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News Archive

Just the facts on 'Fahrenheit 9/11'

June 28, 2004

BY TOM McNAMEE STAFF REPORTER

Michael Moore's powerful new film, "Fahrenheit 9/11," is part documentary and part indictment. It's a furious, but often funny, attack on President Bush and the war in Iraq. Moore, accused of playing loose with the facts in previous films such as "Bowling for Columbine" and "Roger and Me," says he bent over backward to get the smallest details right this time around. But critics of the film, which opened on Friday in Chicago, are finding plenty to complain about.

In some instances, the critics say Moore unfairly implies much more than he says. In other cases, they say, it's what Moore leaves out that counts most. Any 116-minute film so full of facts and figures is an easy target. Even when a fact is beyond dispute, the way it is presented in a film can create a meaning or implication beyond object truth. Ultimately, the audience must become the jury. The verdict is up to them. What follows are some of the major disputed points.

Bush family's Saudi ties

Moore maintains that the Bush family long enjoyed an immensely profitable relationship with the ruling families of Saudi Arabia, including the sprawling bin Laden clan. On camera, Moore interviews Craig Unger, author of the best-selling book House of Bush, House of Saud, who estimated that the Saudis have enriched the Bushes and their Texas oil associates by $1.4 billion.

A key link in this cozy relationship between the Bushes and Saudis, Moore says, was James R. Bath, a friend of George W. Bush since their days together in the Texas Air National Guard. Beginning in 1976, Bath was the bin Laden family's Texas money manager. In 1981, Bath invested in Bush's struggling oil company, Arbusto.

Cops blame 'Fahrenheit' fallout in dog walker's arrest
Cops blame 'Fahrenheit' fallout in dog walker's arrest

BY MAUREEN O'DONNELL Staff Reporter

Some conservatives are calling Michael Moore's anti-Bush film "Fahrenheit 9/11" a load of crap.

But Chicago Police say it's crap -- dog poop, to be specific -- that enlightened them about the passions stirred by the movie.

Saturday night, a 64-year-old man was walking his Doberman through a South Side neighborhood where residents have been complaining about dog owners not cleaning up after pets.

Patrol officers stopped the man -- community activist Sokoni Karanja, a onetime recipient of a prestigious MacArthur Foundation fellowship -- to see if the dog, which was on a leash but without tags, had a license, police said.

But, officials said, Karanja became agitated and threatened to sic the dog on the officers. A scuffle ensued, and Karanja was arrested and slightly injured.

"He just saw 'Fahrenheit 9/11,' and apparently he was telling the police officers, 'George Bush does not control me,'" said Prairie District Lt. Dave Caddigan.

Police Capt. Eugene Roy said "the best way to summarize is he was distraught and upset after viewing the movie, and his wife attributes his behavior to that."

Karanja was charged with assault and resisting an officer, authorities said.

However, Ayana Karanja told the Chicago Sun-Times on Sunday that her husband -- while upset after viewing the movie earlier Saturday -- is a pacifist who was manhandled by police. He received stitches and had a bruised shoulder, and was treated at a hospital.

"Everybody who was in the theater was crying,'' his wife said. "I just assume that he was feeling pain because of that. I know I was feeling pain. But the police assaulted him.''

The incident began in the 300 block of East 33rd Street around 8 p.m. Saturday. Ayana Karanja said her husband cooperated when asked to stop, but that police were aggressive in their questioning, and he was tackled as he walked away from them to go home and get the dog's license. Police dispute that, saying it took officers "about four blocks" to get Karanja -- who did not return a call seeking comment -- to stop.

The incident has drawn the interest of the local alderman, Madeline Haithcock (2nd), police said.

Karanja holds a doctorate from Brandeis University. He won a MacArthur "genius grant'' in 1993 and is founder and president of the Centers for New Horizons social service agency at 4150 S. King Dr.

Moore's facts appear solid. The Bush family, like most Texas oil families, had strong ties to the Saudi elite. What early critics of the film question, however, is Moore's insinuation -- without the smoking gun of hard evidence -- that Bush ducked a fight with his Saudi friends after 9/11 -- even though 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis. The Saudi ambassador, in fact, dined with Bush in the White House just two days after 9/11.

In the film, Moore wonders aloud if Bush sometimes wakes up in the morning and wonders "what's best for the Saudis, not what's best for you."

Air Bin Ladens

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, "Even Ricky Martin couldn't fly."

Always interviews the family, right

Moore talks to a former FBI agent who is stunned and angry that the Saudis, especially members of the bin Laden clan, were not vigorously interviewed before being permitted to fly out of the United States. As the agent points out, in a murder investigation -- and 9/11 was nothing more than murder on a massive scale -- the cops always interview the families of the suspects. What would Republicans have thought, Moore asks, if President Bill Clinton had helped the family of Timothy McVeigh leave the country shortly after the Oklahoma City federal building bombing -- without even grilling them first?

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."

"Voters prefer the dead guy"

Moore mocks Attorney General John Ashcroft by pointing out that Ashcroft once lost a Senate race in Missouri to a man who had died three weeks earlier. "Voters preferred the dead guy," Moore says, delivering one of the film's biggest laugh lines.

It's a cheap shot. When voters in Missouri cast their ballots for the dead man, Mel Carnahan, they knew they were really voting for Carnahan's very much alive widow, Jean. The Democratic governor of Missouri had vowed to appoint Jean to the job if Mel won.

A Taliban tale

In December 1997, a delegation from Afghanistan's ruling and ruthless Taliban visited the United States to meet with an oil and gas company that had extensive dealings in Texas. The company, Unocal, was interested in building a natural gas line through Afghanistan. Moore implies that Bush, who was then governor of Texas, met with the delegation.

But, as Gannett News Service points out, Bush did not meet with the Taliban representatives. What's more, Clinton administration officials did sit down with Taliban officials, and the delegation's visit was made with the Clinton administration's permission.

A family affair

Moore points out that John Ellis, a cousin of George W. Bush, was the Fox News employee who made the decision on election night 2000 to report that Bush had won Florida -- when all other TV channels were reporting that Al Gore had won.

"How does someone like Bush get away with this?" Moore asks.

Get away with what? It's a suspicious coincidence, especially given Fox News' reputation for spinning the news to the right. But only a suspicious coincidence. Moore offers no proof it was anything more.

Frozen seven minutes

Moore is appalled that Bush continued to sit in a Florida classroom reading My Pet Goat to a group of children for seven minutes after being informed that a second plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. The president did not budge until an aide suggested he do so.

Moore got his facts right, and produces the proof. From the classroom's teacher, he obtained a videotape showing the full seven minutes. But what of it? As presented by Moore, Bush looks ridiculous, doing nothing when terrorists strike. But the president's defenders insist it's all about spin.

"Many are those who say that he should have leaped from his stool, adopted a Russell Crowe stance, and gone to work," commentator Christopher Hitchens writes for the online magazine Slate. "But if he had done any such thing, then . . . half the Michael Moore community would now be calling him a man who went to war on a hectic, crazed impulse. The other half would be saying what they already say --that he knew the attack was coming, was using it to cement himself in power, and couldn't wait to get on with his coup."

Man or leisure

Moore accuses Bush of not paying enough attention in the summer of 2001 to warnings of an imminent al-Qaida attack on the United States. The president failed to appreciate the importance of an Aug. 6, 2001, CIA terror briefing, Moore scolds, and spent 42 percent of his first eight months as president on vacation.

The first knock on Bush -- that he failed to understand the gravity of a CIA briefing given to him while he was on vacation at his Texas ranch -- has been a matter of raging debate among political pundits for months. Bush's former chief of counterterrorism, Richard Clarke, originally made the charge.

The second knock -- that Bush loves his vacation time -- came from the Washington Post. 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.

In the film, Bush is shown defending his lengthy vacations, saying he's busy with his presidential tasks even while down on the ranch. But Moore leaves the impression that he has his doubts and fails to include evidence to the contrary, such as a visit to the ranch by British Prime Minister Tony Blair.





 
 












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