Political Winds

[It’s been a long hiatus because of surgery. I’m back now and expect to be posting again regularly.]

Writing about Fahrenheit 9/11, Richard Cohen of the Washington Post writes, “… it is a farrago of conspiracy theories.” To be honest, I wasn’t positive what “farrago” meant even though I suspected it did not mean “smidgen.” But just to be certain, I looked it up on Dictionary.com. The first listing, from The American Heritage� Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, said, “An assortment or a medley; a conglomeration: ‘their special farrago of resentments’ (William Safire).”

Now it made sense. Richard Cohen, the longtime liberal, was trying to sound like William Safire, the longtime conservative. And he was trying to be an erudite writer like Safire. Well, farrago is a neat word, but Cohen didn’t seem as clever as Safire in using phrases like “utter stupidity of the movie,”"so silly and so incomprehensible,” and “hated his approach.” Cohen even went on to say, “… I found myself feeling a bit sorry for a president who is depicted mostly as a befuddled dope.” Wow. I don’t think even William Safire feels sorry for Bush.

Of course, Richard Cohen is far from alone among mainstream journalists in his condemnation of Michael Moore’s film. Here’s what the normally reticent Gwen Ifill of PBS said on Meet the Press, “You know, I look at this movie as a journalist, and as a journalist I have this affection for facts and accuracy. And even though there are facts in this movie, on whole it’s not accurate.” Gwen, where was this “affection for facts” during the past four years of White House spin and disinformation?

Quite a few big-name mainstream reporters feel the need to remind us of their high journalistic standards as they bash Moore. Unfortunately, those standards seemed often to have been evanescent in covering the Bush rush to war. So I suspect that some of the reaction among journalists is defensive. More important, as Paul Krugman said in his New York Times column, “Mr. Moore may not be considered respectable, but his film is a hit because the respectable media haven’t been doing their job.”

Cohen, Ifill and other members of the “respectable media” miss the point when they accuse Moore of not meeting certain journalistic standards, of unfair juxtaposition of images, and of pushing a plethora of kooky conspiracy theories (Safarian alliteration?). First of all, as Krugman says, the movie “has yet to be caught in any major factual errors.” While, like Krugman, I agree that Moore occasionally reaches too far in drawing inferences and conclusions based on the facts and circumstances outlined in the film (e.g., the Unocal pipeline as a major factor in the Afghanistan war), I also concur that Moore “tells essential truths.” Moore assembles a series of images and sounds into a two-hour bill of particulars against a presidency. The pictures and interviews add up to a powerful indictment of the Bush administration - even without Moore’s sometimes over-the-top narration. Moore didn’t fabricate the video of Bush shakily reading to a school class for seven minutes after being told that the US was under attack. He didn’t manufacture the pictures reflecting the uncomfortably cozy relationship between the Bushes and the Saudis before and after 9/11. He didn’t make up the heretofore virtually unseen video of African-American members of Congress trying unsuccessfully to get the Senate to consider their objections to the Florida vote and black voter disenfranchisement while the Senate was doing its pro forma certification of the electoral college outcome. Moore didn’t invent the tape of Bush’s offensive - and telling - smirking and winking at various times. And of course he didn’t stage the video of the dead and wounded in Iraq and the grief and anger of the patriotic mother who lost her son there.

Despite all the solid documentary evidence Moore presents, the film is not a documentary. It is a commentary, a polemic, an essay. So, allow me to point out to you, Richard Cohen, that Fahrenheit 9/11 is not merely attempting a recitation of facts. You have to use your noggin a little (even though it must be said that Moore is no master of sublety). You didn’t do that, Richard, and that’s why you were outraged that the pictures of prewar Iraq depicted “some sort of Arab folk festival — lots of happy, smiling, indigenous people.” The point Richard, was not that life was great under Saddam but that millions of average people would be affected and thousands would be killed in the war. And that, my liberal and journalistically stringent friend, may not always be a reason to avoid war, but it should have been part of the calculation of Bush, the media, and the American people in evaluating whether the Iraq war was one we absolutely had to fight.

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Happy July 4th to all of you! And speaking of July 4th and the values it represents, the Republicans are at it again with one of their tried and true “wedge issues” - the flag-burning amendment. Dick Cheney is saying that John Kerry’s votes against the amendment prove that he’s “out of touch with the conservative values of the heartland.” You see, Kerry’s been talking about how he would “honor the values that built our country.” The GOP doesn’t like Democrats bringing up values. For a useful perspective on real American values, read Walter Isaacson’s excellent op-ed essay in today’s New York Times. He explains that when the Declaration of Independence said the new states should show “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind,” it was a reflection of the founders’ belief that the country had to appeal “to the values and the ideals of potential allies.” Isaacson goes on to say,

These are the same values — liberty and aversion to tyranny — that America still shares with the French and our other natural allies. But unlike the founders, we are not as willing to court the hearts and minds of others. Rather than caring for the opinions of mankind, President Bush jokes, “Call my lawyer,” when the concept of international law is raised. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld saw little need to distribute the Geneva Convention rules to American soldiers dealing with prisoners.

Machiavelli famously advised his prince that it was better to be feared than loved. By that standard, the United States is doing rather well. Alas, this is not a formula for winning a war against terrorism and the spread of dangerous weapons. We need allies who will want to help not because we scare them but because they share our values.

This will require leadership that values the role of diplomacy and doesn’t scoff at international law.

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Today’s Worth Checking Out

Speaking of our timid mainstream (especially TV) media, read about one reporter who did ask Bush some tough questions and tried to get the answers. Unfortunately, she doesn’t work for ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, MSNBC or (is it even worth mentioning) Fox. Carole Coleman is the Washington correspondent for RTE, the Irish public TV network. Our president got very irritated with her. You can also watch the interview on RTE’s site.

William Greider has an intriguing piece in The Nation about “embedded patriots” - highly placed government officials - who have been leaking documents that have “provided forceful and well-timed contradictions to the White House line.”

John Judis’ article entitled “Imperial Amnesia” in the current issue of Foreign Policy analyzes Bush’s revisionist history of US involvement in the Phillippines and puts it in the context of Iraq.

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