"Every fact in the film is true. Absolutely every fact in the film is true. And anybody who says otherwise is committing an act of libel."
-Michael Moore, responding to a question about reported innacuracies in his films "Roger and Me" and "Bowling for Columbine"
Well, lets just see what kind of distortions we can find in Moore's body of work:
1. When "Bowling for Columbine" was released in theaters, it featured a 1988 Bush-Quayle ad called "Revolving Doors," which criticized a prison furlough program in operation when Michael Dukakis was governor of Massachusetts. Though Horton was furloughed under the program in question, the ad did not explicitly mention him, unlike the more famous ad aired by the National Security Political Action Committee, which had close ties to Bush media advisor Roger Ailes.
But because this part of "Bowling" attempted to show how portrayals of black men are used to promote fear in the public, Moore inserted the caption "Willie Horton released. Then kills again." into the ad, using a text style nearly identical to the ad's original captions. A casual viewer would assume that the text was part of the original ad. The caption is used to support Moore's statement, which runs over the sequence, that "whether you're a psychotic killer or running for president of the United States, the one thing you can always count on is white America's fear of the black man."
However, according to the archived video of the ad linked above, media reports and interviews with a high-level Dukakis official and political experts, the caption did not appear in the original ad. Moreover, it was incorrect -- Horton raped a woman while on furlough, but he did not commit murder.
In a tacit acknowledgment that the caption was both phony and factually incorrect, Moore has altered the text in the DVD version. The caption now reads "Willie Horton released. Then rapes a woman." Clearly, every "fact" in the film was not true, and critics who pointed out the alteration of the Horton ad (among other things) were not committing libel.
2. The DVD also contains further proof of Moore's tendency to stretch and distort the facts. Hardy has criticized Moore for claiming that the plaque at the US Air Force Academy near a B-52 on display "proudly proclaims that the plane killed Vietnamese people on Christmas Eve of 1972. It was the largest bombing campaign of the Vietnam War." This phrasing insinuates that the plaque praises the bombing of civilians. It actually says the B-52 "shot down a MIG northeast of Hanoi" on that date. The plaque does celebrate "the men and women of the Strategic Air Command who flew and maintained the B-52D throughout its 26 year history in the command," including "Aircraft 55,003, with over 15,000 flying hours," which presumably included bombing runs over Vietnam such as the one on Christmas Eve, but it does not "proudly" proclaim that it was used to kill Vietnamese civilians. According to Ebert, Moore's response to this criticism was as follows: "I was making a point about the carpet bombing of Vietnam during the 1972 Christmas offensive. I did not say exactly what the plaque said but was paraphrasing."
3. The DVD captures Moore exaggerating this still further, saying during a speech at the University of Denver on February 26, 2003 that the B-52 participated in the massive Christmas Eve bombing campaign. "And they've got a plaque on there proudly proclaiming that this bomber, this B-52, killed thousands upon thousands of Vietnamese -- innocent civilians." In both cases, his representation of the plaque is dishonest.
4. Contrary to the title of the film, the two boys who committed the massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., did not bowl the morning before the shooting. Although early news reports did state that they had attended a bowling class in the morning, police told Lyons it's simply not true.
5. This is similar to Moore's continued repetition of the lie that the U.S. gave millions of dollars in aid ($43 million last year and $245 million in total) to the Taliban government of Afghanistan when, in fact, that aid consisted of food aid and food security programs administered by the U.N. and non-governmental agencies to relieve a famine.
6. The film makes reference to "weapons of mass destruction" being manufactured in Littleton, questioning whether there is a connection between that activity and the Columbine shooting. In fact, the Lockheed Martin plant in Littleton makes space launch vehicles for TV satellites.
7. The scene in a bank in Michigan that that opens the film was staged. Customers who open long-term CDs at the bank actually have to go to a gun store to pick up the weapon after a background check. Yet the film clearly indicates that the bank itself stores and hands out guns to customers and Moore even jokes as he walks out, "Here's my first question: do you think it's a little dangerous handing out guns at a bank?"
8. He tells the story of a young boy who shot and killed a classmate after his mother was forced to leave him with her brother while she took a job, a tragedy Moore blamed on the requirements of a Michigan welfare-to-work program. But he fails to mention that her brother kept drugs and guns in his home and, according to previous article for the Weekly Standard's website by Matt Labash, his home was "a crack house, where guns were often traded for drugs."
9.
He edited and distorted Charlton Heston's speech given to NRA members.
10. Moore quotes a New Yorker piece on page 4 of his book noting that "Once the FAA permitted overseas flights [after 9-11], the jet [with the Bin Ladens] flew to Europe." (Other reports have added credence to this version of events). But Moore writes on page 20 that "while thousands were stranded and could not fly, if you could prove you were a close relative of the biggest mass murderer in U.S. history, you got a free trip to gay Paree!" In addition, a September 20, 2001 Boston Globe article notes that the Bin Ladens apparently chartered their own plane - they did not get a "free trip" as Moore suggests.
11. Moore twists around the order of Attorney General John Ashcroft's claims in a Senate hearing in December 2001. Slamming Ashcroft for refusing to give the FBI permission to examine records of background checks for gun purchases by suspected terrorists, Moore writes "The Senate (and the public) only found out about Ashcroft's orders to stop the search for terrorists' gun files until December 2001, when Ashcroft not only proudly admitted to doing this in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, but went on to attack anyone who would question his actions to protect the hijackers' gun rights. He told the panel that critics of his anti-terror practices were 'providing ammunition to America's enemies... To those who would scare peace-loving people with phantoms of 'lost liberty,' my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists." Ashcroft actually made the statement (which we condemned at the time) in his opening remarks, well before he addressed the issue of gun checks. Moore's framing makes it appear as though Ashcroft's controversial statement was made with direct reference to the issue of checking firearms records.
12. Moore uses fake quotes as chapter headings, implying that Bush (or administration officials) said things they never said. The most problematic is "#3 Whopper with Bacon: 'Iraq has ties to Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda!'" (page 53) He quotes Bush repeatedly stating that "We know [Saddam] has ties to Al Qaeda" - but provides no source suggesting the administration tied Saddam to Bin Laden personally.
13. Moore repeats a well-debunked myth about Democratic presidential hopeful General Wesley Clark. he writes that "Clark has said that he received phone calls on September 11 and in the weeks after from people at 'think tanks' and from people within the White House telling him to use his position as a pundit for CNN to 'connect' September 11 to Saddam Hussein." Yet, as we have demonstrated, despite a somewhat ambiguous statement on "Meet the Press" last June, Clark has been consistent in his claim that it was a member of a think tank who contacted him, not the White House. A recent report in the Toronto Star identified the source of the call as a member of a Middle Eastern think tank based in Montreal. Moore also makes a second mistake in pluralizng the single call Clark has always referred to into "calls."
14. Moore claims that the U.S. "oversaw the assassination of [Congo leader Patrice] Lumumba" in 1961. However, according to a July, 2000 US News & World Report article, Lumumba was actually killed by Belgian operatives.
15. Moore misrepresents US contributions to the United Nations oil-for-food program in Iraq as "trade." He writes, "There were claims that the French were only opposing war to get economic benefits out of Saddam Hussein's Iraq. In fact, it was the Americans who were making a killing. In 2001, the U.S. was Iraq's leading trading partner, consuming more than 40 percent of Iraq's oil exports. That's $6 billion in trade with the Iraqi dictator." Most of the money, however, was used to purchase food and other UN-approved humanitarian aid; the rest went to pay war reparations and adminisratuve fees for the program.
Now, this is the condensed version...but I think that it's more than enough to demonstrate who the 'mindless' followers are.
For the record, I'm sad to say that I did buy the movie (why should I support someone who thinks money is such an insignificant thing?) and I see it now for what it is.....pure propoganda and a poor attempt at brainwashing....In most cases, that is.
