I see that the “Poor Man already covered this”:http://www.thepoorman.net/archives/002866.html . No matter, it is worth the repetition. “Krugman on responses to Farenheit 9/11”:http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/02/opinion/02KRUG.html :
bq. There has been much tut-tutting by pundits who complain that the movie, though it has yet to be caught in any major factual errors, uses association and innuendo to create false impressions. Many of these same pundits consider it bad form to make a big fuss about the Bush administration’s use of association and innuendo to link the Iraq war to 9/11. Why hold a self-proclaimed polemicist to a higher standard than you hold the president of the United States?
{ 41 comments }
Captain Obvious 07.02.04 at 12:59 pm
I’m looking in your direction, Nick Kristof.
Steve Carr 07.02.04 at 1:11 pm
How about those of us who don’t consider it bad form to make a big fuss about the Bush administration’s use of innuendo and association? Are we at least allowed to criticize (I never tut-tut) Moore for his deceit and his hamhanded reliance on dubious conspiracy theories, tactics that are, in fact, bizarrely reminiscent of Messrs. Bush and Cheney?
In a broader sense, and I realize this will sound hopelessly naive, I’d like to think that artists and thinkers have a responsibility (if only to themselves) to be as honest as possible, which is to say that they have a responsibility not to say things that they know are untrue or deceitful. Moore fails this test time and again.
David 07.02.04 at 1:50 pm
Is the standard now to judge Democratic (or left) activities by the dirty tricks of Republican (or right) activists, as Krugman seems to do?
Do you really want to place yourself at the level of, say, Gordon Liddy, David Bossie, Roger Stone, or the late Lee Atwater?
shiva 07.02.04 at 2:12 pm
Um, Krugman isn’t asking pundits to hold Moore to Liddy or Bossie or Stone or Atwater’s standards. He’s asking them to hold Moore to the standard that they have set for the President of the United States.
Which is the least they can do, since I always thought that heads of state were held to higher standards than everyone else.
Maybe that only works for Bill Clinton. Yeah, that must be it.
pfknc 07.02.04 at 2:40 pm
Yeah, let’s hold Moore to the Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rice standard and let the chips fall where they may. Moore obviously has a vision and is going to lead.
David 07.02.04 at 2:43 pm
So the bad behavior of one (Bush’s liberties with the truth) somehow excuses the bad behavior of the other (Moore’s liberties with the truth)?
Dubious.
David 07.02.04 at 2:47 pm
I’d think that habitual inaccuracy and conspiracy-mongering would provide your opponent an exploitable advantage.
Why give him or her the stick to beat you with?
Keith 07.02.04 at 2:49 pm
Are we at least allowed to criticize (I never tut-tut) Moore for his deceit and his hamhanded reliance on dubious conspiracy theories, tactics that are, in fact, bizarrely reminiscent of Messrs. Bush and Cheney?
Have you never heard of satire? Everyone is so busy shouting, “Michael Moore says the only way to solve the potato famine is to eat Irish babies!!!” that they miss the point: he’s using right wing tactics against them, spreading factual information the same way they spread GOP fog.
Chris Bertram 07.02.04 at 2:54 pm
Oh dear, it seems as if this quotation from Krugman challenges the reading skills of some of our commenters.
Nothing in the two quoted sentences expresses approval of Moore or of his film (though some highly qualified approval appears elsewhere in Krugman’s article). Krugman merely makes the point that it is perverse for those who are willing (indeed happy) to tolerate the misleading use of association and innuendo by the government of the United States to get as upset as many of them are getting on account of the use of association and innuendo by Moore.
That point is perfectly consistent with also believing Moore’s film to be execrably bad. (I’ve no idea whether it is or not.) Is that so hard to understand?
yamamoto 07.02.04 at 3:13 pm
“Nothing in the two quoted sentences expresses approval of Moore or of his film (though some highly qualified approval appears elsewhere in Krugman’s article).”
Krugman is simply calling (most) of the pundits who criticize the film soft on Bush. It’s that familiar “you are either for us or you’re against us” type of reasoning. If you’re a leftie, you don’t criticize Moore’s film.
mc 07.02.04 at 3:18 pm
It’s starting to sound like a rehash of the furore over Day After Tomorrow being guilty of being a film. Except Fahrenheit is not a fictitious plot. Not a National Geographic documentary, ok, but not exactly sci-fi either, is it?
I’m trying to understand one thing. Can those not getting Krugman’s point please explain at which stage exactly do “association & innuendos” morph into “lies and deceit” and “conspiracy theories”?
Also, how exactly do even the existing full-blown conspiracy theories – not Moore, the theories out there, in general – affect the political state of affairs in the US? On what planet does _anything_ get to have more serious effects to answer for than billions of dollars spent and troops deployed and countries bombed?
Henry 07.02.04 at 3:20 pm
bq. It’s that familiar “you are either for us or you’re against us†type of reasoning. If you’re a leftie, you don’t criticize Moore’s film.
Nope – read Krugman’s article again. He describes the film as flawed, and says that he would take issue with several claims within it – but also makes the simple point that many of its critics have been giving Bush a free pass for the distortions and flat-out lies that he’s been responsible for. Or do you disagree? Which are worse – incorrect conspiracy theories peddled by a self-proclaimed polemicist in order to inflame voters, or incorrect conspiracy theories peddled by a President to justify a war? Tell me, please.
Steve Carr 07.02.04 at 3:20 pm
Chris, “for all its flaws, Fahrenheit 9/11 performs an essential service” is not highly qualified approval. It’s barely qualified approval. And in any case, no one’s reading skills have been challenged. You’re being utterly disingenuous in your use of Krugman’s column. There are two ways to make a point about the comparisons between Moore and Bush. The first is to say, yes, Moore is deceitful and dishonest, and we should take him to task for this, but we should also hold the Bush administration to that standard, too. That way is consistent with saying that the film is execrably bad (which it isn’t — it’s just deceitful and muddleheaded).
The second way is to say, well, if you let the Bush administration get away with stuff, you should let Moore get away with it, too, especially because although there are a few problems with the movie, he’s right about the larger questions. That’s what Krugman does, and it is not consistent with saying Moore’s film is execrably bad. Krugman’s lede is not designed to be a serious discussion of how high the standards by which we judge political statements should be. It’s intended to score a cheap rhetorical point in order to set up his praise of Moore’s movie. And that becomes clear in the sentence right after the passage you quote.
In any case, the question I asked was whether those of us who are neither willing nor happy to tolerate the Bush administration’s use of innuendo can attack Moore without being told we’re missing the point.
Steve Carr 07.02.04 at 3:30 pm
Henry, first of all, it’s not a question of “incorrect.” It’s a question of willfully deceitful, which is what both Moore’s movie and the Bush administration’s association of Iraq with al Qaeda are. As for your question, yes, the second is worse. But so what? Is that supposed to justify Moore’s deceit? And what is this “self-proclaimed polemicist” crap? If I proclaim myself a polemicist, that means I can go around making false statements and dubious innuendo and get a pass for it?
Henry 07.02.04 at 3:42 pm
No, it’s not – and if you look back a couple of days, you’ll see that I had some pretty harsh words for Moore’s film myself. But the burden of Krugman’s argument isn’t that Moore should get a free pass – it’s that even if the film is seriously flawed, much of its core message (Bush’s lies about the war, and his radical disconnection from the poor and working class in America) is true, and is getting an important message across. On this I’m in complete agreement – I’m more overtly critical of Moore’s film than Krugman is – but then the burden of my argument in my post was different from his (I take it for granted that most CT readers are familiar with the arguments about Bush’s behaviour that Krugman makes, even those who don’t agree with them).
You seem to be reading Krugman’s piece as denying room to anyone who wants to criticize the lies on both sides. I didn’t pick that up at all – the only criticism he makes afaics is of those who want to find fault with Moore, while giving a free pass to Bush.
As for the self-proclaimed polemicist, the point isn’t that Moore should be immune to criticism – dunno at all how you got that out of my comment. It’s that whatever lies or distortions he’s responsible for are likely to have much less serious effects than the lies or distortions that a President of the US is responsible for.
eszter 07.02.04 at 3:51 pm
Thanks for posting this, Chris. Count me among those who get it. I will say, however, that reading some of the comments above is a helpful reality check. ARGH.
motoko kusanagi 07.02.04 at 4:18 pm
Count me among those who think Krugman is wrong here. It’s a tu quoque.
Bill G 07.02.04 at 4:21 pm
Congratulations to Eszter for conveying the maximum amount of annoyingly self-righteous, self-congratulatory nonsense in the minimum amount of words.
Brian Weatherson 07.02.04 at 4:32 pm
I don’t see what is so hard to get about Krugman’s line here. He’s accusing other people of having double standards. That’s not at all to say that both the standards are wrong. In fact it’s perfectly consistent to say that the standard conservatives are correctly holding Moore to is the standard they (and everyone) should be holding Bush to. That wouldn’t even count as qualified approval of the film.
As for the ‘essential service’ line, one can think that X provides an essential service without approving at all of how X provides it, and indeed quite strongly disapproving of it. Some days that’s how I feel about WalMart, for example. I’m not sure I’d _write_ “For all it’s flaws, WalMart provides an essential service,” but I could be persuaded that it’s _true_.
Steve Carr 07.02.04 at 4:37 pm
Henry, how does Fahrenheit 9/11 convey Bush’s “radical disconnection from the poor and working class”? I have no doubt that Bush is completely disconnected from the working class, but what in the movie demonstrates this? The fact that Flint is poor? Considering that Flint has been poor for two and a half decades, I think laying this one at the feet of Bush is a bit much — especially since there’s almost nothing in the film about Bush’s economic policies. The fact that Bush is rich? Unless wealth is per se seen as a disqualification, I can’t see how this demonstrates anything one way or the other.
Moore makes much of the fact that the military is drawn primarily from the working class and the poor. But this is has zero bearing on whether or not the war in Iraq was a good idea or not. If we went to war under false pretenses, as we did, then it would have been a bad idea regardless of who was in the military. Bush’s lies would not have been more excusable if there were a draft. Conversely, was the war against Afghanistan unjust because working-class soldiers fought it? There’s certainly a case to be made for a draft, but Moore doesn’t make it, and it is in case a nonsequitur if he’s trying to make a point about Iraq. He does try to make some vague argument that if more congressmen had sons in uniform, they wouldn’t have rushed to war, but that dog won’t hunt. There was no meaningful class division on the question of whether war in Iraq was justified.
As for Bush’s lies about the war, is that really the core message? Except for the stuff about the Bush administration downplaying Saddam’s WMD potential before 9/11, and a short take on the putative al-Qaeda/Iraq connection, there’s no substantive argument in the movie against the war. It’s just assumed that it was a bad idea.
David 07.02.04 at 4:51 pm
Elsewhere, Krugman says:
“Or consider the Bush family’s ties to the Saudis. The film suggests that Mr. Bush and his good friend Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the ambassador known to the family as Bandar Bush, have tried to cover up the extent of Saudi involvement in terrorism. This may or may not be true. But what shocks people, I think, is the fact that nobody told them about this side of Mr. Bush’s life.” (my emphasis)
But this “side” of Bush’s life has been covered ad nauseam by the major US papers and magazines since 9/11 (to say nothing about the major European news sources). What new facts, not innuendo or accusation, does Moore bring to the table?
I MUCH prefer Nicholas Kristof’s reaction to the sort of nutty leftism that Michael Moore represents.
Steve Carr 07.02.04 at 5:06 pm
To follow up on David’s point, it’s also the case that the “facts” that Moore uses in the Saudi section are some of the few outright lies in the film. Saudi Arabia does not have $860 billion or a trillion dollars invested in the U.S. It does not own 6-7 percent of the U.S. stock market, let alone the U.S. economy. And Saudi Arabia did not invest $1.4 billion in enterprises owned by Bush family members or associates. These numbers are all central to Moore’s “argument” about Bush’s indebtedness to the Saudis and Saudi influence over the U.S., and they’re all wrong.
bob mcmanus 07.02.04 at 6:09 pm
“Someday, when the crisis of American democracy is over”
Perhaps the column should be viewed in the light of this phrase, which I take very seriously indeed. Not “a crisis”, but “the crisis”. These arguments over fairness and accuracy are rather trivial, as Krugman says.
Even those who appreciate Krugman I believe fail to take him at his word, and seriously enough.
Jeremy Osner 07.02.04 at 6:48 pm
Bob — that was the bit of the article that seized my attention as well. Thanks for the reminder.
Jim Harrison 07.02.04 at 6:51 pm
It is amazing to me that people don’t recognize that the practically important issue here has nothing to do with freedom of information or reasoned speech. It has to do with restoring, if only to some tiny degree, a balance in the propaganda war. The administration’s supporters literally own the American media, and they have filled airtime with patriotic nonsense and misinformation. One can and should argue against Bush et. co., but arguments are not enough. Unless you’re determined to lose, you simply have to figure out to counter your opponents highly effective propaganda with your own inflamatory images and enlessly repeated sound bytes.
Does that imply that one must copy the enemy’s methods. Of course it does. You have to be vain indeed to think that you can define the terms of engagement by sheer highmindedness.
Dan 07.02.04 at 6:56 pm
steve carr wrote: “the ‘facts’ that Moore uses in the Saudi section are some of the few outright lies in the film.”
As Moore does not clearly cite any source for his “facts” regarding Saudi money in the United States, perhaps Mr. Carr would be so kind as to provide some citation (or at least direct us to one) that would falsify Moore’s claims. I’d like to know one way or the other the amount of Saudi money in the US economy. As Mr. Carr asserts with conviction that Moore’s numbers are “all wrong,” I assume he has the correct numbers somewhere.
Extradite the Neocons 07.02.04 at 7:31 pm
If you’re a leftie, you don’t criticize Moore’s film.
Funny, a tour of left Blogistan dispatches that assumption pretty quickly.
Extradite the Neocons 07.02.04 at 7:34 pm
It’s a tu quoque.
Wrong: there’s a third party being addressed.
David 07.02.04 at 7:35 pm
Here’s a response to one claim:
“The Bush-bin Laden family connection.
Moore’s film suggests that Bush has close family ties to the bin Laden family—principally through Bush’s father’s relationship with the Carlyle Group, a private investment firm. The president’s father, George H.W. Bush, was a senior adviser to the Carlyle Group’s Asian affiliate until recently; members of the bin Laden family—who own one of Saudi Arabia’s biggest construction firms—had invested $2 million in a Carlyle Group fund. Bush Sr. and the bin Ladens have since severed ties with the Carlyle Group, which in any case has a bipartisan roster of partners, including Bill Clinton’s former SEC chairman Arthur Levitt. The movie quotes author Dan Briody claiming that the Carlyle Group “gained” from September 11 because it owned United Defense, a military contractor. Carlyle Group spokesman Chris Ullman notes that United Defense holds a special distinction among U.S. defense contractors that is not mentioned in Moore’s movie: the firm’s $11 billion Crusader artillery rocket system developed for the U.S. Army is one of the only weapons systems canceled by the Bush administration.”
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5251769/site/newsweek/
I hope Spinsanity (who’ve written quite a bit about Moore’s inaccuracies) will devote a piece or two to the topic.
http://www.spinsanity.org/
David 07.02.04 at 7:42 pm
Here’s a followup to that short MSNBC piece:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5335853/site/newsweek/site/newsweek
Extradite the Neocons 07.02.04 at 7:58 pm
Actually, Dan, the claims on Saudi money are made by a Congressman in the film.
The film’s detractors (and their echo-chamber) not only switch Moore for the speaker, they then change ‘Saudi’ for ‘Fahd’ and then claim Mooremustbelyingsonothingheeversayscaneverevereverbetrustedagaindon’tseethismovie, when they could have just written ‘CTRL-V’ and we would have gotten the point.
par example
http://www.lebanonwire.com/0208/02082002TGR.asp
Extradite the Neocons 07.02.04 at 8:14 pm
Here’s another one:
http://tinyurl.com/2y3nz
yamamoto 07.02.04 at 8:19 pm
Henry He [Krugman] describes the film as flawed, and says that he would take issue with several claims within it – but also makes the simple point that many of its critics have been giving Bush a free pass for the distortions and flat-out lies that he’s been responsible for.”
It’s clear to me from the first paragraph that Krugman is taking “critics, especially the nervous liberals rushing to disassociate themselves from Michael Moore” to task. He does so by associating them with pundits soft on Bush.
Steve Carr 07.02.04 at 8:34 pm
Best estimates are that the Saudis have around $450-$600 billion in investments in the U.S., not $860 billion (which Craig Unger pulls out of the air) or a trillion (which Moore says):
http://www.saudi-american-forum.org/Newsletters/SAF_Essay_22.htm
http://www.drumbeat.mlaterz.net/2002%20August/Saudi%20pull%20out%20may%20go%20to%20Lebanon%20082702a.htm
Most of that is from private individuals, not the government, though the distinction is probably not that important in S.A. The Saudi government owns less than $100 billion in foreign assets: http://www.samba.com.sa/investment/ economywatch/pdf/US_Crisis_Impacts.pdf.
As for how big a part of the U.S. economy this is — Moore asks in the film what percentage of the U.S. economy Saudi wealth is — total wealth (ownable assets) in the U.S. is between $45-$50 trillion: http://www.pbs.org/wsw/news/fortunearticle_20031026_03.html
So, the Saudis own between 1-2% of the U.S., and that’s even if you use Unger’s and Moore’s mistaken numbers.
(One note: in the movie, Moore asks what percentage of the economy Saudi investment represents, and Unger says that it’s 6-7% of the U.S. stock market. This is a complete non sequitur, since the stock market is not the economy, and since in any case much of the Saudi money is not invested in the stock market (and in any case, even if it were it would represent less than 3% of the market, not 6-7%). But in typical Moore-fashion, it’s a useful deception, because it leaves the impression that the Saudis own 6-7% of the U.S. economy, when it’s nothing like that.)
xx 07.02.04 at 8:38 pm
Krugman certainly does endorse the film. What the hell is the matter with you people? It’s just a movie. Moore’s style has never changed over the last 15 years. It is a highly personal style that couldn’t be more mid western or of the lower middle class. He has never followed the protocols of reason. He has a deep, healthy skepticism of the rich and powerful. He is a PRANKSTER of the powerful and of corporate america. It’s all good cultural fun. The rich and powerful are approachable, they can be fooled, they are fools. When they get too comfortable or take power for granted or are rank incompetents, they are outright dangerous.
Steve Carr 07.02.04 at 8:39 pm
Oh, and by the way, if you overestimate by 5-6 times the amount of money the Saudis have in the U.S., in order to create the impression that they are calling the tune in Washington, that is a “major factual error.”
Dan 07.02.04 at 9:00 pm
Extradite and Steve Carr: thank you for the follow up links.
Steve Carr: “cash value” overestimate would be 1-2x off ($860 billion-$1 trillion versus $450 billion-$600 billion). The “percentage” overestimate would be (as you say) 5-6x off.
I’d be curious to see what cash or percentage value investments other nations (or private individuals within given nations, to preserve some parity of cases) have in the United States economy.
Of course, on the topic of “major factual error[s],” by my reckoning the Bush Administration might have just a couple on their record in building the case for war in Iraq.
David 07.02.04 at 9:44 pm
Here’s a noteworthy claim:
“There is another famous investor in Carlyle whom Moore does not reveal: George Soros. (Oliver Burkeman & Julian Borger, “The Ex-Presidents’ Club,†The Guardian (London), Oct. 31, 2000.) But the fact that the anti-Bush billionaire has invested in Carlyle would detract from Moore’s simplistic conspiracy theory.” (my emphasis)
http://www.davekopel.com/Terror/Fiftysix-Deceits-in-Fahrenheit-911.htm
David 07.02.04 at 9:48 pm
Here’s a link to that Guardian piece on Carlyle:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/wtccrash/story/0,1300,583869,00.html
Zizka 07.03.04 at 1:39 pm
In the context of politics, yes, Republican deviousness does excuse Democratic deviousness. In the context of a competitive game, both sides play by the same rules. If one side does it, the other side does.
There is a specific demographic which the Republicans have cultivated very successfully: intuitive, gut thinkers who don’t pay close attention and don’t make up their minds carefully — I call them whim voters. The Democrats haven’t been talking to them, but Moore (not really a Democrat, BTW) knows how to do it.
Ever since Mondale Democrats have been saying If You Talk Sense To The American People They Will Understand You. Didn’t work for Mondale, Dukakis, or Gore. Reagan and the Bushes had great luck with their anecdotes and innuendos.
Moore is nowhere near as vicious and dishonest as Coulter, Limbaugh, or many other Republican surrogates. However, he is as polemical as they are, and like them he is quite willing to cast aspersions on his adversaries’ character and motives. That’s the way the game is played these days.
Mainly, he works with images and innuendos rather than facts and logic. The demographic I mentioned can only be reached that way.
For decades now I’ve been hearing to Democrats say “I’d rather not win at all than sink to that level”. Guess what — they’ve been getting their wish! I hope they’re happy.
Anthony 07.04.04 at 9:04 am
Also, how exactly do even the existing full-blown conspiracy theories – not Moore, the theories out there, in general – affect the political state of affairs in the US?
The more important point is that these conspiracy theories are not confined to the US. They are recycled by extremists, as evidence that their views have truth.
By inadvertently, or in some cases deliberately, re-enforcing the views of terrorists, the media legitimise extremist propaganda.
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