Roy Betty I work in NYC and live in NJ. And no I will not watch his film at all. If I do I’ll borrow it from someone when it comes out on dvd. I will not pay $11-15 in theater fot this crap its not a documentary its fiction. Moore will not get a penny from my hard earn money.
He does not share my views on american poltics so why should I watch it.
big_martin I never called him names I just called him a big joke for the Republican parties to laugh at.
Here is the link to the article that I tried copying/pasting below.
http://www.hillnews.com/news/052604/clarke.aspx
Clarke claims responsibility
Ex-counterterrorism czar approved post-9-11 flights for bin Laden family
By Alexander Bolton = The Hill, May 26, 2004
Richard Clarke, who served as President Bush?s chief of counterterrorism, has claimed sole responsibility for approving flights of Saudi Arabian citizens, including members of Osama bin Laden?s family, from the United States immediately after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
In an interview with The Hill yesterday, Clarke said, ?I take responsibility for it. I don?t think it was a mistake, and I?d do it again.?
Most of the 26 passengers aboard one flight, which departed from the United States on Sept. 20, 2001, were relatives of Osama bin Laden, whom intelligence officials blamed for the attacks almost immediately after they happened.
Clarke?s claim of responsibility is likely to put an end to a brewing political controversy on Capitol Hill over who approved the controversial flights of members of the Saudi elite at a time when the administration was preparing to detain dozens of Muslim-Americans and people with Muslim backgrounds as material witnesses to the attacks.
Several Democrats say that at a closed-door meeting May 6, they pressed members of the commission investigating the attacks of Sept. 11 to find out who approved the flights.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who attended the meeting, said she asked former Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.) and former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman, a Republican, ?Who authorized the flight[s] and why??
?They said it?s been a part of their inquiry and they haven?t received satisfactory answers yet and they were pushing,? Boxer added.
Another Democrat who attended the meeting confirmed Boxer?s account and reported that Hamilton said: ?We don?t know who authorized it. We?ve asked that question 50 times.?
Referring to questions about who authorized the flights, former Rep. Tim Roemer (D-Ind.), one of the 10 members of the bipartisan Sept. 11 commission, said in an interview Monday: ?In my mind, this isn?t resolved right now. We need more clarity and information from the relevant political sources and FBI sources.?
But Clarke yesterday appeared to put an end to the mystery.
?It didn?t get any higher than me,? he said. ?On 9-11, 9-12 and 9-13, many things didn?t get any higher than me. I decided it in consultation with the FBI.?
Clarke?s explanation fit with a new stance Hamilton has taken on the issue of the Saudi flights.
Hamilton said in an interview Friday that when he told Democratic senators that the commission did not know who authorized the Saudi flights, he was not fully informed.
?They asked the question ?Who authorized the flight?? and I said I did not know and I?d try to find out,? Hamilton said. ?I learned subsequently from talking to the staff that we thought Clarke authorized the flight and it did not go higher.?
?I did not at any point say the White House was stalling,? Hamilton added. ?They asked me who authorized it, and I said we didn?t know.?
Hamilton said, however, that ?we asked the question of who authorized the flight many times to many people.?
?The FBI cleared the names [of the passengers on the flights] and Clarke?s CSG [Counterterrorism Security Group] team cleared the departure,? Hamilton said.
He cautioned that this is ?a story that could shift, and we still have this under review.?
This new account of the events seemed to contradict Clarke?s sworn testimony before the Sept. 11 commission at the end of March about who approved the flights.
?The request came to me, and I refused to approve it,? Clarke testified. ?I suggested that it be routed to the FBI and that the FBI look at the names of the individuals who were going to be on the passenger manifest and that they approve it or not. I spoke with the ? at the time ? No. 2 person in the FBI, Dale Watson, and asked him to deal with this issue. The FBI then approved ? the flight.?
?That?s a little different than saying, ?I claim sole responsibility for it now,?? Roemer said yesterday.
However, the FBI has denied approving the flight.
FBI spokeswoman Donna Spiser said, ?We haven?t had anything to do with arranging and clearing the flights.?
?We did know who was on the flights and interviewed anyone we thought we needed to,? she said. ?We didn?t interview 100 percent of the [passengers on the] flight. We didn?t think anyone on the flight was of investigative interest.?
When Roemer asked Clarke during the commission?s March hearing, ?Who gave the final approval, then, to say, ?Yes, you?re clear to go, it?s all right with the United States government,?? Clarke seemed to suggest it came from the White House.
?I believe after the FBI came back and said it was all right with them, we ran it through the decision process for all these decisions that we were making in those hours, which was the interagency Crisis Management Group on the video conference,? Clarke testified. ?I was making or coordinating a lot of the decisions on 9-11 in the days immediately after. And I would love to be able to tell you who did it, who brought this proposal to me, but I don?t know. The two ? since you press me, the two possibilities that are most likely are either the Department of State or the White House chief of staff?s office.?
Instead of putting the issue to rest, Clarke?s testimony fueled speculation among Democrats that someone higher up in the administration, perhaps White House Chief of Staff Andy Card, approved the flights.
?It couldn?t have come from Clarke. It should have come from someone further up the chain,? said a Democratic Senate aide who watched Clarke?s testimony.
Clarke?s testimony did not settle the issue for Roemer, either.
?It doesn?t seem that Richard Clarke had enough information to clear it,? Roemer said Monday.
?I just don?t think that the questions are resolved, and we need to dig deeper,? Roemer added. ?Clarke sure didn?t seem to say that he was the final decisionmaker. I believe we need to continue to look for some more answers.?
Roemer said there are important policy issues to address, such as the need to develop a flight-departure control system.
Several Democrats on and off the Hill say that bin Laden?s family should have been detained as material witnesses to the attacks. They note that after the attacks, the Bush administration lowered the threshold for detaining potential witnesses. The Department of Justice is estimated to have detained more than 50 material witnesses since Sept. 11.
Clarke said yesterday that the furor over the flights of Saudi citizens is much ado about nothing.
?This is a tempest in a teapot,? he said, adding that, since the attacks, the FBI has never said that any of the passengers aboard the flight shouldn?t have been allowed to leave or were wanted for further investigation.
He said that many members of the bin Laden family had been subjects of FBI surveillance for years before the attacks and were well-known to law-enforcement officials.
?It?s very funny that people on the Hill are now trying to second-guess the FBI investigation.?
The Sept. 11 commission released a statement last month declaring that six chartered flights that evacuated close to 140 Saudi citizens were handled properly by the Bush administration.
Elk…don’t try to educate me in the field of psychiatry. It’s not needed or wanted.
ptrdr
Is this not a forum? I am only referring to a comment you made and making a comparison!
well sonofabitch… disregard my last post- i would have bet good money it read “possible” not “impossible.” need to get my eyes checked…
Elk, of course this is a forum. You can say what you wish to within bounds it appears. My comment was that I am educated in psychiatry: I don’t really need a tutorial. Narcism as well as depression, schizophrenia, borderline personality, histrionic personality…I am well aware of all of it.
Let’s put this thread out of it’s misery. I will never utter or write the name of the person in question. To do so, would give this person far more credit than he deserves.
Jeff
To the comment regarding Moore being anti-american. I don’t agree with everything this man says, by any means, but he is offering an alternative option/perspective to the steady diet we see, read and hear everyday. In fact, to some extent I feel is being more American than most of us. He’s willing to speak out…to the MASSES…something many of us would never do for fear of disrupting the comfortable lifestyle we’ve all become accustomed to living. Speaking out on a message board is one thing…putting your credibility and your friendships at risk because you feel strongly enough about something is all together different.
Our society has become one that feels that anything not aligned with the “norm” is considered radical thought, when in fact nobody can really say that the norm wasn’t radical to begin with.
Regardless, he acheives what he really wants…he gets people to think. That’s all that really matters. Whether those seeds manifest today, tomorrow or next year, they “may” manifest. America is the best country on this planet, but those who live here want to be defined by what we the people are made of, NOT, by what our leaders project us as. It IS possible that our leaders aren’t ALWAYS looking for the little guy…you and me. Maybe a country that begins to think on their own rather than simply adopt the thoughts of others is a good thing. We are all smart enough to know somethings smells fishy and in my opinion things have been starting to stink lately.
Michael Moore has addressed the accusation that the Fred Barnes interview never took place. He has noted that the interview first took place in 1988, was published then, never raised a complaint or peep, and only now when Moore’s film is about to come out is Fred Barnes trying to claim it never happened. Here on his web site Moore addresses the issue plus provides scans of the original articles from the 80’s as they appeared:
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=19
So just who’s lying???
Michael Moore seems to have also addressed the Rep. Kennedy controversy that was linked to earlier in the thread:
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=20
And for those who have sited the websites such as the “truth about bowling” and other “moore lies” type of sites that are critical of Bowling for Columbine, you should take a look at Michael Moore’s multi-page response and defence of the movie. It also provides links to some other columns that support the work:
First I must warn you that I only took the time to read the first few replies to this thread, so what I’m writing may have already been said.
And in posting this message I want to make clear that I am a VERY liberal democrat. A democrat that is as left as they come. However, I can completely understand the righties and other folks that think Michael Moore is un-American. I even think that Moore comes acroos that way sometimes. And I’ve read all three of his major books and seen ‘Roger and Me’ and ‘Bowling for Columbine’.
I don’t think he came across so badly in ‘Roger and Me’, but he comes across anti-American somewhat in ‘Bowling…’.
I understand fully that he loves America and he’s tryng to support a cause to change America and bring back the things he loves about the country, but often times he pushes the fine line between love and hate.
I’m looking forward to seeing F:9/11, but I just hope Moore doesn’t stir the pot too much, because he may end up doing more harm than good. Especially with the revelation that came up a few weeks back when Richard Clarke said he okayed the bin Ladens and Saudi flight out of the United States on 9/12.
I too, have not read every single post and I will see F: 9/11.
So does Moore advertise this film as a “movie” or as a “documentary”? Because, I have heard conflicting views and there most defintley IS a difference.
Although, Moore does use fallacies to make his arguement, he still makes a point, doesnt he???
Some people were saying how he uses deceptive means to make a point and this is the same thing politicians do, and how this is not real journalism. In an ideal world, I think I would agree, but I dont think anything is really “pure” or “truthfful” anymore.
I enjoyed this thread, Cheers to all of you conservatives, liberals, bush haters, and bush lovers! GOD BLESS AMERICA!
I still haven’t seen “Bowling…” and probably wouldn’t have bothered with this one either, but all the advanced hating by other people who haven’t seen it makes me wonder if there might be something worthwhile here.
Then I saw Moore interviewed on Dateline last night, and read an article about the movie in the paper this morning, and now I think I can’t wait.
“The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naive and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair.” - H.L. Mencken
debauched:
Isn’t there something really ironic about Tme posting this???
No Scott, the only irony is in bushleague and his administration attempting to lay claim to any moral high ground.
I still find it amusing that some take offense to poking fun at Moore’s weight problem. This is T-mag…a physique enhancement site!! get outta here E-wimps!
I personally never cared much about political documentaries nor Moore, but with all this redneckish bashing and unreasoned hating, there must be some sort of truth moore brings to light that people just cant handle.
Now i am looking foward to watching the movie.
[quote]samsmarts wrote:
I personally never cared much about political documentaries nor Moore, but with all this redneckish bashing and unreasoned hating, there must be some sort of truth moore brings to light that people just cant handle.
Now i am looking foward to watching the movie. [/quote]
What constitutes ‘redneckish bashing’ anyhow?
Is that any different from enlightened, formally educated bashing? Like perhaps Al Franken’s bashing of Limbaugh, or anything concervative?
How are you able to distinguish between the two? Is one type of bashing preferred over another?
Bush supporters are pissed off because they can’t handle the truth and they all refuse to believe that Bush has made any mistakes at all it’s totally disgusting how those who support Bush believe he hasn’t lied to the American people at all. bush supporters need to wake up and live in the real world alot of his policies suck!
[quote]rainjack wrote:
What constitutes ‘redneckish bashing’ anyhow?
Is that any different from enlightened, formally educated bashing? Like perhaps Al Franken’s bashing of Limbaugh, or anything concervative?
How are you able to distinguish between the two? Is one type of bashing preferred over another?
[/quote]
Most people didnt use well reasoned arguements such as you mentioned and when one did everyone jumped on the bandwagon as if they wrote the damn thing. The intial reaction to moore was stuff like hes a pig, fat bastard, anti bush, america hater and other unreasoned bashing.
So its pretty fucking clear most of the bashers are rednecks who just cant handle what moore exposes in his work, while some others who are a touch more educated disect his facts with success in some cases and justify their bashing him. But the majority of moore bashing is ‘redneckish’.