Unhitchends: Hate him? I don't hate him. I think he's one of the great sagging blimps of our sorry, mediocre, celeb-rotten culture. But, I don't hate him.
BuzzCutt: You don't?
Unhitchends: Hate is such a strong term.
BuzzCutt: Ahh...perhaps it would help if we talked about specifics. What is it about the film Fahrenheit 9/11 that you ha - that you find sorry and mediocre?
Unhitchends: Oh, Moore's film is completely manipulative in the way it selectively uses facts. It starts with Bush's so-called theft of the 2000 election - old news, by the way - and then claims that that's why we attacked Iraq. It's totally -
BuzzCutt: Hold on a second! There are a lot more steps in Moore's argument, and you made up the conclusion - it certainly isn't his.
Unhitchends: Please! We're talking about Moore's omissions and distortions, not mine!
BuzzCutt: Ah...
Unhitchends: Look. Moore claims in the film that Saddam Hussein had never threatened a single American. But, we know for a fact that he threatened Bush's father.
BuzzCutt: Certainly, but the larger point that Iraq was in no way a threat to the United States is certainly credible.
Unhitchends: Don't you see that Moore's whole argument falls apart because of this misstatement?
BuzzCutt: No. Arguments can contain occasional factual errors without being seriously compromised, and this one seems relatively minor.
Unhitchends: IT'S NOT MINOR! HUSSEIN WAS NEGOTIATING WITH A 14 YEAR-OLD ARMS DEALER IN PYONGYANG TO GET NUCLEAR WEAPONS DAYS BEFORE WE INVADED HIS COUNTRY!
BuzzCutt: Where did you hear that?
Unhitchends: The White House released that information yesterday.
BuzzCutt: (long pause) Chris. The CIA, United Nations arms inspectors and our own arms inspectors found no evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. About all Saddam Hussein could do was spit in the direction of the United States, and that hardly constitutes a major threat.
Unhitchends: Hardly constitutes a major threat? His spit could have contained anthrax!
BuzzCutt: Ah. (pause) Maybe if you share with us some other examples...
Unhitchends: Certainly. Moore was unfair to the President when he showed footage of George Bush being told by a secret service agent that planes had crashed into the Twin Towers while he was reading a children's story with a grade school class, then waiting seven minutes before leaving.
BuzzCutt: I assumed that he didn't immediately leave the classroom because he wanted to know how the story ended.
Unhitchends: This is exactly what I'm talking about! The fact that the President took only seven minutes to collect his thoughts is admirable - I remember, when I first heard about the terrorist attack, I couldn't function for hours. I just curled up in a fetal position and rocked back and forth - not an easy feat considering I was in the back of a taxi at the time. The attack was a difficult thing for any human being to digest.
BuzzCutt: But, he's the President. He's supposed to respond immediately to crises. Hell, when I first heard about the terrorist attack, I ran to the nearest phone to make sure my family was okay. If nothing else -
Unhitchends: Well, the President's family is one of the best protected in the country, so I doubt he had anything to worry about on that count.
BuzzCutt: What?
Unhitchends: And, what about those shots of children playing and people getting married before the bombs fell on Baghdad? How dishonest was that? We know that everybody in Iraq who wasn't a member of the Ba'ath Party languished in Saddam's dungeons!
BuzzCutt: We do? How?
Unhitchends: The President said so before the attack.
BuzzCutt: Ah... I don't know. It makes more sense to me that people living under a dictator try to make their lives as pleasant as they can, and that means that, yes, children do play in the streets and people do get married.
Unhitchends: You probably believe that the Bush administration let 140 Saudi Arabians, including members of Osama bin Laden's family, fly out of the country - even though commercial aircraft were grounded - in order to protect the Saudi's trillion dollar investment in the United States.
BuzzCutt: Well...
Unhitchends: The White House janitor authorized those flights! He admitted it! And, he always complained about how clogged the toilets in the West Wing got, so you know he's not just loyally taking a bullet for the President.
BuzzCutt: The janitor? I've never heard that.
Unhitchends: You'll do anything to deny reality, won't you?
BuzzCutt: I beg your pardon?
Unhitchends: You lefties never learn...
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