Having spent way too much time discussing Fahrenheit 9/11 before seeing it, I should probably say a few more things now that I have.
First and most importantly, I have to agree with Richard Roeper that everyone should see this film. It's certainly possible that someone who goes into it supporting Bush will come out still supporting him. But if you're going to pull that lever, it's your duty to do so with eyes wide open, and for all its problems, F9/11 is an eye-opener.
I think I come down closest to Paul Krugman in my judgment of the film: flawed yet essential for all the reasons he notes (though I cut Moore less slack than Krugman does; where he says "Why hold a self-proclaimed polemicist to a higher standard than you hold the president of the United States?" I say why hold a self-proclaimed documentarian to a lower standard than the most deceptive con-man ever to hold the Oval Office?).
There is no question that Moore plays fast and loose, employing technical facts to mildly misleading ends. And though I earlier defended MM for not putting "the other side" on camera since, after all, the other side has the rest of the media to make its case, I found myself wishing that he had -- not out of some notion of fairness or balance, but because he raises important questions that I actually found myself wanting answers to.
Take those Saudi flights that we've discussed so much here. (A good example of the point I just made: MM clearly does imply that the flights left while air traffic was still grounded, though the thrust of his argument -- that the Saudis received special treatment -- doesn't depend on that). MM uses this to raise an ominous (and legit) question: who authorized these flights and why? So why not get, say, Richard Clarke on camera to answer it. I'm not saying there is a convincing answer -- I certainly don't buy the Isikoff line that the matter is settled just because FBI told the 9/11 commission that they didn't want to investigate these passengers in depth; that only raises the further question of why the fuck not? -- but it would have been a richer story and a better film if MM had allowed someone to take a stab at it instead of throwing it out there just to get the audience worked up. (BTW, Kev is right that Clarke is a red herring. Clarke appears in a couple of clips saying something Moore approves of, but in no way does MM suggest that he's a hero whose every judgment on national security should be respected).
F911 is really two films in one, and while you can enjoy the first half -- as well as poke and pull at its claims -- it's the second half, the Iraq half, that really shook me. I mean, I knew everything he said, but I'd never seen it. And this is part of what I mean when I say it's the duty of Bush supporters to see the film. I can see how someone would say that everything Moore shows is justifiable because of the nature of Saddam's regime or whatnot, but they should at least have to face up to what that argument really means (saying that Moore stacks the deck here is irrelevant; if you've watched any other coverage of the war, you've seen all the other cards already).
The other reason I say Bush supporters owe it to themselves to see the film is that if even the slightest part of your support for him is based on his image or a gut feeling about his abilities as a leader, this will show/remind you just how carefully that image been constructed and how easily it is to construct an opposite one.
I should probably note here that not everyone on the left agrees with me. I know or know of several liberals who found the movie some combination of shallow, unpersuasive, boring, and preaching to the choir.
And it's certainly true that F911 is particularly brilliant filmmaking, or even Moore's best film (I'd have to see Roger and Me again, but I recall that being more tightly constructed). It's entertaining and smarter than it is dumb, but setting aside my political hat and putting on my film buff one (it has an extra wide brim for sundance protection), I'm appalled at the Cannes jury for claiming that politics had nothing to do with their decision to award F911 the stella d'oro. It reminds me of the International Documentary Association preposterously naming Bowling for Columbine the best documentary of all time in 2002 (do you think they wish they waited two years?). I'm all for hating Bush but thinking that means you have to turn Moore into the ultimate champion of mankind is just embarrassing.
Speaking of which, personal to KG: I did go back and read my 1997 Salon article about Moore, and I can only say that anyone who flipped out after reading it is unhinged in the amusing way that only a lefty can be (much in the way that another guy I know of was actually angry at Krugman for attacking Moore in what any sane person would read as a ringing endorsement). True my piece is out of date, but given the thrust of the posts here, I was surprised to find that I said almost nothing about Moore's dishonesty. The five things I said about Moore were: he's an egomaniac, he's not very funny, he's paranoid, he treats his employees badly, and he's a hypocrite who pretends to be a friend of the working man while he's actually a snob.
I'm glad to say that almost none of that is on display in F911, but it was definitely accurate in 1997 and remains at least partly true of Moore regarding his speaking engagements, for instance. I hardly see how it was hateful to point any of this out, especially at a time when no one else was.
