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In an article posted on his website on July 23, Michael Moore misconstrues the 9/11 Commission report (7.4 MB PDF), suggesting it supports two claims made in "Fahrenheit 9/11" when it actually sheds doubt on them.
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First, the filmmaker claims that the allegation that "Attorney General John Ashcroft told acting FBI director Thomas Pickard that he did not want to hear anything more about terrorist threats" was "confirmed" in the Commission report. But the report actually portrays the matter as Pickard's word versus Ashcroft's, stating that "Pickard told us that after two such briefings Ashcroft told him that he did not want to hear about the threats anymore. Ashcroft denies Pickard's charge. Pickard says he continued to present terrorism information during further briefings that summer, but nothing further on the 'chatter' the U.S. government was receiving."
The commission adds in a footnote that it "cannot resolve this dispute," observing that "there are no records of the discussions at these briefings" and that two Justice Department officials who attended the meetings deny Pickard's charge. In short, the report "confirms" nothing.
Moore also asserts that the finding that "White House former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke approved" flights evacuating Saudi nationals from the US in the days after September 11 confirms claims made in the film. In reality, Moore did not explain that Clarke made the decision to approve the flights. Instead, he vaguely stated that that "the White House approved planes to pick up the Bin Ladens and numerous other Saudis," which he insinuated was a decision related to the Bush family's connections to the Bin Ladens and other Saudi royals.
As Moore admitted in an interview with ABC News, he never mentions Clarke's decision in his narration in the film, though he briefly flashes an image of a newspaper article about it. Of course, Clarke was technically part of the White House, but given that Moore does not allege Clarke has ties to Saudi money (he is approvingly quoted criticizing Bush in the film), corroboration of Clarke's role in approving the flights actually undermines the insinuation that is central to Moore's argument in the film. To claim that it vindicates "Fahrenheit 9/11" stretches credulity to the breaking point.
Update 7/30 10:46 PM EST: A version of this post appeared in our Philadelphia Inquirer column today.
Update 8/2 11:28 PM EST: In a longer discussion of the 9/11 commission report posted on Moore's website, the filmmaker essentially acknowledges both of the points made above, conceding that Ashcroft denies Pickard's charge and that Clarke's name only appears in a newspaper article that is briefly flashed on screen. Yet it still claims that the report "has confirmed key facts presented in Fahrenheit 9/11."
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Related links:
-Fahrenheit 9/11: The temperature at which Michael Moore's pants burn (Brendan Nyhan, 7/2/04)
-Spinsanity on Michael Moore
By Bryan Keefer
The Bush campaign and a number of conservative opinion writers have taken an assessment of John Kerry's voting record last year out of context in order to paint him as the most liberal member of the Senate.
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President Bush regularly features the accusation as part of his stump speech. On July 20, for example, he stated that "Senator Kerry is rated as the most liberal member of the United States Senate. And he chose a fellow lawyer, who is the fourth most liberal member of the United States Senate. Now, in Massachusetts, that's what they call balancing the ticket." And on July 7, for example, the Boston Herald splashed the headline "They're Left of Ted [Kennedy]!" across its front page along with pictures of Kerry and Edwards.
But the National Journal's rankings were only for roll call votes in 2003 - a fact obscured by many in the press. And because Kerry and Edwards were campaigning for most of the year, their scores were based on substantially fewer votes than those of other senators. A more comprehensive analysis by University of Houston political scientist Keith Poole of all contested roll call votes they cast during the year found that Kerry and Edwards fall near the median among Senate Democrats.
The National Journal article announcing the magazine's rankings also noted that Kerry and Edwards were considerably less liberal for significant portions of their Senate careers. In fact, as scholars at the center-left Brookings Institute pointed out in a New York Times op-ed Monday, when considering all the votes they have cast over the course of their careers, Kerry and Edwards have been considerably less liberal than the National Journal rankings imply, The Brookings Institution scholars found that Kerry, while more liberal than the average Democrat, is "closer to the center of the Democratic Party than he is to the most liberal senators, including Mr. Kennedy." Edwards, by contrast, has cast votes that make his record slightly more conservative than the average Senate Democrat.
Yet the charge continues to circulate. Commentators who have repeated the "most liberal" label without sufficient context in the last three weeks include Kathleen Parker in the Orlando Sentinel, Cosmos Macero Jr. in the Boston Herald, the editorial boards of the Washington Times and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Bush-Cheney campaign manager advisor Ken Mehlman on CNN's "Inside Politics," Republican strategist Mathew Dowd on "Tim Russert" on CNBC, and Jim Angle on "Fox Special Report with Brit Hume." "Most liberal" is now a contender for the most misleading label of Campaign 2004.
Update 7/30 10:46 PM EST: A version of this post appeared in our Philadelphia Inquirer column today.
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By Ben Fritz
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has been one of the Bush administration's harshest critics, especially on economic issues. But in two recent columns on Iraq, the economist has stretched the facts and made arguments that presume to know things that, in reality, he can't.
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In his July 20 column, Krugman enagaged in a series of accusations that impugn the motives of President Bush and his advisors without presenting evidence to back them up. He accomplishes through a rhetorical sleight of hand that frames all his accusations as hypotheticals, playing off "The Manchurian Candidate," a movie in which Communists send a brainwashed agent to take over the US government.
"This time the enemies would be Islamic fanatics, who install as their puppet president a demagogue who poses as the nation's defender against terrorist evildoers," the columnist writes. "The Arabian candidate wouldn't openly help terrorists. Instead, he would serve their cause while pretending to be their enemy."
With this conceit in place, Krugman then impugns the motives of the Bush administration while still feigning to be talking about the hypothetical "Arabian candidate":
"The Arabian candidate and his co-conspirators would block all planning for the war's aftermath," he writes, and "would arrange for our army to allow looters to destroy much of the country's infrastructure." Later on, he adds that "by repeatedly issuing vague terror warnings obviously timed to drown out unfavorable political news, [the Arabian candidate's] officials would ensure public indifference if and when a real threat is announced."
Despite the setup, Krguman is clearly intending for readers to take these as serious accusations against the President. And by accusing Bush of outright indifference or sinister motives, he goes beyond any semblance of reasonable argument. Instead of arguing that the Bush administration's planning for post-invasion Iraq was inadequate or incorrect, he claims it was non-existent. Similarly, he states that the President actively allowed the looting of Iraq, instead of failing to prevent it. And though he has no access to the evidence behind them, Krugman claims that terror warnings are "obviously timed to drown out unfavorable political news."
The accusations may be true, but it's also possible that Bush planned for post-war Iraq but did so inadequately; wanted to stop looting in Iraq after Saddam Hussein's government fell; and has simply issued terror warnings when warranted by intelligence. Krugman doesn't know what's going on in Bush's head or what the counter-terrorism intelligence is. His accusations are simply irresponsible speculation regardless of the hypothetical conceit.
Then, in his next column on July 23, Krugman deceptively portrays the amount of aid that has been spent in Iraq by the United States. "Last month we learned that the United States, while it has spent vast sums on the war in Iraq, has so far provided almost no aid," he writes. "Of $18.4 billion in reconstruction funds approved by Congress, only $400 million has been disbursed."
While that $400 million disbursement figure is correct, it's not fair to use that to prove the point that the U.S. has "so far provided almost no aid." As the executive summary (116K PDF - see bottom of page 8) provided by the White House Office of Management and Budget for the figures Krugman is citing explains, relatively little has been spent (the letter says $336 million as of June 22, but that figure has been updated in the media), but $5.3 billion has been "obligated," which it describes as "a binding legal agreement for a specific amount and purpose."
Citing an OMB spokesperson, an Associated Press article notes that, "for many long-term contracts, checks are written only after substantial work is completed." So while $400 million may have been disbursed for completed projects, projects representing much more than that amount of money are underway. By only providing the "disbursed" figure, though, Krugman misrepresents the scope and size of US aid activities on the ground.
He owes his readers more honest arguments and facts about the situation in Iraq.
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