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).

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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.

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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."

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