Random Michael Moore Deceits [#44]

Cooperation with 9/11 Commission

Moore then tells us that Bush tried to stop the independent 9/11 Commission from being formed and would not cooperate with it. We see a clip of commission chairman Thomas Kean saying "We haven't gotten the materials we needed, and we certainly haven't gotten them in a timely fashion. The deadlines we set have passed," and a clip of Bush on NBC's Meet the Press which makes it seem like he would not meet with the commission, as had been requested. In truth, though, Bush did meet with the 9/11 Commission (on April 29, 2004: http://www.9-11commission.gov/press/pr_2004-04-29.pdf) as did every other administration official the commission requested to see, and the clip of Kean is deeply misleading. It attempts to suggest that Chairman Kean was saying the White House was not cooperating, but here is what he (and Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton) actually said in the statement from which this clip is cut, from a press conference in July of 2003:

QUESTION: "I'm with CBS News. Could you talk about what kind of cooperation you're getting from the various executive branch agencies in terms of the report; getting the access to the witnesses you want and getting the documents you've requested in a timely manner?

MR. KEAN: Yeah, we've if you look at the report that we issued yesterday, we go down agency by agency by agency, all through the administration. And in some of those agencies, the cooperation is quite good, and we got a number of things that we needed. In other agencies, where in some cases we've made massive requests, we've haven't gotten the materials we needed, and we certainly haven't gotten them in a timely fashion; the deadlines we've set have passed. We've got our own deadline; by statue, we've got to report by next May. So we can't brook that kind of thing. We've got to get the information we need to do our work. So while I think the White House is cooperating, I think they're trying to do their best to help us in a number of ways, some agencies, led at the moment by the Department of Defense, is not cooperating to the extent we need that cooperation. Now, it's better than it was, and it's moving in the right direction. But the next two or three weeks are going to be vital. Talk to me in another two or three weeks.

MR. HAMILTON: Let me just observe that we are, number one, asking for an enormous amount of material. We measure material not by pages, but by boxes. And we are getting and asking for not a few pages, but hundreds of thousands of pages. So the request to the executive branch departments and agencies is very, very large. It is understandable to me that they can't handle it quickly or overnight. I'm not apologizing for them, I'm just saying that we're making a very large request. Now, secondly, the requests that we are making are, in some cases, not in all, relate to very sensitive material. And it is understandable by both the chairman and myself that it takes a little while for those kinds of requests to work their way through the bureaucracy. This is a difficult task for us, and as the chairman has said, we must have that information. We must have it if we're going to do our job. We're going to get it. We're impatient. We think a lot of it has been slow in coming, but we understand the reasons. There is a bureaucratic inertia. These people have things to do other than to answer our requests. There are national security concerns. There are conditions that attach to our requests that we have to work out that are complicated to work it out so that it's mutually agreed upon. Under what kind of circumstances can we see the material, particularly when it's the most sensitive material that the government possesses? I think we're making good progress. We've got a long way to go. We certainly need the very strong support from the White House to help us, and I was most pleased with the statement I read in the paper this morning from the White House that the president remains very committed to cooperating with the commission and helping us get the material we need.

Moore has chopped the clip to make it appear as though Kean was complaining about a lack of cooperation from the White House, but when seen in context it is clear that Kean and Hamilton said exactly the opposite. And Kean said at the conclusion of the commission's work that "we were able to see every single document we requested and every single document in the files" (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5488345/)."

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