By Brian Carnell

Thursday, March 20, 2003

Michael Moore this week posted a letter to his web site offering Moore's typical factually challenged observations, this time offering objections to the war in Iraq. Lets have a look,

Monday, March 17, 2003 A Letter from Michael Moore to George W. Bush on the Eve of War

George W. Bush
1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington, DC

Dear Governor Bush:

Well, at least Moore got this far without a major gaffe.

So today is what you call "the moment of truth," the day that "France and the rest of world have to show their cards on the table." I'm glad to hear that this day has finally arrived. Because, I gotta tell ya, having survived 440 days of your lying and conniving, I wasn't sure if I could take much more. So I'm glad to hear that today is Truth Day, 'cause I got a few truths I would like to share with you:

Moore may or may not be right about Bush's truth telling, but it's a bit odd for a documentary filmmaker who appears to routinely stage events for his films to complain about Bush's "lying and conniving." Of course Moore is probably appealing to some "higher truth" when he lies.

1. There is virtually NO ONE in America (talk radio nutters and Fox News aside) who is gung-ho to go to war. Trust me on this one. Walk out of the White House and on to any street in America and try to find five people who are PASSIONATE about wanting to kill Iraqis. YOU WON'T FIND THEM! Why? 'Cause NO Iraqis have ever come here and killed any of us! No Iraqi has even threatened to do that. You see, this is how we average Americans think: If a certain so-and-so is not perceived as a threat to our lives, then, believe it or not, we don't want to kill him! Funny how that works!

What is Moore babbling on about? Nobody in his right mind is "gung ho" about going to war with Iraq or anyone else. Americans were rightly reluctant even to go to war in Afghanistan. It would be much better if Saddam Hussein had simply taken Bahrain's offer of exile. But many Americans, nonetheless, support a war to disarm Iraq.

2. The majority of Americans -- the ones who never elected you -- are not fooled by your weapons of mass distraction. We know what the real issues are that affect our daily lives -- and none of them begin with I or end in Q. Here's what threatens us: two and a half million jobs lost since you took office, the stock market having become a cruel joke, no one knowing if their retirement funds are going to be there, gas now costs almost two dollars -- the list goes on and on. Bombing Iraq will not make any of this go away. Only you need to go away for things to improve.

Of course, no recent president has been elected by a majority of Americans. But the majority of Americans do clearly support the war. Depending on the poll, anywhere from 60 to 70 percent of Americans say they support war against Iraq. Moore might not like this and might disagree with those Americans, but to pretend this away merely illustrates how out of touch with reality Moore becomes when making his ideological points.

This is, however, the same Michael Moore who apparently thinks that his wretched film Canadian Bacon was a failure for not other reason than that his distributor sabotaged it.

3. As Bill Maher said last week, how bad do you have to suck to lose a popularity contest with Saddam Hussein? The whole world is against you, Mr. Bush. Count your fellow Americans among them.

Again, an overwhelming majority of Americans support Bush's position. Moore probably also thinks most Americans admire Fidel Castro, as Moore has said before that he does.

4. The Pope has said this war is wrong, that it is a SIN. The Pope! But even worse, the Dixie Chicks have now come out against you! How bad does it have to get before you realize that you are an army of one on this war? Of course, this is a war you personally won't have to fight. Just like when you went AWOL while the poor were shipped to Vietnam in your place.

The Pope says the war is a sin. The Pope also says that homosexual sex is a sin. I expect Moore to jump on that wagon big time any day. Again, Moore simply prevaricates in trying to pretend that the minority of Americans who oppose the war like himself are in he majority when they are not.

5. Of the 535 members of Congress, only ONE (Sen. Johnson of South Dakota) has an enlisted son or daughter in the armed forces! If you really want to stand up for America, please send your twin daughters over to Kuwait right now and let them don their chemical warfare suits. And let's see every member of Congress with a child of military age also sacrifice their kids for this war effort. What's that you say? You don't THINK so? Well, hey, guess what -- we don't think so either!

If Bush actually responded to this inane letter, the best response would be that Bush will consider sending his daughters to Kuwait as soon as Moore agrees to send his kid to a public school. Moore sends his daughter to an elite New York private school despite his working-class pose (and has said that his daughter's activities are nobody else's business, thank you very much).

6. Finally, we love France. Yes, they have pulled some royal screw-ups. Yes, some of them can be pretty damn annoying. But have you forgotten we wouldn't even have this country known as America if it weren't for the French? That it was their help in the Revolutionary War that won it for us? That our greatest thinkers and founding fathers -- Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, etc. -- spent many years in Paris where they refined the concepts that lead to our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution? That it was France who gave us our Statue of Liberty, a Frenchman who built the Chevrolet, and a pair of French brothers who invented the movies? And now they are doing what only a good friend can do -- tell you the truth about yourself, straight, no b.s. Quit pissing on the French and thank them for getting it right for once. You know, you really should have traveled more (like once) before you took over. Your ignorance of the world has not only made you look stupid, it has painted you into a corner you can't get out of.

Ah yes, the French -- the country that provided military and other support for those who committed genocide in Rwanda. France's position seems to be that unilaterally arming and training the Hutu military and helping its genocidal leaders escape the country is okay, but unilaterally expelling a tyrannical dictator from Iraq is abhorrent.

Well, cheer up -- there IS good news. If you do go through with this war, more than likely it will be over soon because I'm guessing there aren't a lot of Iraqis willing to lay down their lives to protect Saddam Hussein. After you "win" the war, you will enjoy a huge bump in the popularity polls as everyone loves a winner -- and who doesn't like to see a good ass-whoopin' every now and then (especially when it 's some third world ass!). So try your best to ride this victory all the way to next year's election. Of course, that's still a long ways away, so we'll all get to have a good hardy-har-har while we watch the economy sink even further down the toilet!

But, hey, who knows -- maybe you'll find Osama a few days before the election! See, start thinking like THAT! Keep hope alive! Kill Iraqis -- they got our oil!!

Ah, the oil nonsense. Because putting your presidency on the line for 3-5 percent of the world's known oil reserves would make a lot of sense. Had the conflict between the U.S. and Iraq really been just about oil, the United States would have seized Iraq's oil fields back in 1991 when it could easily have done so, and as the Left insisted at the time that the United States would inevitably do.

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