Brilliant review of Michael Moore and his movie

[natedogg]

I love Christopher Hitchens. We need more acerbic critics like him who aren't afraid to take someone to task in print anymore. My favorite all-time piece is his article about the Princess Diana/Mother Theresa deaths/funeral coverage. That was a fine piece of work.

This review of Farenheight 9/11 is a classic in the making however.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2102723/

Of a couple of my favorite lines:

Regarding Moore's quoting of Orwell:
"It's also incautious to remind people of Orwell if you are engaged in a sophomoric celluloid rewriting of recent history."

Regarding Moore's "brave stances":
"(But then, this is the guy who thought it so clever and amusing to catch Charlton Heston, in Bowling for Columbine, at the onset of his senile dementia.) Such courage."

Hitchenss...s..s.s we love him don't we precious?

natedogg

[Zeno]

Good Review and a very enjoyable read.

Some more:

[ QUOTE ]
To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of "dissenting" bravery.



[/ QUOTE ]

Christopher Hitchens frequentely writes columns and articles for 'Free Inquiry Magazine' and they are uniformly well written, witty, and provocative.

-Zeno

[Chris Alger]

I'm beginning to agree with his former friend Alex Cockburn that Hitchens might have some sort of alcoholism-related brain disorder. It's hard to tell, reading this, where Hitchens somes off condemning anyone for playing fast and loose with the facts. Here's a three-sentence bundle:

[ QUOTE ]
Baghdad was for years the official, undisguised home address of Abu Nidal, then the most-wanted gangster in the world, who had been sentenced to death even by the PLO and had blown up airports in Vienna* and Rome. Baghdad was the safe house for the man whose "operation" murdered Leon Klinghoffer. Saddam boasted publicly of his financial sponsorship of suicide bombers in Israel.

[/ QUOTE ]
One doens't need Hitchens to read junk like this in every paper. Indeed, five years ago Hitchens ridiculed the sort of people who used it as their stock in trade.

Every word here by Hitchens is misleading. The "years" when Nidal was operating out of Baghdad coincided with the U.S. courtship of Saddam, before 1984. We pressured Saddam to expel, not capture or prevent him from wreaking havoc (and indeed maybe we didn't want him to, this being the time of tilting against the PLO, one of Nidal's favortie targets). So Nidal went to Damscus, got kicked out of there, and then went to Lebanon and Libya. Nidal only returned to Baghdad in the late 1990's, at which point he seems to have been inactive, reportedly sick with ulcers and alcoholism, only to be murdered by Saddam.

Hitchens knows all this but leaves it out because his new job is to make cheap arguments. If he were honest about Nidal's history, he'd have to explain why it's good that Iraq is now controlled by the power that supported Saddam after and during Saddam's support for Nidal when he really was a threat.

Much of the same applies to Abu Abbas, whom Hitchens merely calls "the man whose 'operation' murdered Leon Klinghofer." Klinghofer was murdered in 1985, during the U.S. embrace of Saddam. He moved to Baghdad only after he received, in effect, a pardon from Israel and after having lived in the Gaza for several years, "harbored" as much by Israel as by Saddam.

As for Saddam's "public boasting" of support for suicide bombers, Saddam did nothing for them that other current U.S. Arab clients did and still do. Namely, he pensioned the family of everyone killed during the intifada, the vast majority of his dollars going to civilians victims of Israeli terror. Hitchens also knows that this practice has little or nothing to do with facilitating suicide bombers (if money had anything to do with it, one would think life insurance fraud would be more lucrative).

None of this, of course, has anything to do with Saddam killing or threatening to kill Americans, which is the point Hitchens is trying to refute. Hitchens' freewheeling juxtaposition of "killing Americans" with "support for terrorism" is the same rhetorical recipe he condemns Moore for following.

[nicky g]

Despite finiding Moore more insufferable every day, I agree with Chris that it sounds like Hitchens is losing it. The article is just an overlong vitriolic rant, not remotely good journalism. He does genuinely sound a bit drunk, if that's possible in writing. There are probably some good points in there about the film, which I haven't seen, but they're swimming in a sea of verbal diaohrrea.

[Gamblor]

He moved to Baghdad only after he received, in effect, a pardon from Israel and after having lived in the Gaza for several years, "harbored" as much by Israel as by Saddam.

You're sick. Why would a man leave the country after he'd been pardoned? If he was being harboured by the government, why would he suddenly jump up and leave?

Namely, he pensioned the family of everyone killed during the intifada, the vast majority of his dollars going to civilians victims of Israeli terror.

The figures that have been thrown about are $25,000 USD for suicide bombers, that is, those who deliberately kill themselves in the act of terrorism. The $10,000 payment to the families are for armed gunmen (and armed only) that were killed en route to or in the process of an attack on IDF locations or even civilian locations.

Hitchens also knows that this practice has little or nothing to do with facilitating suicide bombers (if money had anything to do with it, one would think life insurance fraud would be more lucrative).

In relaying the previous story about the man who sent his son to start a possibly booby-trapped car, it should be plainly obvious that money is indeed a far stronger motivator for many people who live in poverty, especially those that believe earthly life is only a conduit to the real heavenly world (assuming you do Allah's work and proselytize non-Muslims across the world - if they refuse, just subjugate them!).

[nicky g]

"You're sick. Why would a man leave the country after he'd been pardoned? If he was being harboured by the government, why would he suddenly jump up and leave?"

Maybe he got sick of the conditions in Gaza.

"Even Israel allowed him in and out of Gaza a few years ago as it accepted that he had given up violence and was supporting the Oslo peace process. "

Abbas: Palestinian throwback

"In April 1996, Abbas visited Gaza for the first time, as part of the amnesty offered by Israel. While in Gaza apologized for the killing of Klinghoffer.

In 1998, he returned to attend a session of the Palestine National Council, the Palestinians' parliament-in-exile, for a crucial vote on abrogating chapters of the PLO founding charter calling for Israel's destruction. In the end, Abbas did not participate in the vote.

At that time, Israeli attorney general Elyakim Rubinstein said Abbas did not pose a threat to Israeli security, and that it would be unreasonable to prosecute him for acts committed before 1993."

Fox story

[jokerswild]

The fact that the Bush family has immense holdings is Saudi Arabia, and has benefited more by 9-11 than any other single entity in the world must be ridiculed. Probably the treasonous Robert Nowak will write a blistering review. Cheney's office will look for more US assets to betray.

The problem they will have in November will be to convince the public again that Bush won, even though he loses both the popular vote and electoral college a second time.

I fear that the Bush administration will simply announce that it won and not leave office under any circumstances.

[John Cole]

Hitchens, by the way, seems to be unaware that Black soldiers fought before the Civil War. See The First Rhode Island Regiment

[Sloats]

I think through his movie, Moore has benefitted more than anyone else from 9/11

[cardcounter0]

Proceeds from his Movie won't even be lunch money compared to the profits the Carlye Group is hauling in.

Couldn't even pay the float on the money Halliburton is getting.

Defense Contractors had a field day with the first day launch of 75+ cruise missles. If I was RAYTHEON, I would be flying some Saudis around the country in my corporate jet for free too. Maybe give them a few tips on what country to steer the terorists to cause trouble in next.
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