Cutting the Demagogue Down to Size

It makes me mad that some people, no matter how incredible, are afforded a better forum to advance their agenda than me.  It makes me more mad when these people are irresponsible with the facts.  It makes me most mad when the public buys any line of crap that comes down the pipe hook, line, and sinker.  Sometimes our emotions overwhelm our ability to think rationally, I guess. 
 
This for the sake of fairness:
 
'Fahrenheit 9/11' and the cold, hard facts
With varying degrees of truth, some conclusions in Moore's movie are up for dispute
09:51 PM CDT on Saturday, July 17, 2004
Knight Ridder Tribune

WASHINGTON – Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11 has been called many things: incendiary, thought-provoking, satirical, propaganda.
But is it true? A close viewing of the film and a review of the record provide a more nuanced picture.

Frozen in time: On Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush was visiting an elementary school in Florida. Two hijacked planes have crashed into the World Trade Center towers, and Mr. Bush is sitting in front of second-graders reading My Pet Goat. In the movie, the president appears frozen after his chief of staff, Andrew Card, whispers the news in his ear. The movie slows the frames, which exaggerates each movement. Mr. Bush remains in the classroom for seven minutes.
 
An interim report by the commission investigating the government's response to 9-11 reached no conclusions about the president's actions. The report said that the president "felt he should project strength and calm until he could better understand what was happening." The 9-11 panel found that while Mr. Bush read the children's book, the government's response was in disarray: air traffic controllers wondered if the military had been asked to intercept hijacked planes and who had the authority to shoot down planes.
 
Saudi flights: Mr. Moore says the administration allowed 142 Saudi Arabian citizens, including about two dozen relatives of Osama bin Laden, to leave the United States after Sept. 11 without proper questioning by law enforcement agencies. In the film, Craig Unger, author of the book House of Bush, House of Saud, says that none of the Saudis underwent serious scrutiny. The 9-11 commission's interim report said law enforcement officials interviewed 30 of the 142 Saudis, including 22 of the 26 people on the flight that took most of the bin Laden relatives out of the country. The report said none was of interest to the investigation. Most bin Laden family members reportedly severed ties to the al-Qaeda leader years ago.
 
Saudi connections: The movie implies that James Bath, a friend from the president's days in the Texas Air National Guard, might have funneled bin Laden family money to an unsuccessful Bush oil-drilling firm called Arbusto Energy. The accusation is a stretch, said Bill Allison, managing editor for the Center for Public Integrity, an independent watchdog group based in Washington. "We looked into bin Laden money going into Arbusto, and we never found anything to back that up," he said. The center found that Mr. Bath managed the assets in Houston of Salem bin Laden, Osama's oldest brother. Mr. Bath also invested $50,000 in Arbusto in 1977 and 1978. There's no evidence that the money came from the Saudis, Mr. Allison said.
 
The war on terrorism: Mr. Moore says that the administration used the threat of terrorism to make Americans willing to give up some civil liberties but that Attorney General John Ashcroft "turned a blind eye and deaf ear" to fighting terrorism before 9-11. While the administration disagrees with that assessment, former FBI director Louis Freeh told the 9-11 commission that fighting terrorism "was not a national priority." The commission is expected to issue harsh criticisms of Mr. Ashcroft's anti-terrorism efforts before the attacks.
 
Bush and veterans: Mr. Moore charges that the Bush administration has cut veterans benefits. In 2003, the administration proposed to increase health-care spending for the Veterans Affairs Department over the previous year. Veterans' groups argued that it wasn't enough, particularly at a time when soldiers were in combat. Congress wanted to add more money to the budget, but the administration opposed a higher increase. The administration did cut services to higher-income veterans whose disabilities weren't connected to military service.

Vacation time: Citing The Washington Post, Mr. Moore says Mr. Bush spent 42 percent of his first eight months as president on vacation. The Post calculated the numbers in early August 2001 as Mr. Bush began a month-long "working vacation" at his Texas ranch, administration officials said at the time. The president's supporters say Mr. Moore failed to note that Mr. Bush met with advisers and other officials and was briefed on issues.

Afghan oil connection: Mr. Moore suggests that one of the first official acts of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who took office after the United States toppled the Taliban, was to help seal a deal for the California-based oil conglomerate Unocal to build a pipeline from the Caspian Sea through Afghanistan to the Indian Ocean. The Taliban balked at the deal when it was originally proposed in 1997, and Unocal abandoned its consortium in 1998. The movie says Mr. Karzai was a Unocal consultant, but Unocal says he wasn't.