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.

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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.

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