nicholas kristof’s op-ed piece in todays paper of record “Calling Bush A Liar,” so i did.

and howard, i see your kristof (who basically admits that the president exaggerates, stretches the truth, is often confused, and deceived himself.. but didnt flat-out lie), and his 25 inches of “it depends on what your definition of a lie is”,

and i raise you the NY Times ED Board column on 6/17 “The Plain Truth” about the lie that iraq had ties to al qaeda

“the Bush administration convinced a substantial majority of Americans before the war that Saddam Hussein was somehow linked to 9/11. And since the invasion, administration officials, especially Vice President Dick Cheney, have continued to declare such a connection. Last September, Mr. Bush had to grudgingly correct Mr. Cheney for going too far in spinning a Hussein-bin Laden conspiracy. But the claim has crept back into view as the president has made the war on terror a centerpiece of his re-election campaign.

On Monday, Mr. Cheney said Mr. Hussein “had long-established ties with Al Qaeda.” Mr. Bush later backed up Mr. Cheney, claiming that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a terrorist who may be operating in Baghdad, is “the best evidence” of a Qaeda link. This was particularly astonishing because the director of central intelligence, George Tenet, told the Senate earlier this year that Mr. Zarqawi did not work with the Hussein regime.

and i’ll even throw in another NYT Ed Board column “The Faulty Weapons Estimates” from January that suggests that Bush’s claim that Iraq had wmd including the ability to have nukes “amounted mainly to wishful thinking.”

we could split hairs all day about the difference of a lie and spreading false information, but one thing that i found interesting about F 9/11 is that it had so many things to attack bush about and yet he shied away from the most glaring Bush lie of all: the one he told during the State of the Union Address in ’03 that Saddam was making his nukes from Nigerian uranium even though Joe Wilson and the CIA said that it wasnt true.

but what’s worse is two months after the address, VP Cheney went on Meet the Press and kept the lie going, “He’s had years to get good at it and we know he has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.”

but it didnt end there. once they found out that their “evidence” was not true, they stuck to their guns claiming that they had other intelligence saying that iraq was getting uranium from africa.

finally, six months after he lied on Meet the Press, Cheney returned to admit, “Yeah. I did misspeak… We never had any evidence that he had acquired a nuclear weapon.“

i cannot think of a bigger more destructive lie than one that costs a country a billion dollars a day, hundreds of lives, and thousands of casualties.

it baffles me when intelligent people defend such reckless and selfish and murderous behavoir because it may polarize people, because it’s insulting, or because it may “impede understanding,” as Kristof says.

what impedes understanding far quicker are deceptions, exaggerations, misspeaking, and untruths while marching to an unprecidented invasion of a country that posed no threat to this country.

the president sure loves to talk about freedom. good. the truth will set him free to play cowboy on his ranch for good come november. and he can be confused there all he damn well pleases.

and nobody else will die from it.

bob mould + i got a nice postcard from bunnie today + brian made a great photo essay

and i said i dont have any more c4. she said no, i mean lets make like a tree and get the fuck outta here. i was all language madame! she was all vous les vous couchez avec moi c’est saw. i was all c’est saw? she was all, can we please have lunch now?

so we cruised over to the new thai place at the strip mall on crescent heights and it was valet only and she doesnt let anyone driver her benz cept me. so we rolled. then we went over to the grove and at lunchtime traffic and parking was a bitch. youd think it was christmas.

then we cruised down beverly and she found some “cute” restaurants, which obviously means the food is great. but we got swooped from our meter parking spot and danielle pounded on her steering wheel cursing the good lord. i was all easy on the blasphemy baby. and she was all, where is your god? where! where!!!!?

and i said hes at kfc whipping up some popcorn chicken and she said fine.

i was all, what are you going to get there.

she said nothing!

i was like, you have to get something, its lunch, we’ve spent a half hour driving. get a salad.

no.

get a ear of corn.

no!

get a thing of mashed potatoes or mac n sleeze.

hell no!

and she didnt. we drove thru, got my deal and she huffed.

i was all, i cant eat this with you sitting there all pissed. lets go to the dog.

so we went to black dog and there she stood in line for another 10 minutes longer than normal and i swore she was either going to throw a chair through the plate glass window or cry.

so when she marched to the car i said lets do a quickie little photo shoot.

and that cured her.

vortexia + tonecluster + the faith fools + danielle’s blog

pleaded with me not to write about politics this morning and i will do my best. this is just a fascinating time in world and national politics. to me whats so interesting is…

ok focus… no politics.

hot chick called me yesterday. last night to be specific. you know youre in a slump when they call you, and no matter what you cant get them to come over.

so yap yap yap they call and the good thing is i can get my dishes done while i talk on the phone. but during the middle, near the end, heck, even in the beginning, im trying to close the sale, trying to get them over, trying to find a rendevous spot. anything. its been weeks, america. weeks.

so i hung up and watched my girl kirsten dunst on letterman and i turned up the sonny rollins and just watched kirsten on tivo slow-mo like a perv. watching the way her mouth moves when she talks. watching the way her hands move super slow as she gestures.

and the phone rang again, and it was clipper girls cousin. she was crying.

my experience is you cant get a crying girl into a naked girl within an hour. and as it was 1am, and my bedtime is 2am i figured either i could be a friend or i could be a dick.

so i laid in my bed and i listened to her cry over her stupid man troubles and at 2ish she sniffled her last sniffle and asked if she could come over and spend the night with me.

and for some reason i was really pissed off because at the begining of the conversation i was all, why dont you come over and we can talk about this face to face, you know, holding hands and stuff.

and she was all, no. she could tell that there was something in the works.

but now that it was 2, and she was done being sad, she wanted someone to hold all night, and someone to be held by, from, however you put it.

and the highschool boy nerdy fuckup too-nice friend-only tony who had been burned once too many times said fuck that shit. and the bachelorpad always-be-closing-horny-as-fuck tony was all, sure she’ll be here at 2:30a, bang till 3a and get four and a half hours sleep.

but then the logical part of me said, if youre in a slump, aint no way that girl is gonna come right over and be in the mood for your dumb ass. say no, say no.

and i dont know if ive ever shown you a picture, but this girl is hot. rocket hot. more than one time ive heard tires screech to a stop when we walked down the street and it wasnt because they eyed the author of the world famous busblog.

and like a dope i said, sure come on over. and kiddingly i said, but dont try anything fishy.

and she came over at 2:30, and she told me what a great friend i was.

and we slept with the window open

and at 2:35 she was snoring

and it was funny, the slump had not ended.

and i fell asleep laughing a dopey happy laugh.

chokey chicken + the perils of living in 3d + zulieka

“It is a punishing, brilliantly executed indictment.” – Films In Review

“Indeed, the film’s long opening movement, which segues from the stolen election of 2000 and Bush’s 2001 summer vacation through the events of 9-11 and the cowboy invasion of Afghanistan to dwell on the oil politics uniting the Bushies with the Saudis, is the strongest filmmaking of Moore’s career.” – Village Voice

“… his film grows steadily darker, and Moore largely disappears from it, as he focuses on people such as Lila Lipscomb, from Moore’s hometown of Flint, Mich.; she reads a letter from her son, written days before he was killed in Iraq. It urges his family to work for Bush’s defeat.” – Roger Ebert

“Disagree with Moore’s politics, if you must. Disagree with his filmmaking methods, if you wish. Nonetheless, ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ � rushed into theaters after its surprise grand-prize win at last month’s Cannes International Film Festival � is an often powerful film, and the most focused work of the director’s career. It’s got a bit of his trademark humor and a few of his microphone-shoving stunts, but its real story is in Lipscomb’s eyes.” – Seattle Times

“For the most part, he lets his subjects speak for themselves, whether it’s National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice testifying before the 9/11 commission, Secretary of State Colin Powell reaching to connect the supposed dots between Al Qaeda and Iraq, or the president addressing a group of his supporters as ‘the haves and have mores.'” – Reel.com

“Most people reading this already know whether they’re going or not. The question is whether “Fahrenheit 9/11” will be worth the trip. In many ways this is Moore’s best film; he exercises restraint that has been notably lacking in such documentaries as “Roger & Me,” “The Big One” and the Oscar-winning “Bowling for Columbine.” In those movies, Moore affected the persona of a rumpled Everyman bravely confronting malign corporate and cultural forces; he also never missed a chance to be seen on camera, usually in a self-serving pose of righteous indignation. (Who can forget how courageously he placed the photograph of a gun violence victim in Charlton Heston’s driveway?)” – Washington Post

“Moore is something new in American film, an uncompromising provocateur. Film for him is a personal medium, as personal as his anger at corporate greed, government duplicity and economic inequity. More than anyone, he’s broadened the art of documentary, adding impassioned, essayistic advocacy to its repertoire of styles. He is an indispensable treasure, and his imperfections are part of the reason, because they mark him as real.” – Houston Chronicle

“Moore is a provocateur, a blowhard, an entertainer. But he is also a patriot. As a director he has consistently advocated not merely for the rights of a citizen, but perhaps one of the chief and founding obligations of being a citizen: to make government accountable to its people.” – Denver Post

“Assessing the merits of a political film is a tricky business. Obviously, its quality is partly a function of its power to persuade, but its persuasiveness is in the eye of the beholder. Yet there are other things to consider: The movie’s passion. Its serious purpose. Its tone. Its mix of words and images, and the way both linger in the mind. There’s the way the movie fashions its arguments, and the cumulative effect the experience provides — what you feel walking out, what you think about the next day.

By all these measures, ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ is Michael Moore’s best film. “Certainly, it’s a career landmark, the film that signals his transition from political entertainer to political thinker, from propagandist to idiosyncratic journalist, from colorful gadfly to patriot. If “Bowling for Columbine” was a step, this is a leap, in which Moore vaults past Will Rogers into some territory all his own. In the 90-year history of the American feature film, there has never been a popular election-year documentary like this one.” – SF Chronicle

“A passionate, clearly articulated, if sloppily structured indictment of the president, his ties to the bin Laden family, his relentless push for war in Iraq and, as portrayed by Moore, an ineptitude bordering on the criminal.” – Newsday

“(It’s) a compelling, persuasive film, at odds with the White House effort to present Bush as a strong leader. He comes across as a shallow, inarticulate man, simplistic in speech and inauthentic in manner. If the film is not quite as electrifying as Moore’s “Bowling for Columbine,” that may be because Moore has toned down his usual exuberance and was sobered by attacks on the factual accuracy of elements of “Columbine”; playing with larger stakes, he is more cautious here, and we get an op-ed piece, not a stand-up routine. But he remains one of the most valuable figures on the political landscape, a populist rabble-rouser, humorous and effective; the outrage and incredulity in his film are an exhilarating response to Bush’s determined repetition of the same stubborn sound bites.” – Roger Ebert

“Like him or not, once you see it, you�ll have to admit that the guy has balls.” – Stefan Halley

130 positive reviews of Fahrenheit 9/11 + 25 negative reviews + courtesy rotten tomatoes

starring George Bush, George HW Bush, Lila Lipscomb, and Bandar Bush

narrated by Michael Moore

it takes a lot to make me cry.

when the Cubs broke my heart last October and didn’t make the world series, i cried for about 30 seconds.

when i broke up with my true love and moved out three years ago, i cried for about 5 seconds.

on Sunday morning, in a sold-out cinema in century city, i cried probably 6-7 times during one of the most powerful films i’ve ever seen.

but what makes Michael Moore so talented is I also laughed about a dozen times. loudly. along with everyone else in the crowd.

i thought i knew everything about the war in iraq and the reason why we went there. i thought i knew everything about the florida elections, about the links of the bush family and the bin ladins.

but this movie showed me that i only knew what the so called Liberal Media was interested in broadcasting, and covering, and commenting on.

michael moore is being called lots of names from all sides of the political spectrum, some negative. the judges at Cannes called him a genius, and i would have to agree.

Farenheight 9/11 is a tightly woven amalgam of mostly public footage of all the major players of the Bush Administration and family laid out in a compelling and convincing way that raise several disturbing points.

I went into the film cynical of Moore, and yet hopeful. I read a few negative criticisms regarding this movie as penned by the seething Christopher Hitchens, and the logical Jeff Jarvis. I thought about the things that they had written as I watched and I saw things like the Secret Service questioning Moore across the street from the Saudi Embassy (pictured) and I thought, “how is this a Michael Moore lie? Those guys really are protecting the Saudi Embassy from being filmed. White House secret service guys! Moore might have a point that we have an extremely cozy relationship with the House of Saud. Maybe too cozy.”

I saw two very young US soldiers talk about how they pump music through the tank and everyone can listen to it together as they shoot people. As they battle. As they do what must be incredibly tough work in liberating Iraq. One guy talked about how he likes to listen to the Bloodhound Gang’s “Fire Water Burn” (one of my favorite songs) as he does his job.

And then I saw another young soldier talk about how a little bit of your soul gets torn out every time you kill another human being. And I thought, Moore is showing us both sides of being a soldier: how you have to deal with the gruesome by blocking it out with music, and how sometimes you cant block it out.

incredibly powerful, and done with the light touch that Jarvis claims to be missing from Moore’s more recent docs.

Hitchens claims that Moore wants it both ways in the film. “(Moore says that) either we sent too many troops, or were wrong to send any at all- the latter was Moore’s view as late as 2002- or we sent too few.”

But I didn’t see that. I saw that Moore felt that we sent too few troops in too late. The film shows quite clearly that we waited a full two months to send ground troops into Afghanistan to find or kill Osama. And when we sent those men and women in there were more cops in Manhattan than soldiers in Aghanistan. I don’t see the contradiction.

Jarvis says, “The real problem with the film, the really offensive thing about it, is that in Fahrenheit 9/11, we — Americans from the President on down — are portrayed as the bad guys.”

First of all President Bush in this film is portrayed as much more than just a bad guy. He’s being portrayed as a greedy, dumb, slow-witted, poor-talking, “War President”, who doesn’t know how to win any wars, doesn’t know how to treat soldiers, and isn’t loved by his public.

Are you a bad guy if you send troops into a war and then decrease imminent danger” pay (from $225 to $150) and family separation allowance (from $250 to $100)? Are you a bad guy if you oppose the National Guard from receiving access to the Pentagon’s health insurance system, despite knowing that only about one out of every five Guard members has no health insurance?

I know President Bush was probably taught by his father not to raise taxes, but is the best way to pay for war to cut the benefits of those who are fighting the war and to cut benefits to veterans? Sorry Jeff, but most of us would consider Bush a bad guy for doing those things.

He’s also a dumb guy. The seven minutes that he spent with the kids at that school after knowing that the second plane had hit the twin towers were outrageous.

Here’s what a real leader would do and say, “Kids, I hate to do this to you, but this is the beginning of the school year. I am going to leave a little early today if you will excuse me. But I promise you that I will be back before this school year is over. And when I return I will come back and spend twice as much time with you as I had planned for today, is that a deal?”

Instead he just sat there with the weirdest looks on his face reading a kiddie book about a goat, waiting to be told what to do, knowing that hundreds had died and more were hurt and might die.

Again, sorry bro, but it was pretty easy to paint the prez out as being piss poor under pressure and not very much of a leader, especially since he knew upon arriving at the school that one plane had already crashed into the first tower.

The American people are not portrayed as being “bad”. The people didn’t vote for Bush, they pelted his limo with eggs on his inaugural. They held up signs that said “God Save Us”. A mother cried when her son died. How is that bad? A woman cried when her husband died and wailed that she was now all alone. Neither of those women are bad guys.

The only bad guy American I could imagine that Jarvis is talking about is the bubblegum-chomping Britney Spears who took an un-Dixie Chicks stand by saying that she believed in the President and everything that he said about the war.

Again, here’s both sides being represented. Protesters with their signs and Britney with her flag-waving loyalty to the president. Of course in context of the film she is made to look ignorant and childish, but lots of America were ignorant to a lot of the the details that were brought up in this documentary.

Which is why some of us stood up and cheered at the end.

With tears in our eyes.

Because we finally got to see a different angle at the story that the Liberal Media hasnt shown us. One not of bad guys and good guys, but of mixed signals and mixed messages that were finally being irorned out and presented in a tight little film that it is impossible to view and not be impressed by the storytelling and the compelling nature of all the little details and how they add up to one thing.

And that one thing, in this blogger’s opinion is not that Michael Moore is a big fat liar.

The one thing that this blogger concluded was that i was glad that i lived in a country where a guy like Moore could expose the President of the United States in such a damning damning nearly unrefutable way, and not get his head chopped off.

Deeper still, this is a documentary about living in the Information Age. Nearly all of the footage is from press conferences, or meetings that C-Span covered, or from photos that anyone could order from Wire Images, or facts that could be checked on the Internet.

One document that was not currently in the public record although it was at one point declassified (and then leaked to Moore once it became classified) played an ominious tone in the film and Moore played it like a fiddle,. It was in regards to James Bath, a friend of President Bush’s in the National Guard, who eventually was hired by GWH Bush in 1976 to create offshore companies to move CIA funds and aircraft between Texas and Saudi Arabia.

Somehow this didn’t prove as powerful to this observer as the testimony from Condi Rice’s lips and General Powell’s lips in 2001 that Saddam no longer had the capability to have or manufacture weapons of mass destruction.

So no, Jeff, the conclusions that I made at the end of this film isn’t that Moore is a liar, its that the government *gasp* doesn’t always know whats going on, and sometimes they tell us things that they think are true and theyre wrong, and sometimes they tell us things that they know not to be true, but sometimes they are doing business with people and then covering up those relationships in ways like blacking out their names on documents or shuttling them away on airplanes.

The images that remain with me are ones that any documentarian could have found and that was of the american mother and the iraqi mother crying over the death of their sons over a war that didn’t need to be faught, but was faught, and is still being faught under the lie, yes, lie, that Iraq and Saddam had something to do with 9/11 and future terrorism to the land of the free.

Faherinheight 9/11 receives five stars, the busblog’s highest rating.

Most movie reviewers also highly recommend this fantastic film.

doc searls + sk smith + george must go

i totally understand why you would tell leahy to fuck off on the senate floor yesterday. i mean, calling you out and asking you how much money you’re making via haliburton over this iraq war is totally unprofessional, and generally not cool.

even if youre making millions.

which you probably are.

stud.

but dude, the new campaign ad… (click the green button that says “watch” or click this direct link)

as the kids say, wtf?

are you serious with your intention of comparing kerry, gore, and michael moore to hitler?

is that all you brainiacs have over there at 1600?

i dont know about you, but i sorta like the riled up Al.

and is it a good idea to show not one, but two clips of the guy who got more popular votes than your guy did?

more questions:

is it really bad for Howard Dean to say that he wants his country back?

do you really want to show Michael Moore’s speech where he says, “we live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons,” reminding people that the fat bastard might actually be right, and reminding them that it was a speech that he gave as he was winning an Oscar for best documentary, which he will probably win again with his movie about your administration?

is Gephart wrong when he says “this president is a miserable failure”, or are you suggesting that because he’s pointing he’s Hitleresque?

did Hitler really say that God told him to take on al-Queda? or are you guys being funny over there?

are you serious in showing the funniest thing that Kerry has ever said, “he will lay off your camel, tax your shovel, kick your ass, and tell you there is no promised land”?

and is it necessary to bleep ass?

mr. vice president, this commercial is the nicest gift youve ever given the democrats, and trust me, youve given them many gifts.

please re-consider showing this on your dime.

so that the dems can show this on theirs.

but i must say that you did the right thing by not letting the president speak at all.

its your only hope.

xoxoxoxo

tony

metafilter’s thread + bluecad + watch jeff jarvis on aaron brown tonight attempt to diss michael moore

tonight

dramarama, key club

eek-a-mouse, hollywood park

auf der maur, troubador

bang tango, paladino’s

sluts of trust, spaceland

saturday 6/26

ghostface killah + pharcyde, house of blues

teena marie + rick james + morris day & the time, universal

nikki nova, improv

no doubt + blink 182, hyundai pavilion

lloyd cole, mccabes

lee rocker, cozy’s

sunday 6/27

psoma, troubador

the alarm, key club (late show)

ottmar liebert, key club

monday 6/28

ll cool j, house of blues

twista, key club

tuesday 6/29

THE C – TROUBADOR

wednesday 6/30

glen phillips, largo

thursday 7/1

d-12 world, house of blues

everlast, conga room

concrete blonde, amoeba (free)

simon & garfunkel + everly bros, hollywood bowl

fishbone, santa monica pier

friday 7/2

mix master mike, key club

skinny puppy, henry fonda

richard thompson, house of blues

dramarama, house of blues

random complaints + 3rd leg + instapundit