Sarasota Principal Defends Bush

The key to the movie that has been intoned is that Moore took fact, added his little stuff on the side, but - fact is still the bedrock of the film. Add (as Blatham just did) your own byline.

Only one fact comes out clearly, the unPres has no hope - he is a dunce......

Again, to me, it doesn't even matter what he could have or couldn't have done. Fact is, you expect your president to take action, or seem concerned.
While many in the country cried, he sat there doing nothing. It's just odd.

Googled Jeff Jarvis CNN review F911--
Brown is Aaron Brown, CNN reporter. Didn't bring Jeff Greenfield's--too long. But, he takes Moore to task for inconsistencies.
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Jeff Jarvis is with us. He's a former TV critic for "TV Guide" and for "People" magazine, Mr. Jarvis also the editor and creator of "Entertainment Weekly" magazine. He writes a blog called BuzzMachine.com. And, most importantly to us, he reviewed the movie, "Fahrenheit 9/11."

It's nice to see you.

You hated it.

JEFF JARVIS, BUZZMACHINE.COM: I did, and I shouldn't have.

I'm not a Bush voter, but it is so unfair. It is such a two-by- four polemic that it makes even me want to defend Bush against it. It just -- it also insults our intelligence. Rather than trying to be funny, which is what Moore used to do to make points, it just bashes us. It seethes. And when someone seethes in your face, it makes you uncomfortable. You want to back off. And that's the way he is in this. It's uncomfortable.

BROWN: Jeff?

GREENFIELD: I think this is -- there's no pretense that this is a fair movie.

To me, it's like a Rush Limbaugh rant. Rush Limbaugh takes facts and shapes them around his point of view. I also think that how you see this movie to a great extent depends on how you see the war. Jeff's blog, which a lot of us read, has been relatively looking for positive news, I think. You remind us that the media can sometimes be negative.

People who look at this war and think it was a mistake from the beginning, or worse, are going to love this movie. But he doesn't pretend that it's fair.

JARVIS: But the problem is that, if you were going to do that, the more useful thing to do for the democracy and for discussion would be to give you both sides and then beat down the other side. But he even doesn't bother trying to give you the other side.

BROWN: Isn't this, just to get to my favorite issue, I suppose, isn't this exactly what American politics has become anyway? I mean, you know, there is this -- there is a kind of nasty undercurrent in the movie. There is a nastiness in American politics every day. The vice president yesterday goes off on a senator in language you would wash your kid's...

JARVIS: That the FCC would now charge him $3 million a day for.

BROWN: And you'd wash your kid's mouth out with soap if he used. That's where we are.

JARVIS: I would argue that that's our fault, to a great extent.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: That's our fault?

JARVIS: It's our fault.

We present America as if we're a nation divided. I really think we're a nation undecided. I think, if you look at the primaries, people were trying to decide whom to vote for. I don't think they live politics every day the way we think they do. And I think that we're not as divided as it seems. And something like this comes along, and that's exactly the damage it does.

The us vs. them in them, the them is not bin Laden. The them is not Saddam Hussein. The them is George Bush. And there are people attacking us as a nation right now. I was at 9/11 at the World Trade Center. It's very serious to me. I watched this movie blocks from there. And I resent the anger really at the wrong people. I'm not a Bush fan, but it's still one country.

GREENFIELD: I do agree that this is -- you can -- must put this into the pile, the best-selling books that split left and right. We are actually back to a kind of rhetoric that we had at the very beginning of the republic, where Thomas Jefferson was called an atheist and a supporter of forced prostitution for women and children, where John Quincy Adams was accused of pimping while he was envoy to the czar of Russia.

You can deplore it. You can try to argue where it started, but, to me, I can tell you this. The people who love this movie are people on the left who said, the liberals wimped out on the war in Iraq. The right is tougher than we are. They accused Clinton of everything, including murder. And now it's our turn to take this guy and...

(CROSSTALK)

JARVIS: There's just the problem. It's the same as Air America.

Why take Rush and say let's have our Rush? Why take Rush and say let's have our movie? Why not try to be more intelligent than that?

BROWN: Because I think what they're saying -- I'm not sure I agree with this -- but I think what they're saying is, look, if they're going to fight with knives, we're going to fight with knives, too.

GREENFIELD: Don't bring a knife to a gunfight, is an old line.

And, look, I like to think that shows like this and anchors like Aaron and even sometimes senior analysts try to do exactly what you're talking about. And, as I say, I don't think Michael Moore is trying to persuade here. He is trying to arouse. He's trying to, if you will, rally the base.

General Zinni isn't in this movie. Richard Clarke is only in it in a passing glance.

(CROSSTALK)

JARVIS: ...does no wrong here.

GREENFIELD: And those pictures, I think that Michael Moore's explanation of what those pictures of a peaceful, tranquil Iraq are doing in that picture, it's a little disingenuous.

JARVIS: It goes beyond.

He exploits a mother who lost her son in Iraq. And when she pleads I think to God saying, why did you have to take him, Moore's answer to that is a picture of Bush. That's the you. When the husband says, what are they dying for? Halliburton. It's so two-by- four. It's so unfair.

BROWN: I'm going to stop you both, but I'm going to do it gently because I never scream at anybody.

Thank you for coming in. It's nice to meet you.

JARVIS: Thank you.

If Sofia is so interested in fairness and accuracy, perhaps she should post the overwhelming number of positive reviews that "Fahrenheit 9/11" has received.

Why should I do that when LW has it covered so well? I'm just trying to cover the other side.

"He exploits a mother who lost her son in Iraq. And when she pleads I think to God saying, why did you have to take him, Moore's answer to that is a picture of Bush. That's the you. When the husband says, what are they dying for? Halliburton. It's so two-by- four. It's so unfair."

How so?

No, but it was politicized.

Not quite, but if you wish to alter your assertion or correct it's prior presentation now, be my guest.



Yes, that is a good question, and one which I have been trying to get you to answer considering that you seem to have staked out a position that action was more appropriate then inaction.

Is it just that action looks better than inaction in such a situation? If not, then to support your position you'll need to identify the non-cosmetic benefit of action and/or the failure caused by inaction.



As I refer you to mine.

It seems to me that a leader would not sit still at this time, much less sit waiting for signage. I admit I fear action from a leader who might make a stupid error in haste, a leader from any part of the political spectrum, but this particular time span footage is piquant for unveiling on the screen (no, I haven't seen it) his position on the team. That is my impression.

The school principal who was there said Bush's response and behavior and action--it was not inaction at all--was appropriate and statesmanlike. We weren't there. A documentary artfully designed to make it look like something it wasn't will fool the gullible who wish to believe it.

I wasn't there. None of us were there. None of us know what was said to Bush or what was happening on that end at the time.

I'm buying the principal's take on this. She was there. Moore wasn't.

Actually, it is what the camera saw that interests me.

Right, ossobucco -- the principal is only one opinion. The picture is going to be seen by millions of people and each individual will decide for themselves.

The camera was there. How many prosecutors would prefer witness testimony to clear camera footage?

I saw the film tonight, but the full seven minutes is not played through, so editing is a factor.

However, the claim that Bush's behavior was 'statesmanlike' is not what we see, it is merely what his handlers wish us to believe. It is what they have wished us to believe from the beginning. And it is a very bad joke.

This is a devastating film. Not merely for the countless instances of Bush behaving as a spoiled, petulant, immature and incompetent child-man, but in reminding us of all the claims administration officials have made which have proved false.

It was, for me, a deeply unsettling film. Some of the footage is very gory. Though that is itself difficult to receive with equanimity, what proves far more unsettling is how passive and unquestioning and syncophantic the media has become. Voices here echo the complaint of the administration that the media doesn't show the good stuff. But what we see here shows us just how little of the bad stuff the media is allowing itself to pass on to the citizens.- the soldiers with ruined bodies and lives, the burned children, the preponderance of poor people who are serving themselves up as fodder for the ambitions of a wealthy class, the degradation of the whole mess for everyone involved.

Once again Blatham, you said it best and there is nothing else to add.

Thats true. Its not like he did nothing.

He read from a book about a pet goat.

It is. We were exultant while waiting in line for the second show of the night. It seemed a victory that the film was finally allowed to be shown in America, but the folks exiting the theater looked shell-shocked. Several were crying and our cheers faded.

After we had seen the film and as we filed past the waiting film-goers, it was the same. It is an emotional upset to see what's been done in the last four years... how many people have died, how many lies have been told, how many freedoms we have willingly given up.

And for what?

Are the people who died the enemy?
Are we safer?
Who has gained wealth?
Is this what being American is about?

I wonder if this principal sticks with her "story" after she see the film.

Did the camera show Bush's reaction when the staffer whispered in his ear? Did it show the activity of the staffers during the seven minutes? Did it show what the staffer told Bush? Or did it show chaos and gore and then cut back to the 'reading', with the implication that the president was ignoring the problem?

Film footage can be highly manipulated with a little creative sound and extraneous visual effects.

I'm sticking with the principal. She was there.

The footage is not manipulated in any way -- it has been shown before but not in the full length and it would be obvious if there had been any tampering. There are no CGI effects of little horns on Bush's head.

You must be a much more careful and insightful reader of my words than I am, since I am unable to detect any deviation or contradiction. Since you don't provide any support for your assertion, however, I guess I'll have to remain unenlightened.


It is true that I do not know exactly what Bush should have done in those seven minutes. In the same vein, I also do not know what a nuclear plant technician should do in the first seven minutes after learning of a potential core meltdown. Nor do I know precisely what an airplane pilot should do in the first seven minutes after learning of an engine failure. Likewise, I do not know what a city fire chief should do in the first seven minutes after learning of a commercial airliner striking a skyscraper. I would expect, however, that the people in these situations would rely upon their training, their intelligence, and their gut instincts to react in a way that is appropriate, given the circumstances. Furthermore, I would expect that, in all of those cases, the correct response is to do something in preference to doing nothing.

In any event, after seven minutes elapsed it is evident that the president did finally do something. The question then, is: if acting after the lapse of seven minutes was appropriate, was the seven minutes of inaction appropriate?

Foxy, et al, can't handle the truth........ Be nice, they are going through withdrawal. Even the Repubs have a conscious that this is effecting, though it will probably be totally negated after the spin doctors get ahold of them again -

WHAT YOU SEE IS NOT WHAT YOU ARE SEEING< THOSE ARE BUSH DOUBLES< YOU ARE GETTING SLEEPY< YOU ARE GETTING SLEEPY