http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1086991811111&call_pageid=968867495754&col=969483191630


Fahrenheit 9/11 turns up the heat


ANTONIA ZERBISIAS

"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."

— Arthur Schopenhauer

Now that George W. Bush is disappointed to learn that the rah-rah Ronald Reagan funeral coverage won't be extended until the November election — or the capture of Osama bin Laden, whichever comes first — it is time to look back at his least Reaganesque moment.

It happened at 9:05 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, when White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, the man who would, a year later, talk of "marketing'' the Iraq war, informed Bush that "a second plane has hit the World Trade Center."

Bush just sat there, blinking, listening to second graders stumble through a story about pet goats. As he would later tell London's Daily Telegraph: "I'm trying to absorb that knowledge ... I'm sitting in the midst of a classroom with little kids, listening to a children's story and I realize I'm the Commander in Chief and the country has just come under attack."

-more

Most will probably be firmly committed democrats looking for validation of their belief that the Crudwitted Moron Junta is led by a completely crudwitted moron.

However, a great many will be undecided folk, or even republicans curious to see what the fuss is about.

From what we know already, this is one powerful indictment of Bush and his incompetence, possibly even connivance at the events of 9/11.

A large proportion of those undecideds and republicans are going to come out thinking deeply about the nature of the man in the WH and their thoughts will not be pleasant or admiring.

We can expect a lot of violence by the Junta's hordes outside the cinemas showing this.

They're going to wonder why the media was neglect in reporting that it was, in fact, the second attack, and, they will wonder what else the media has been remiss in reporting that is key to understanding Sept. 11 and Bush's lack of a reaction.

Especially the part about "some call you the elite...", was powerful enough to get some people thinking about their party-affiliations, IMHO.

claimed he was any good at absorbing knowledge. Cheney & Condi weren't there, he didn't have any cue cards, and he isn't human, so how could he have, or even pretend to have a human reaction like everyone else in the country?

Just because he didn't care, doesn't mean he was responsible for it, even if MIHOPS like me think he was.

He was supposed to have a photo op, and he did, so he was doing his job as far as his handlers were concerned. Those second grade books aren't easy for Yale grads to absorb, and he'd probably already forgotten that Card had told him about the first attack because photo ops make him nervous.

Terrorists attack the United States, and the President blinks.

(They'll probably court martial any military person who goes to see F9/11. When it comes to chimp's military leadership capabilities, the Defense Department policy is strictly "don't ask, don't tell.")

I can't wait to see the film.

a movie? I didn't know that.

off limit for reasons that made no sense.

If the military feels that a soldier's life may be threatened, I'd say "yes" to your question.

I doubt seriously that they would indeed make Fahrenheit 911 "off limits" - but who knows?

Particularly an undecided or a Bush supporter who hasn't completely drank the Kool-Aid. Pay their way. Get your friends to do the same.

Soldiers can (and do) buy pirated DVDs in Iraq. Once it gets pirated and is available on the Internet, they'll see it. One way or another.

>>Neither is Dennis Miller who says "We should fight to preserve a country where people such as Michael Moore get to miss the point as badly as he misses it. Michael Moore represents everything I detest in a human being."

I prefer Dennis Miller when he was targeting the powers that be instead of now that he's playing courtesan. Tool.

By transferring his detestable characteristic to others.

Excuse me, I have to take an O'Reilly.

It's just that his meanness is now aimed at the left....IMO

One step from plying his craft at Shopping Center openings, dog fights, brisses and smokers. Soon to be appearing at a Days Inn cocktail lounge near you.

I bet he'll be welcome at Walmart openings...

"Any Unions in the crowd? I didn't think so.." Boob boom bap..

...look for mennis diller to play tractor pulls, auto center openings and yes, brisses (oh the delicious irony). One of my favorite mennis diller tidbits:

From A-List (Net gossip):

Miller, Dennis. By several reports the biggest prick in Hollywood. (I realise there's stiff competition for that role, but that's how folks in the business describe Miller.) I hope you got a good price when you sold your soul and became court jester to the Avignon Presidency, Mr. Miller.

http://www.geocities.com/mnussitch/gossip.html

But at least we have Lewis Black ... who, by the way, is playing at Zanies in Nashville tonight. I've had my tickets since the day they went on sale.

are what I detest in human beings!!!

Only a traitor to Democracy would say this

"Michael Moore represents everything I detest in a human being"

So what is it you detest Miller

Dissent? You worthless piece of Shit.

Four very powerful words when you focus on them..

"Bush, thanks to Fahrenheit 9/11, will be recalled as the guy who blinked, hesitated ... and lost the war he started."

How wonderfully precise.

If the only thing that comes from Micheal Moores film is that folks who have never seen the film clip of the Chimpster sitting there like a buffon while thousands were meeting death face to face, see it for the first time, then the film will have delivered more value to the American people than all the blowhard right wing christofacists on every talk radio station have ever.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

Pleased to be here. I was born in Goshen back in the sixties.

For handling facts and truth.
1. Ignore it and hope it will go away.
If that doesn't work then
2. Ridicule it.
If that doesn't't work then
3. Fight it.
If that doesn,t work then
4. Co-opt it.

If one remembers the stages it can help in understanding how the opponent is treating the issue. Also helps in reducing some of the frustration.

Accuse your enemy of what you are doing.

This is their favorite and most deployed tactic, IMHO.

Excellent article. I don't expect a lot of Bush-lovers to see it unless it gets major media play like the Passion. I sure hope Moore has more publicity planned.

I wanna see it on Fox, CNN Specials, etc!

One, that image of Bush just sitting there, clueless, as usual, is the real Bush -- the one we know but that his worshippers still adore. This presents undeniable proof that he is no leader, and that his finest moment was NOT, as his handlers have suggested, the attack on our country and loss of 3,000 American lives. And I can't understand how they've been able to get away with it so long.
Two, if we had a real media, none of the images in this film would be so striking or powerful. The fact that we would have to wait for a movie to come out to have fellow Americans see this is pathetic.

Here is a thoroughly researched piece on the time line on Sept. 11th.

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/main/essayaninterestingday.html

"So what did the Commander in Chief do with the knowledge that the United States was under attack? He did nothing.

Bush did not say one word. He did not ask Card any questions. He did not give any orders. He did not know who (or which country) was attacking, whether there would be more attacks, what military plans had been taken, what military actions should be taken - indeed, he knew virtually nothing about what was going on outside the room. He just sat there...

Military pilots must have "permission from the White House because only the president has the authority to order a civilian aircraft shot down." But if retaliatory strikes needed to the authorized, Bush was not available. If one of the planes had to be shot down to save more lives on the ground, Bush was not available. Although several fighters had been dispatched to defend New York City, the pilot of one of the planes flying to catch Flight 175 later noted that it wouldn't have mattered if he caught up with it, because only Bush could order a shootdown, and Bush could not be reached in the classroom. "



--------------

Meanwhile, the Secret Service had wisked Cheney to an underground bunker. They knew who was really important.

'Fahrenheit 9/11' Gets Standing Ovation

By Roger Friedman

The crowd that gave Michael Moore's controversial "Fahrenheit 9/11" documentary a standing ovation last night at the Ziegfeld Theater premiere certainly didn't have to be encouraged to show their appreciation. From liberal radio host/writer Al Franken to actor/director Tim Robbins, Moore was in his element.

But once "F9/11" gets to audiences beyond screenings, it won't be dependent on celebrities for approbation. It turns out to be a really brilliant piece of work, and a film that members of all political parties should see without fail.

As much as some might try to marginalize this film as a screed against President George Bush, "F9/11" — as we saw last night — is a tribute to patriotism, to the American sense of duty — and at the same time a indictment of stupidity and avarice.

Readers of this column may recall that I had a lot of problems with Moore's "Bowling for Columbine," particularly where I thought he took gratuitous shots at helpless targets such as Charlton Heston. "Columbine" too easily succeeded by shooting fish in a barrel, as they used to say.

Not so with "F9/11," which instead relies on lots of film footage and actual interviews to make its case against the war in Iraq and tell the story of the intertwining histories of the Bush and bin Laden families.

First, I know you want to know who came to the Ziegfeld, so here is a partial list:

Besides Franken and Robbins, Al Sharpton, Mike Myers, Tony Bennett, Glenn Close, Gretchen Mol (newly married over the weekend to director Todd Williams), Lori Singer, Tony Kushner, "Angela's Ashes" author Frank McCourt, Jill Krementz and Kurt Vonnegut, Lauren Bacall (chatting up a fully refurbished Lauren Hutton), Richard Gere, John McEnroe and Patti Smythe, former U.N. ambassador Richard Holbrooke, Carson Daly, NBC's Jeff Zucker, a very pregnant Rory Kennedy, playwright Israel Horovitz, Macaulay Culkin, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Kyra Sedgwick, Linda Evangelista, Ed Bradley, Tom and Meredith Brokaw, director Barry Levinson, NBC anchor Brian Williams, Vernon Jordan, Eva Mendes, Sandra Bernhard and the always humorous Joy Behar.

If that's not enough, how about Yoko Ono, accompanied by her son, Sean, who's let his hair grow out and is now sporting a bushy beard that makes him look like his late, beloved father John Lennon?

And then, just to show you how much people wanted to see this film, there was Martha Stewart, looking terrific. I mean, talk about an eclectic group!

Now, unless you've been living under a rock, you know that this movie has been the cause of a lot of trouble. Miramax and Disney have gone to war over it, and "The Passion of the Christ" seems like "Mary Poppins" in retrospect. Before anyone's even seen it, there have been partisan debates over which way Moore may have spun this or that to get a desired effect.

But, really, in the end, not seeing "F9/11" would be like allowing your First Amendment rights to be abrogated, no matter whether you're a Republican or a Democrat.

The film does Bush no favors, that's for sure, but it also finds an unexpectedly poignant and universal groove in the story of Lila Lipscombe, a Flint, Mich., mother who sends her kids into the Army for the opportunities it can provide — just like the commercials say — and lives to regret it.

Lipscombe's story is so powerful, and so completely middle-American, that I think it will take Moore's critics by surprise. She will certainly move to tears everyone who encounters her.

"F9/11" isn't perfect, and of course, there are leaps of logic sometimes. One set piece is about African-American congressmen and women presenting petitions on the Florida recount, and wondering why there are no senators to support them.

Indeed, those absent senators include John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy, among others, which Moore does not elaborate upon. At no point are liberals or Democrats taken to task for not supporting these elected officials, and I would have liked to have seen that.

On the other hand, there are more than enough moments that seemed to resonate with the huge Ziegfeld audience.

The most indelible is Bush's reaction to hearing on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, that the first plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.

Bush was reading to a grade-school class in Florida at that moment. Instead of jumping up and leaving, he instead sat in front of the class, with an unfortunate look of confusion, for nearly 11 minutes.

Moore obtained the footage from a teacher at the school who videotaped the morning program. There Bush sits, with no access to his advisers, while New York is being viciously attacked. I guarantee you that no one who sees this film forgets this episode.

More than even "The Passion of the Christ," "F9/11" is going to be a "see it for yourself" movie when it hits theaters on June 25. It simply cannot be missed, and I predict it will be a huge moneymaker.

And that's where Disney's Michael Eisner comes in. Not releasing this film will turn out to be the curse of his career.

When Eisner came into Disney years ago, the studio was at a low point. He turned it around with a revived animation department and comedy hits such as "Pretty Woman" and "Down and Out in Beverly Hills."

But Eisner's short-sightedness on many recent matters has been his undoing. And this last misadventure is one that will follow him right out the doors of the Magic Kingdom.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,122680,00.html

Bush was told about the FIRST plane BEFORE HE ENTERED THE CLASSROOM. Card bends down and whispers the news to Dubya about the SECOND PLANE. They really, desperately do NOT want people to know this.