Behind the Spin

Behind the Spin: The Break down of Fahrenheit 9/11’s facts

I would like to thank you for taking the time to read this. I believe that no one should form an opinion without first hearing both sides. As I say that, I must tell you that I have seen Fahrenheit 9/11, and I took the time to research the points made in the film to see the truth behind it. I collected only a few of these points to show you, in hopes that perhaps you will leave today with a boarder, more balanced understanding of the film.

· Bush’s reaction in the class room
It must be pointed out that Moore slowed down the footage for this part of the movie.
What Moore doesn’t state is Gwendolyn Tose’-Rigell, the principal of Emma E. Booker Elementary School, praised Bush’s action: “I don’t think anyone could have handled it better.” “What would it have served if he had jumped out of his chair and ran out of the room?”… She said the video doesn’t convey all that was going on in the classroom, but Bush’s presence had a calming effect and “helped us get through a very difficult day.”1
Also, if we criticize Bush’s reaction, we must also take into account what Kerry did upon hearing the news, as recorded by a BBC camera right after the Capitol building was evacuated: “The camera captures Congressional aides and visitors, clearly distraught and holding onto one another, streaming down the back steps of the Capitol building in near panic, following the bellowed instructions of anxious police. Off to one side of the screen, there is Kerry, alone, his long legs carrying him calmly down the steps, his neck craning toward the sky, as if he were watching a gathering rainstorm. His face and demeanor appear unworried. Kerry could be a man lost in his thoughts who just happens to have wandered onto the set of a disaster film.”2

· The 2000 Florida Recount
According to Moore, under any circumstances, Gore should have won the election. The recount conducted by a consortium of media organizations found something quite different, as Newsday recently pointed out. If the statewide recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court had gone ahead, the consortium found that Bush would have won the election under two different scenarios: counting only "undervotes," or taking into account the reported intentions of some county electoral officials to include "overvotes" as well. During the CNN appearance from which Moore draws the clip, reporter Candy Crowley explained that Toobin's analysis assumed the statewide consideration of "overvotes," which was not a sure thing, though there are indications that Leon County Circuit Court judge Terry Lewis, who was supervising the recount, might have directed counties to consider them.3
The rally footage in the film of Gore celebrating with his wife and celebrities was filmed early in the morning of election day, before the polls even opened.1


Fox news
Moore took a lot of time in this section to slander Fox news as a “Republican Biased” news source. It deserves its own sub-section because of the proof against his claims.
Fox News had been the third network to project a Gore win in Florida earlier in the evening.
Calling elections is a number-crunching process involving scores of analysts both inside and outside the network. One lone analyst could not single-handedly decide any election-night projections. There are literally hundreds, maybe thousands of people involved in the process of gathering and analyzing election-night data
Four people on the Fox News decision team were methodically analyzing the Voter News Service(VNS) data and—this being the media—the other three were Democrats.
When Fox News called Florida for Bush, the VNS numbers indicated—accurately, as it turns out—that it would be impossible for Gore to overcome Bush’s lead. By 1:30 A.M., with 95 percent of Florida’s precincts counted, VNS had Bush winning with about a sixty thousand-vote lead. At 2:00 A.M. Gore would have needed to win 64 percent of the remaining 5 percent of votes to surpass Bush’s lead.1



· The Saudi Flights
The Saudi’s did not leave before everyone else was allowed to fly, as the film persuades you to believe. Moore wasn’t lying when he stated they flew “After September 13th” What he doesn’t tell you is the day that the airports reopened: September 14th.3
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.4


· Bush’s Connections with the Bin Ladens
Moore made so many ties to Bush and Saudi Arabia/the Bin Ladens that I cannot possibly include all of the retorts to them right here. My sources have plenty of information on the subject, which I suggest you read for the broader picture.
Michael Moore makes a third party connection through James R. Bath to try and say that Bush received money from the Bin Ladens. Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball note in an online Newsweek column and Matt Labash points out in a Weekly Standard article on the film, Bath has stated this investment was his money, not the Bin Ladens'. 1
Moore suggests that the Bin Ladens profited from the post-Sept. 11 buildup with the United Defense IPO but were forced to withdraw after the stock sale. However, Labash notes that the Bin Ladens withdrew before the initial filing, not afterward, missing the big payday Moore insinuates that they received.3



· Bush, the Taliban, and Oil
Moore tries his best to connect Bush to the Taliban, to oil, and then back to Bush. He does this primarily with the Unocal pipeline.
The fact that Bush was governor of Texas at the time of the Taliban/Unocal meeting does nothing to prove that he was somehow involved in the meeting. Governors are obviously not responsible for every business dealing that takes place in their state.3
Moore also tries to imply that the fact that the intern president of Afghanistan’s ties with Unocal was more than a coincidence, and was just more proof of Bush’s oil hungry plans. But Unocal dropped support for the pipeline in 1998. In 2002, Afghanistan did sign the agreement Moore described, but Unocal is not involved in the project, which is still in its planning stages and may never come to fruition.3
Moore also implies that the US government allowed the Taliban government to tour without any questions to Osama Bin Laden’s ties with the group. What he doesn’t tell you is that the administration met with the envoy in part to discuss the fate of Bin Laden, who they were pressing the Taliban to turn over.3


· Iraq
I will try and keep it short on this topic, just because the arguments can go on for pages.
Moore selectively choosing the countries within the coalition to show, porously leaving out the “Big Guns” which, at the time of the film included: England, Spain, Italy, Poland and Australia. While Spain withdrew after the Madrid bombings, we also now have NATO in Iraq, currently training Iraqi troops to relieve out soldiers. 1
The bombing footage Moore shows at the beginning of this part of the film was the bombing of the Iraqi Ministry of Defense in Baghdad, in a part of the city that ordinary Iraqis weren’t allowed to visit—on pain of death.1

Recent findings that disprove Moore on Iraq:
As the recent findings of mass graves, and torcher footage show, Iraq wasn’t quite the peaceful place that Moore would want you to believe. It is believed that 300,000 people were killed under Saddam Hussein’s regime, many simply because they were of a different ethnicity.5
Moore mentions many times in the film of the “lie” of weapons of mass destruction. Many people have argued that it was the perceived truth, one that Kerry believed as well, but new information is now supporting the initial argument for war. The Iraqi Survey Group say that, while no weapons of mass destruction were found, Saddam had intended to continue with his program after UN sanctions were lifted.6
Or were there WMDs? In news just released, a large stockpile of weapons, 380 tons of them, went missing. They were last seen in January of 2003, two months before coalition forces landed in Iraq. 7


Please look at the websites that I provided, they have much more information then I could possibly go over. I hope that you can keep an open mind threw this election. If you are voting, please, make sure it is an informed vote. Take the time to read up on the issues, and where each candidate stands, and make your decision based on this, not based on a film or the nightly news. Also, don’t forget the local elections and the propositions, those are important as well.

Sources:
1. http://www.bowlingfortruth.com/
2. The New York Times Magazine: “Kerry’s Undeclared War” By Matt Bai http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/10/magazine/10KERRY.html?ei=5090&en=8dcbffeaca117a9a&ex=1255147200&partner=rssuserland&pagewanted=all
3. Fahrenheit 9/11, The Temperature at Which Michael Moore’s Pants Burn by Brendan Nyhan http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20040702.html
4. Moore’s Mendacity Confirmed by Brendan Nyham http://www.spinsanity.org/post.html?2004_07_25_archive.html
5. BBC News: “Babies Found in Mass Graves” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3738368.stm
6. CNN News: “Official: No WMDs found in Iraq” http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/06/iraq.wmd.report.ap/index.html
7. Orange County Register: “Controvery Abounds” http://www.ocregister.com/ocr/2004/10/27/sections/news/focus_in_depth/article_289302.php