here is the rest of the story, as best I can tell.

John Ellis is indeed the first cousin of GW and JEB Bush. (Incidently, JEB stands for John Ellis Bush, GW’s brother’s real name.) He is also a professional election results analyst. For the past 23 years, he has been an analyst for several elections, in fact prior to the 2000 election, he was an analyst for NBC news for over 10 years. He wasn’t just given a weekend gig from Fox because he was a relative, he was actually one of the most experienced election analysts in the country. Betcha didn’t know that , did you?

The next part of this particular fabrication is that Moore gives the impression that Ellis is the guy who got to decide what to tell the anchors in their earpieces. More portrays him as a sort of “lone gunman” type” who simply took matters into to his own hands to report the election results as he wished the would be, rather than how they were being reported from VNS.

Wait a gol-durn minute! Who the hell is VNS ,and what are they doing reporting the election results? Sit tight, I’ll tell you.

VNS is Voter News Service. For over a quarter century , these guys are the single source for exit polling information that ALL of the major news outlets use. ABC,CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, and yes, FOXNEWS too. VNS issues reports to all of the news channels at the same time. It is a tradition to hope to be the first to receive the returns, and report them to the public. Everyone wants those bragging rights in the world of election coverage. Right or wrong, it’s just a fact that this nuance of news reporting played a huge role in the events of that night in 2000. VNS has since gone out of business because of the unreliable service they delivered in 2000.

The other part of the misconception Moore puts forth is that he lets the responsibility sit squarely I the lap of Ellis Bush. Why? Because if you only tell that part of the story, it makes the situation look as bad as possible, which is Moore’s ultimate goal. What Moore does so often is commit the sin of omission , and this story is no exception.

John Ellis was part of a four person team called the “decision desk” team. This doesn’t mean they make any decisions about who should be president, rather they analyze the incoming reports on the “decision” itself, it the context of the cable news header : DECISION 2000. While Ellis was the director of the desk, any information that was to be passed on to anyone was to be unanimously agreed upon by his colleagues John Gorman, Arnon Mishkin and Cynthia Talkov. John Gorman is the President of Opinon Dymanics , a leading national pollster, and an expert on polling data analysis. Cynthia Talkov works for Opinion Dynamics. Dr. Arnon Mishkin is from the Boston Consulting Group, another expert. Now when these four experts received the returns from VNS, they would have to decide of the results were clear enough to make a recommendation to John Moody, FoxNews Vice President of News Editorial.
If Moody then felt the recommendation was accurate he would then pass it on to the anchors for broadcast. So, as you can see, there was sufficient oversight and expertise which led to the calling of the election for Bush. It might seem a bit obnoxious to point out, but after the recounts , it would seem that VNS, Ellis, his team members, and his boss all ended up making an accurate call. Bush did win.

Moore’s conspiracy becomes very threadbare when you consider the following facts:

1) Ellis was a professional election results analyst with 23 years of experience.
2) Ellis worked previously for NBC for 10 years.
3) Eliis actually called the GHW Bush/ Clinton election against his uncle, GHW Bush.
4) Ellis was part of a 4 person team of experts , who required a unanimous recommendation before sending it to Moody.
5) John Moody had the final approval / veto power over the recommendation
6) The data used by Ellis and his team was delivered from VNS
7) All of the other news outlets received the same data at the same time
8) The other news outlets delivered the same results within 4 minutes of Fox’s report.

Conclusion:
Despite the fact that Fox reported first, citing the results from the same source as the other news organizations, it seem very unlikely that the others made their decision based on “what Fox was reporting”. If the VNS data had shown otherwise, the wouldn’t have reported it the same exact way at basically the same exact time. Moore’s analysis is wrong and misleading.
source

Random Michael Moore Deceits [#21]

Fox News and Election 2000 [from Fahrenheit 9/11]

The film shows CBS and CNN calling Florida for Al Gore. According to the narrator, "Then something called the Fox News Channel called the election in favor of the other guy….All of a sudden the other networks said, 'Hey, if Fox said it, it must be true.'"

We then see NBC anchor Tom Brokaw stating, "All of us networks made a mistake and projected Florida in the Al Gore column. It was our mistake."

Moore thus creates the false impression that the networks withdrew their claim about Gore winning Florida when they heard that Fox said that Bush won Florida.

In fact, the networks which called Florida for Gore did so early in the evening—before polls had even closed in the Florida panhandle, which is part of the Central Time Zone. NBC called Florida for Gore at 7:49:40 p.m., Eastern Time. This was 10 minutes before polls closed in the Florida panhandle. Thirty seconds later, CBS called Florida for Gore. And at 7:52 p.m., Fox called Florida for Gore. Moore never lets the audience know that Fox was among the networks which made the error of calling Florida for Gore prematurely. Then at 8:02 p.m., ABC called Florida for Gore. Only ABC had waited until the Florida polls were closed.

About an hour before the polls closed in panhandle Florida, the networks called the U.S. Senate race in favor of the Democratic candidate. The networks seriously compounded the problem because from 6-7 Central Time, they repeatedly announced that polls had closed in Florida--even though polls were open in the panhandle. (See also Joan Konner, James Risser & Ben Wattenberg, Television's Performance on Election Night 2000: A Report for CNN, Jan. 29, 2001.)

The false announcements that the polls were closed, as well as the premature calls (the Presidential race ten minutes early; the Senate race an hour early), may have cost Bush thousands of votes from the conservative panhandle, as discouraged last-minute voters heard that their state had already been decided; some last-minute voters on their way to the polling place turned around and went home. Other voters who were waiting in line left the polling place. In Florida, as elsewhere, voters who have arrived at the polling place before closing time often end up voting after closing time, because of long lines. The conventional wisdom of politics is that supporters of the losing candidate are most likely to give up on voting when they hear that their side has already lost. Thus, on election night 1980, when incumbent President Jimmy Carter gave a concession speech while polls were still open on the west coast, the early concession was blamed for costing the Democrats several Congressional seats in the West, such as that of 20-year incumbent James Corman. The fact that all the networks had declared Reagan a landslide winner while west coast voting was still in progress was also blamed for Democratic losses in the West; Congress even held hearings about prohibiting the disclosure of exit polls before voting had ended in the any of the 48 contiguous states.

Even if the premature television calls affected all potential voters equally, the effect was to reduce Republican votes significantly, because the Florida panhandle is a Republican stronghold. Most of Central Time Zone Florida is in the 1st Congressional District, which is known as the "Redneck Riviera." In that district, Bob Dole beat Bill Clinton by 69,000 votes in 1996, even though Clinton won the state by 300,000 votes. So depress overall turnout in the panhandle, and you will necessarily depress more Republican than Democratic votes. A 2001 study by John Lott suggested that the early calls cost Bush at least 7,500 votes, and perhaps many more. Another study reported that the networks reduced panhandle turn-out by about 19,000 votes, costing Bush about 12,000 votes and Gore about 7,000 votes.

At 10:00 p.m., which networks took the lead in retracting the premature Florida win for Gore? They were CNN and CBS, not Fox. (The two networks were using a shared Decision Team.) See Linda Mason, Kathleen Francovic & Kathleen Hall Jamieson, "CBS News Coverage of Election Night 2000: Investigation, Analysis, Recommendations" (CBS News, Jan. 2001), pp. 12-25.)

In fact, Fox did not retract its claim that Gore had won Florida until 2 a.m.--four hours after other networks had withdrawn the call.

Over four hours later, at 2:16 a.m., Fox projected Bush as the Florida winner, as did all the other networks by 2:20 a.m.

At 3:59 a.m., CBS took the lead in retracting the Florida call for Bush. All the other networks, including Fox, followed the CBS lead within eight minutes. That the networks arrived at similar conclusions within a short period of time is not surprising, since they were all using the same data from the Voter News Service. (Mason, et al. "CBS News Coverage.") As the CBS timeline details, throughout the evening all networks used VNS data to call states, even though VNS had not called the state; sometimes the network calls were made hours ahead of the VNS call.

Moore’s editing technique of the election night segment is typical of his style: all the video clips are real clips, and nothing he says is, narrowly speaking, false. But notice how he says, "Then something called the Fox News Channel called the election in favor of the other guy…" The impression created is that the Fox call of Florida for Bush came soon after the CBS/CNN calls of Florida for Gore, and that Fox caused the other networks to change ("All of a sudden the other networks said, 'Hey, if Fox said it, it must be true.'")

This is the essence of the Moore technique: cleverly blending half-truths to deceive the viewer.
source
The movie then shows selected scenes from television coverage on the night of the 2000 election, giving the impression that everything was heading in Gore’s direction, with state after state going for him until the end. But in fact, even leaving aside Florida, Bush won 29 states that night, and Gore won 20 states and the District of Columbia.

Moore then shows CBS calling Florida for Gore. He does not mention that this call was made by CBS and several other TV networks before polls had actually closed in the part of Florida that is in the Central time zone—the Western panhandle, which leans heavily Republican. Since 1980, the networks have all agreed not to call election results in any state before the polls close in that state, but in the case of Florida in 2000 they violated this agreement. The networks’ premature call—together with the fact that they repeatedly and wrongly announced during the final hour that the polls in Florida were closed—certainly cost Bush a good number of votes in that heavily Republican area. There is evidence from the 361 polling places in the Central time zone that voters didn’t show up as expected in the final hour, either because they were misled into believing the polls were already closed, or because they were convinced that their votes would not matter since Gore was already being reported as the winner in Florida. This depressed turnout very likely led to the close election result we’re all familiar with. One study (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=276278) suggests the networks’ error cost Bush about 1,500 Florida votes, and another (http://www.senate.gov/~gov_affairs/050301_Perrin.htm) suggests it cost him 5,000. In either case, or any similar case, the tight race fiasco would not have happened without the TV news mistake, and Bush would have won Florida without dispute. This point is not raised in the film.

Moore then shows several networks calling the state for Gore, but then says that “something called the Fox News Channel called the election in favor of the other guy.” What really happened, however, is that the TV networks soon realized that Florida was too close to call, and never should have been put in the Gore category. So beginning with CNN at 9:55 p.m. EST, and quickly followed by CBS and the others, the TV news networks retracted their mistaken call for Gore. (For the CNN retraction: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20001108/aponline183922_000.htm. For a useful timeline of election-night “calls” by the networks: http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/c2k/pdf/REPFINAL.pdf.) Fox News, like the other networks, had wrongly called Florida for Gore even before the polls were closed. They did not call the state for Bush until after 2 a.m., four hours after CNN and CBS had led the way in retracting the call for Gore. Moore is correct to say that Fox was the first to actually announce a call for Bush at 2:16 a.m., but the other networks all followed within moments. Moore works hard to build the impression that everyone believed Gore had won until Fox said otherwise, which is blatantly false."

...

"Having sought to convince us (without actually offering facts) that Florida was somehow taken from Gore, Moore says “How does someone like Bush get away with something like this?” and then suggests it is because his brother was Florida’s governor, and because Florida’s secretary of state (whom Moore calls “the vote counting woman”) was an elected Republican who was co-chair of Bush’s Florida campaign. He alleges no specific wrongdoing on either person’s part. The extent of his accusation against Bush’s brother is footage of Bush sitting with his brother before the election and saying he will win Florida (just as Al Gore said he would win Florida in the footage that opened the movie). In fact, Jeb Bush recused himself from everything having to do with the vote-count in Florida, to avoid any appearance of impropriety, so although he would normally have been the one in charge of the final post-election certification process, he remained completely out of it, and has never been accused by anyone of doing anything wrong (http://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/11/08/election.president/).

Katherine Harris, “the vote counting woman,” was the elected Secretary of State of Florida. She was not in charge of “vote counting,” which is overseen by county officials in each of Florida’s counties, and so was done by Democrats in each of the disputed counties in the 2000 election. Harris, as secretary of state and one of three members of the state’s Elections Canvassing Commission, was only in charge of certifying the vote-count after it was completed, which she did. In any case, she too is not accused in the movie or elsewhere of wrongdoing. The movie makes no charges, only insinuations, but suggests that Bush “got away” with something (it does not say what) because these people were in power. That certainly puts forward a grossly misleading impression at the very least.
source