So that's it? Once you cut through the grandstanding and politico bullsh*t that's what he was thinking. Jeebus this guy is an idiot.
The Lies of Moore I've actually refused to see the movie or discuss anything about this a-hole due to the pub he's getting...His fat azz is a joke and it's ridiculous that the left actually take this movie as gospel... The Truth About 'Fahrenheit 9/11' Tuesday, June 29, 2004 Michael Moore's (search) "Fahrenheit 9/11" broke records this weekend, becoming the first documentary to debut as Hollywood's top weekend film — but there are holes in the controversial film's story. For instance, in one often-showed clip, Moore claims that President Bush was on vacation 42 percent of the time during his first several months in office — but that estimation included weekends at Camp David, a common practice for presidents. Without those days figured in, Bush actually spent 13 percent of his time on vacation. The movie also criticizes Bush for staying inside a Florida classroom full of kids for a full seven minutes after he learned that the country was under attack on Sept. 11, 2001. However, the vice chairman of the Sept. 11 commission has said that Bush did the right thing. "Bush made the right decision in remaining calm, in not rushing out of the classroom," said Lee Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana. In "Fahrenheit 9/11" (search) Moore also claims that the White House approved plans for planes to pick up relatives of Usama Bin Laden right after the attacks. But according to terrorism czar Richard Clarke (search), he alone approved the Saudi flights. In addition, Moore says that the departing Saudis were not properly processed by the FBI when leaving the country. That too is contradicted by the Sept. 11 commission, which said the Saudis were properly interviewed. Finally, Moore shows prominent members of the Taliban visiting Texas, implying that they were invited by then-Governor Bush. The Taliban delegation, however, was invited to Houston by UNOCAL (search), a California energy company. Moore also doesn't mention that the visit was made with the permission of the Clinton administration, which twice met with Taliban members — in 1997 and 1998.
And therefore, we need to focus on the science of reading, not what may feel good or sound good when it comes to teaching children to read. This is the most sensible thing I have ever heard come out Bush's mouth. I develop reading curriculum.
When you're talking to a donor who is rambling on, you depend on your staff to intercept and provide a gracious way out of the situation. When you're the President of the United States and you've just been told the country's under attack, it becomes your job to display leadership and do the right things. The country (or SC) didn't elect your staff... you're the one in office and the buck supposedly stops with you. Staff serve the politican, they don't "handle" the President of the United States. If staff had handled Kennedy during the Cuban Missle Crisis, South Florida might not be there anymore. What really gets me is that there are many examples of Bush being an indecisive dweeb (this is just the penultimate example), yet he insists on running as a strong leader.
Aha! An operational link between Clinton and the Taliban/Al Q/ Saddam/ Al-Z. Shock and Awe is on its way to the DNC HQ and suburban NYC.
Those of you who have kids have probably come across a situation where decisive action was needed but doing anything rash would upset the kids and cause a worse situation. Why couldn't he have just said, with that goofy ass grin: "Kids, I've just been told that something very important has happened. Since I'm the President, I have to go and take care of this so I have to go. Your teacher will read to you now and as soon as we can, we'll make sure we come back and see you again. OK?" Then calmly get up and walk out of the room. 20 seconds tops. I'd hate to think what would happen if something came up that REALLY needed decisive, QUICK, action and this boob was in story time.
Cashing in on 'Fahrenheit' Tuesday, June 29th, 2004 "Fahrenheit's" heating up the Weinsteins - and leaving Disney boss Michael Eisner out in the ice cold. Miramax moguls Harvey and Bob Weinstein are set to personally pocket tens of millions of dollars - money that could have gone to Disney - from record-breaking Michael Moore flick "Fahrenheit 9/11," analysts said yesterday. The Weinsteins' decision to invest $6 million of their own money to buy the flick from Miramax-owner Disney is looking like one of Hollywood's smarter deals. Disney bailed, deeming the Bush bashing movie too controversial. After taking in a whopping $21.8 million on its debut weekend, the low-budget documentary is set to rack up between $50 million and $100 million at the domestic box office, analysts predicted. And that's before the film's international release, DVD sales, pay per view and other sources of cash. "The achievement is all the more remarkable because 'Fahrenheit 9/11' is one of the lowest budget movies I've ever produced," Harvey Weinstein told the Daily News yesterday. "And this weekend's success is just the beginning." It's also the beginning of more finger-pointing at Disney chief Eisner. He's already under the gun from Disney shareholders who withheld a staggering 45% of their votes from the media chief. He's sure to hear more for ditching a profitable hit. "I fault Disney for passing on it - and I'm a Republican," said entertainment analyst Robert Routh of Natexis Bleichroeder, noting that Disney spent $95 million on "The Alamo" and it has grossed a paltry $22.1 million since its release nearly three months ago. "Fahrenheit" also gives the Weinsteins more fire power in their long-running feud with Eisner. Disney has the right to end their contract next year and the brothers might seek to start over, outside the media giant. Ken Sunshine, a spokesman for Fellowship Adventure Group, formed by the Weinsteins to handle "Fahrenheit," said they're planning to expand the flick to more theaters. It's now playing on just 868 screens, a small number compared to the weekend's No. 2 grossing film, "White Chicks" released on 2,726 screens. "We also have a long-term strategy to keep this movie playing through the fall," Sunshine said. The Weinsteins aren't the only ones set to bag big bucks. Moore, who is said to have put up zero of his own money, owns an undisclosed stake in the flick, meaning he'll clean up if the box office balloons. So will independent film company Lions Gate Entertainment, though its take will be smaller. Lions Gate, which is distributing the documentary along with IFC, has cut a deal that gives it about 15% of the box office after the movie theaters take their cut. http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/207319p-178786c.html
Very good. For some reason I have an aversion/mental block to the word curricula. It just sounds wrong.
Kevin Drum weighs in and leads one to ask why the Right is so upset about the "lies" in this movie but don't seem to care about the lies put forward by this administration. _______________ FAHRENHEIT 9/11....I caught Fahrenheit 9/11 yesterday. No long lines at a Monday matinee! What to say? The argument over the film mostly seems to revolve around whether it's factually accurate and presents a logical case, a conversation so pointless as to be laughable. I mean, it's a polemical film from Michael Moore, not a Brookings Institution white paper. It's like complaining that editorial cartoons are unfair because they don't portray the nuance of serious policy discussions. Now, as it happens, I thought Fahrenheit 9/11 was a bit mediocre even as polemic, but the thing that really struck me about the film was the almost poetic parallellism between its own slanders and cheap shots and the slanders and cheap shots of pro-war supporters themselves over the past couple of years. If Moore had done this deliberately, it would have been worthy of Henry James. Take the first half hour of the film, in which Moore exposes the close relationship between the Bush family and the House of Saud. Sure, it relies mostly on innuendo and imagery, but then again, he never really makes the case anyway. He never flat out says that the Bush family is on the Saudi payroll. Rather, he simply includes "9/11," "Bush," and "Saudi Arabia" in as many sentences as possible, thus leaving the distinct impression that George Bush is a bought and paid for subsidiary of the Saudi royal family. Which is all remarkably similar to the tactic Bush himself used to link Saddam Hussein to 9/11. He never flat out blamed Saddam, but rather made sure to include the words "9/11," "Saddam Hussein," and "al-Qaeda" in as many sentences as possible, thus leaving the distinct impression that Saddam had something to do with it. Or take Afghanistan. In a lengthy and nearly unreadable screed in Slate, Christopher Hitchens takes Moore to task for arguing in 2002 that the war in Afghanistan was unjust but then arguing in the film that Iraq was a distraction from the real war against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. But surely I'm not the only one who's reminded by this of the ever shifting rationales for war from the Bush administration itself? In 2002 it was mostly about WMD. But there was no WMD. So then it became al-Qaeda. But there were no serious al-Qaeda ties. How about liberation? Maybe, except the Iraqis don't seem especially happy with their liberators. Democracy? Stay tuned. Finally, the last half hour of the film includes a piece of street theater in which Moore accosts congressmen on Capitol Hill and asks if they'll try to get their sons and daughters to enlist in the military. It's a brutally unfair question, but one that echoes a standard debating point of Hitchens and others: "Would you prefer that Saddam Hussein was still in power?" It's a question that's unanswerable in 10 words or less, and about as meaningful as Moore's ambush interviews with congressmen. So is Fahrenheit 9/11 unfair, full of innuendo and cheap shots, and guilty of specious arguments? Sure. But that just makes it the perfect complement to the arguments of many in the pro-war crowd itself. Perhaps the reason they're so mad is that they see more than a little of themselves in it. http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_06/004229.php
from: a study done by the Florida Corrections Commission (scroll down to find the Texas stuff) I graduated SHSU in '96 and lived in Riverside Harbor next to the Ellis unit. My neighbors were all prison guards and told me this as well, but I figured I'd doublecheck the facts. Turns out they weren't lying. Go Bearkats.
Yeah I knew that lethal injections were the method of execution. But the brown outs happened twice while I was in school. Don't know why they happened though. Maybe coincidence? Maybe a moment of silence type of thing?
"Kids, I've just been told that something very important has happened. Since I'm the President, I have to go and take care of this so I have to go. Your teacher will read to you now and as soon as we can, we'll make sure we come back and see you again. OK?" Agree. He must have let Laura do tough things like that. Am I the only one alive who saw Bush's first public appearance after 9/11. It was only a minute or two and I believe it was from an airbase in Arkansas. I remember he looked scared sh**less and bewildered. The next day or later that night they had him cleaned up and he was talking tough like JOhn Wayne. Anyone else see the first appearance.
For the record: IMO, attacking Bush for the 7 minutes in the classroom is silly. It's the kind of attack that seems to reinforce some people's opinion that those who do criticize him do so just because they want to, not because he deserves it. Yeah, maybe he could have handled it better, but to what purpose, and how much better? I know I myself say in dumbfounded amazement for quite a while at the news. On the other hand, those who defend Bush for the ame incident by saying he was projecting calm to a calssroom full of pre-teens are just as silly. What could have happened in the classroom had he jumped up and rushed out? At worst, lots of crying, confusion, and scrambling around? In other words, a usual day at the office for young children? I doubt they;d have really noticed, anyways. Say he has to go to the bathroom, whatever. Certainly one schoolroom full of calm students didn;t alter the course of the country. This kind of defense is the other side of the coin of people looking for something to pin on Bush. Just my opinion.
My .02 cents... About Bush in the classroom...eh. Don't really care. It was more about him "trying to look calm" than really "being calm." Think about it. After all the scrutiny Bush gets on his "goofy and lost" look, he probably tries real hard to "look the right way." Nevertheless, he still comes across as "pretending." And pretty much everyone knows this about him already. The only thing I care about regarding him personally, is his competence and ability (or lack thereof) to communicate his ideas. Plus, he's a little on the naive side in terms of worldly cultures. I would think that this would be something that would come in handy as a president. Heh...
Like many things in life, the movie followed the rule of thirds. 1/3 was persuasive political commentary. 1/3 was deceptive political propaganda. 1/3 was purely emotional and moving. Unsurprising...
Nerve Struck... __________________ MEDIA & MARKETING 'Fahrenheit 9/11' Is Raising Conservatives' Temperature By AVERY JOHNSON and MERISSA MARR Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL June 30, 2004; Page B1 Conservative anger over "Fahrenheit 9/11," the anti-Bush movie by filmmaker Michael Moore, is reaching a fever pitch -- but figuring out how to prevent the movie from becoming an even wider cultural phenomenon is dividing the political right. Some activists want to confront the movie's controversial assertions or even stop theaters from showing it; others, including the White House, are keeping a low profile to avoid hyping the film and thus broadening its potential audience four months before Election Day. The Bush administration has kept largely silent about Mr. Moore's film, which portrays the president as out-of-touch, accuses him of connections with the bin Laden family and questions whether he is beholden to Saudi interests. A Republican National Committee spokeswoman says the committee believes the movie won't affect voters' decisions come November and doesn't plan to dignify it with a response. The White House has declined to comment, saying it doesn't "do movie reviews." "The eagle doesn't talk to the fly," says Keith Appell, a Republican consultant and the senior vice president of Creative Response Concepts, a public-relations firm based in Alexandria, Va. Perhaps not. But some eaglets -- conservative groups operating without sanction from the White House -- have started a late-game campaign to remove Mr. Moore's movie from theaters and its advertisements from television sets. Move America Forward, a new conservative group based in Sacramento, Calif., and formed to support U.S. troops abroad, lobbied movie houses last week to ban the film and urged viewers to boycott it. Citizens United, a conservative grass-roots group based in Washington, filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission last week saying the movie's promotional ads, if they continue to run past the end of July, will violate campaign-finance laws. Such moves may be playing right into Mr. Moore's hands -- and his pocketbook. "I want to thank all the right-wing organizations out there who tried to stop this movie either through harassment campaigns, going to the FEC to get our ads removed from television, or the things said on television," says the filmmaker. "They have only encouraged more people to go and see it." Mr. Moore points to explosive opening weekend box-office sales to show that the movie is reaching beyond its presumed liberal audience. It brought in $23.9 million in U.S. box-office ticket sales in a nationwide opening this past weekend that smashed previous records for a feature-length documentary film. Including the take from its preview showings in New York last week, and Monday's ticket sales, the movie raked in a total of $28.5 million. The movie showed best in liberal strongholds such as New York, which accounted for 12.25% of ticket sales, and Los Angeles, with 11.25%, but it also opened well in Peoria, Ill., the quintessential bellwether city, where theaters were sold out. Key to the movie's long-term success -- and its ability to go beyond preaching to its liberal base -- will be how the movie performs this weekend when the number of screens is expanded to 1,700, up from 868 last weekend. States such as Mississippi, for example, had only one location showing the movie last weekend. Next weekend, the state will have five or six. Considerable media attention this week is also likely to draw a bigger pro-Bush audience wanting to know what all the fuss is about. Attempting to build the hype further, the distributors are planning new television spots to run later this week, featuring interviews of moviegoers as they exit theaters. Most Republican strategists maintain the movie will have scant political effect beyond those voters already committed to ousting Mr. Bush. Behind the scenes, though, the Bush administration debated how to spin the Moore film and ultimately decided to ignore it as late as last week, according to a Republican strategist. Mr. Appell, whose company helped promote "The Passion of the Christ," estimated that the buzz created around that movie by protest groups added between 20% and 30% to the film's take. He urged conservatives to ignore Mr. Moore and says he's proud that most have. However, if the movie starts to resonate with a broad section of voters, conservatives may have no choice but to switch tactics. Indications that Republicans are attending the film are largely anecdotal. Steve Moore, president of the conservative Club for Growth in Washington, says he plans to see the movie and knows other Republicans will too. "It's like eating Ben & Jerry's ice cream," he says. "You want the ice cream but you don't like the political statements." Michael McHenry, a 31-year-old former banker and a registered independent who leans toward the Bush camp, saw the movie in New York with friends. He says the movie was entertaining but he was skeptical about the cherry-picking of events and said ultimately it won't change his vote. "I don't think it's going to change who wins the election," he says. But he acknowledges the film slightly influenced his view of President Bush for the worse. He particularly noted a scene when President Bush is told about the second plane hitting the Twin Towers while he is sitting in a classroom of children. The president continues to listen to a teacher reading a story about a goat for many minutes until he excuses himself. Reactions like Mr. McHenry's to the film concern some conservatives, who argue that not explaining the president's actions will allow doubts to percolate in the minds of voters. Alfred Regnery, the publisher of the conservative magazine American Spectator, worries that the movie's message could sway crucial independent voters. "For the most part he's preaching to the choir, but Michael Moore can be very persuasive," says Mr. Regnery. "I think a good many people who don't have an opinion will go and see it and think, 'wow, this is really terrible.' " Howard Kaloogian, who runs Move America Forward, says Mr. Moore's film rode into the weekend on an uninterrupted public-relations blitz, but now conservatives aim to correct the record. That said, the group, which participated in a previously successful effort to persuade Viacom Inc.'s CBS to drop a television program on Ronald Reagan, weren't able to persuade theater owners to stop screening Mr. Moore's film. http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/0,,SB108855313164051100,00.html
Saw the movie last night, in Paris. hah. Cinema was packed (btw, they have something like one theatre every 100 feet here). I don't know how many jokes/points/facts the audience understood, although there was french subtitle. But a looooong applause was given in the end.
