George W. Bush: Faith in the White Housereview by Mark Moring |
posted 11/25/2009
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Instead, narrator Janet Parshall quickly changes the subject, saying, "And even as the argument over Hussein's weapons of mass destruction raged on, Muammar Qaddafi, the leader/dictator of Libya, suddenly abandoned his atomic weapons program. Things are changing in the Middle East, and changing for the better." During this narration, we see an image of a U.S. soldier shaking hands with smiling Iraqi children, and another shot of Iraqis holding up a picture of Bush with the words, "The Hero of the Peace."
Huh? I'm glad Qaddafi has just said no to nukes, but what does that have to do with Hussein's alleged WMDs? My college philosophy teacher called that a "red herring."
Moore has been criticized for his one-sided portrayal of pre-invasion Iraq—happy images of smiling children flying kites, but nothing showing Saddam's horrendous atrocities against his own people. And Moore's portrayal of post-invasion Iraq is just as one-sided, including images of giddy U.S. soldiers blowing people away to heavy metal music, followed by disturbing close-up shots of dead civilians, including children.
Where Moore completely ignores the good things that have come to Iraq as a result of the U.S. invasion, this film ignores the bad things, instead accentuating only the positive, showing images of smiling Iraqis and U.S. soldiers while Parshall recounts some of the U.S. accomplishments—1500 rebuilt schools, 240 rebuilt hospitals, 1200 clinics, vaccinations for 22 million kids, a stronger Iraqi economy, and so on.
Right after that, NAE president Haggard announces that Bush "will be known as the man who stood up to Islamic fundamentalism being used to tyrannize their own people, so that in another hundred years, in the Islamic world, he'll be viewed as a great liberator."
I winced at that quote: A hundred years? And how will the Islamic world regard Bush in the meantime? It was an odd—and hardly ringing—endorsement.
The film finally addresses Michael Moore, less than five minutes before its conclusion. Well, he's sort of addressed. Parshall narrates: "But will George W. Bush be allowed to finish the battle against the forces of evil that threaten our very existence? One thing appears to be certain: He has already paid a very high price politically for this dedication. One Hollywood filmmaker who claims to be non-political has written and produced what he calls a documentary, that many critics quickly disclaimed as pure propaganda dedicated to the sole purpose of damaging the president's image …"
During Parshall's narration, we see Moore on various magazine covers, including Entertainment Weekly: "Michael Moore Speaks Out: A Candid Interview with the Most Dangerous Man in Movies." Interestingly, there is no image of the Fahrenheit 9/11 movie poster. And, as noted, we never hear the words "Michael Moore" or "Fahrenheit 9/11" spoken. I'm guessing they didn't want to be perceived as mudslingers. (For what it's worth, the DVD does include some bonus material under the heading "Responses to Fahrenheit 9/11—but they're text-only documents accessible only when the DVD is plugged into a computer's DVD-ROM player. These responses include an essay and an F 9/11 review from the Christian website MOVIEGUIDE, plus an excerpt from Unfairenheit 9/11: The Lies of Michael Moore, by Christopher Hitchens.)
The documentary's narration concludes with these words: "Not all Americans agree that we have always had the right man in the right position in a moment of crisis. But one thing is indisputable: Those who have led the nation in its darkest moments have always been willing to humble themselves before God, to call the nation to prayer.