Did Fahrenheit 9/11 actually hurt the Dems?

by aristan on Jul.31, 2004, under Uncategorized

I know I’m about to stir up all kinds of s… stuff around here. I know that some of the people who hang out on this blog love Micheal Moore and others hate him and still others are saying “Micheal who?”.

I happen to like Micheal Moore for what he is. He’s a political & social P.T. Barnum, bent on giving us all a good show and selling us a ticket to see the magnificant Egress. While many of his beliefs are similiar to and reflect my own beliefs, I’m not sure if I like the way he’s handling things.

And now that Electoral Vote has started a daily graph of the electoral vote, it’s plain to see that Moore’s latest movie, despite reports to the contrary, may have actually hurt the Democrats.

Take a look at the chart. Notice how the electoral college votes for Kerry drop just before the release of Fahrenheit 9/11 and didn’t pick up until nearly a week later, the first of July, when they finally rebound enough to raise over 270, the amount of votes needed to become President.

Kerry has only dipped below the 270 mark three times, all within a 2 to 3 week span in June. It appears now that Moore actually may have slightly hurt Kerry’s chances, at least temporarily. If the vote had happened on June 28th, Bush would have been in office another 4 years.

Now it turns out that one of the headlines that Moore used in F9/11 was a fake. The headline in question did appear in The Pantagraph, which is now seeking restitution of a dollar for his ‘copy-editing’. The headline in question, which read “Latest Florida recount shows Gore won election”, did appear in the paper on December 5th as part of a letter from a reader. F9/11 stated that the headline was for a news piece in the December 19th edition of the Pantagraph.

In the movie, The Pantagraph page, as shown, was not how a real page from the newspaper would have looked. Moore’s version had a different typeface and a different headline size from what The Pantagraph uses. The newspaper’s name, however, appears in the correct font.

I am no fan of Bush, I think he’s a liar. I can’t stand lying at all, even the right reasons. So I guess from now on, I’m going to have to take everything Moore says with a really big grain of salt. Sorry guys, I know Moore is saying what we’re thinking and what we want to hear. That’s how Propaganda works. If someone is saying all the right things, it’s even more reason to listen critically.

3 comments for this entry:

guess who
August 2nd, 2004 on 3:17 am
You know who else didn’t appreciate some of Moore’s rantings? The Saudi’s! How dare someone portray them in a bad light! They are our friends though, right? It wasn’t 15 Saudis that helped murder 3,000 people in America 3 years ago or anything right?
Moore…ah he’s Micael Moore, what do you expect? One disputable or untrue piece of info…OH SHIT!
Why didn’t Bill O’Reilly bring that up last Wed when the two were debating? Moore has been challenged dozens of times for his facts, and has stood behind EVERY SINGLE ONE. That’s why I wish O’Reilly would have asked him.
Most of Florida, along with most of the country (except Fox News) thought Gore would win the re-count as well. People started calling Gore Mr. President.
The fact still remains that our leader is a fucking liar whose lies are getting my friends killed in a foreign nation. What was that piece of footage from early 2002 that has Colin Powell talking specifically about Iraq saying, “He (Saddam) does not have the capacity to make WMD’s. He’s not a threat, we have him contained.” I don’t know off the top of my head if those were his exact words.
Since we’re on the subject of lying…………..
Aristan, have you seen the movie? You are capable of making a fair judgement about things, unlike almost every one else who bashes the movie yet hasn’t seen it. Being nieve is so much easier than facing reality. The sun that shines on you when you remove your “cloak of comfort.”
So much of that movie is true, and the exaggeration is allright in my eyes in this scenario, because you know what, fuck an A, the news that’s on 24/7 in this country, is hyped-up, propaganda bullshit. It’s about time something came along that challenged this. TERROR TERROR TERROR is all we hear about. A potential terrorist attack is looming. Stay scared and listen to your leaders. You’re getting sleepy, very sleepy. I thought Bush and Co. were getting the terrorists so we don’t have to live in fear!? Oh yeah, the people that are doing the “getting” are holed up in Iraq, and for what? We’re obviously not “safer” if there is a looming terrorist attack.
We’ll see what happens when F9/11 is released on DVD right before the election.
(Note: Aristan, remember no changing your mind on anything, because then that would make you a flip-flopper, and we can’t have that. Having your mind set one way, and then learning something that would cause you to change your mind is a sign of adaptability, and some say that’s a weakness.)I say it’s a positive trait.
Rusty Shackleford
August 4th, 2004 on 9:25 am
My problem with Moore isn’t that he’s a leftie. He’s a lying sack of crap. He takes various clips and quotes and stirs them up in a bowl until they suit his message. He often uses quotes way out of context, sometimes not even on the subject at hand. Sometimes he just flat out lies.

Just one example:

Moore accuses Bush of flying the bin Ladin relatives out of the country after 9/11 during the period where all planes were grounded. That’s a lie, Richard Clarke approved those flights and they were after the ban on air travel was lifted. Bush never had anything to do with the decision as Clarke testified at the 9/11 commission. Many “facts” in the movie have already been proven false. As for the $10,000 guarantee, I doubt he will do that. I’m not talking about right wing people trying to discredit Moore, mainstream outlets such as Slate.com, MSNBC, and Newsweek have had articles on the fallacies in this movie and his others.

Yes, the Saudis are pissed. OBL and crew used Saudis to carry out the attacks becasue they could get visas easily compared to people from other Arab nations.

And no Matt, I haven’t seen the movie. If I want to pay $8 to see a work of fiction, I’ll go see Harry Potter or SpiderMan.

One example on the subject of Senator Flipper: you can’t be anti-military for 20 years in the Senate and then change your mind overnight when you decide to run for President. Kerry has voted against every piece of military equipment that we use on the front lines today like the F-16, Abrams Tank, and Pegasus missile system just to name a few. That’s just one issue, he flips flops constantly. You can change your mind on an issue, we learn new facts all the time. But you can’t go back and forth to suit whoever you’re talking to that day.

Riddle me this: how do Senators Flipper and Breck Girl talk about the cost of health care with a straight face? Greedy trial lawyers like John Edwards and their frivolous lawsuits are a big part of why health care is so expensive and why doctors are leaving certain areas to practice elsewhere. You helped pay for that multi-million dollar home in Georgetown with you rising insurance premiums.
You can talk about special interests all you want, but do you really want to open the doors of the White House to trial lawyers?

It was a good speech the other night. The delivery was OK, it sounded like a Republican with a little sprinkling of liberalism. He spent a great deal of time talking about Vietnam and I commend him for his service. But his 20 year Senate voting record tells me a lot more about what he’ll do as President than some homemade battle reenactments from 30 plus years ago. He’s a tax and spend Northeast liberal. There’s a long list of votes to prove it, there’s no way he can “nuance” himself away from that.

The terror alerts are a lose-lose for the Administration. If they alert people, people freak out. If they do nothing and we get hit, they lose that way too. But if we can stop the attacks by changing security around the banking instiutions for example so be it. Our intelligence system needs a major overhaul, we’re way behind.
Rusty Shackleford
August 4th, 2004 on 9:27 am
Oh yeah, I was really disppointed in O’Reilly for taking it easy on Moore.