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You are here: Home / Politics / Media / Hitchens On Moore

Hitchens On Moore

by John Cole|  June 21, 20049:42 pm| 35 Comments

This post is in: Media

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Go read the whole thing, in all of its savage glory, as Hitchens destroys Michael Moore:

I leave you with this tasty morsel:

If Michael Moore had had his way, Slobodan Milosevic would still be the big man in a starved and tyrannical Serbia. Bosnia and Kosovo would have been cleansed and annexed. If Michael Moore had been listened to, Afghanistan would still be under Taliban rule, and Kuwait would have remained part of Iraq. And Iraq itself would still be the personal property of a psychopathic crime family, bargaining covertly with the slave state of North Korea for WMD. You might hope that a retrospective awareness of this kind would induce a little modesty. To the contrary, it is employed to pump air into one of the great sagging blimps of our sorry, mediocre, celeb-rotten culture. Rock the vote, indeed.

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Reader Interactions

35Comments

  1. 1.

    shark

    June 21, 2004 at 10:26 pm

    I guess Hitchens can expect a lawsuit from Moore’s quick-strike legal team

  2. 2.

    SDN

    June 21, 2004 at 11:10 pm

    I’ve rarely seen such a thorough flaying…. and with scarcely a 4 letter word, yet…..

  3. 3.

    willyb

    June 21, 2004 at 11:14 pm

    Thanks for the link to the article. My favorite line from the article: “I never quite know whether Moore is as ignorant as he looks, or even if that would be humanly possible.”

    Priceless!

  4. 4.

    Terry Ott

    June 22, 2004 at 12:11 am

    Long after I forget the particulars of this article, the image that formed as I read it will stick with me: that of a bearded blimp floating above, fueled by human flatulence, and then being vaporized by a heat seaking missile.

  5. 5.

    rilkefan

    June 22, 2004 at 1:11 am

    “If Michael Moore had had his way, Slobodan Milosevic would still be the big man in a starved and tyrannical Serbia. Bosnia and Kosovo would have been cleansed and annexed.”

    I’m not a Michael Moore fan, but doesn’t this complaint apply to most of the Republican leadership of the period?

  6. 6.

    Chris P

    June 22, 2004 at 7:16 am

    Not that I’m sticking up for Moore mind you but…I find it interesting that when Hitchens tears into Reagan he gets lambasted in this blog (see “At Least He Is Consistent” 6/7/04) but when he lays into Moore there’s not a word about how truculent he is. Nice spin. You’re right about one thing though – Hitchens is consistent.

  7. 7.

    capt joe

    June 22, 2004 at 10:15 am

    The film is barely out and already it has been pronounced fact dead on arrival.

    Keep spinning Chris. Keep that caged hamster in motion

  8. 8.

    Chris P

    June 22, 2004 at 10:26 am

    I’m not sure what spin you’re referring to Capt. Joe. My post wasn’t about Moore or his movie. It was about Hitchens savaging Moore in his article and people not saying a word about it, but when the shoe was on the other foot and he did the same thing to Reagan, everyone was up in arms about how truculent Hitchens was.

  9. 9.

    Chris P

    June 22, 2004 at 10:28 am

    The word “truculent” in my original post referred to Hitchens, not Moore. Although Moore is truculent too.

  10. 10.

    Dean

    June 22, 2004 at 10:40 am

    Capt:

    What, facts will blossom over time?

    Now that several years have passed, is Oliver Stone’s “JFK” any more fact-based?

    Or are you hoping that new research will vindicate Michael Moore? If so, it certainly casts a new definition on “documentary,” e.g., “that which will EVENTUALLY be proven to be true.”

    In which case, I’d nominate the original “Star Wars” as a documentary, and more entertaining by far.

  11. 11.

    willyb

    June 22, 2004 at 10:46 am

    I think it’s poetic justice that Moore was, as you put it, savaged (what goes around, comes around). As for Reagan, Moore shouldn’t even be mentioned in the same breath with him.

  12. 12.

    JPS

    June 22, 2004 at 11:21 am

    rilkefan:

    Yes, and Hitchens was very harsh on them all the while.

    Chris P:

    I for one am not bothered by Hitchens’ truculence. I am somewhat bothered that he had to publish a nasty piece on Reagan immediately after his death (gave the same treatment to Mother Theresa, if memory serves).

    Are you saying that, for consistency’s sake, because I’m bothered by that, I should be bothered by his shredding of Moore, who’s after all alive, successful and extremely pleased with himself?

  13. 13.

    Chris P

    June 22, 2004 at 11:44 am

    JPS,

    What I’m saying is that, given the treatment Hitchens gives to virtually everyone (including Reagan and Mother Theresa) anything that Hitchens writes should be considered worthless. He’s nasty just for the sake of being nasty. I agree with you and willyb that Moore had it coming to him. However, I would give a lot more credence to the same article written by someone with more class and decency.

  14. 14.

    JPS

    June 22, 2004 at 12:09 pm

    Chris P:

    Fair enough, though I’ll stop short of agreeing that everything Hitchens writes should be considered worthless.

    Which made me stop and think, because there certainly are polemicists so nasty that I don’t care that they’re sometimes spot-on; I won’t cite them when they are, and I wish they weren’t on my side. For me, Hitchens isn’t one of these, though maybe he should be.

  15. 15.

    Cornholio

    June 22, 2004 at 12:39 pm

    I just can’t believe he was so mean to sweet Michael Moore! What a dear and charming man Mikey is. Well, more so than John Waybe Gacy anyway, even if he’s not as handsome.

  16. 16.

    Chris P

    June 22, 2004 at 1:31 pm

    JPS,

    Yeah, “worthless” was a little over the top. My opinion of Hitchens is more along the lines of your nasty polemicist description.

  17. 17.

    HH

    June 23, 2004 at 12:55 am

    “I’m not a Michael Moore fan, but doesn’t this complaint apply to most of the Republican leadership of the period?”

    Nope.

  18. 18.

    Andtrew J. Lazarus

    June 23, 2004 at 3:14 pm

    For a man upset with the alleged inaccuracies of Michael Moore, Hitch does a pretty sloppy job with facts himself.

    • Richard Clarke testified that he approved the flight of Saudi nationals
      (including the bin Ladens) out of the USA. That doesn’t answer the very interesting question of who initiated the flights.
    • Hitch writes of Zarqawi in a way you might almost think he was an ally of Saddam, operating from Baghdad after 9/11. Yes, Hitch, long after 9/11, as in, after the fall of Saddam. Until then, Zarqawi operated out of the Kurdish northern zone, out of range of Saddam’s forces. Newsweek reported that the Bush Administration repeatedly avoided attacking Zarqawi and his Ansar al-Islam group who are now attacking our occupation forces, so that their presence within the nominal borders of Iraq could be used as a pretext for the war.
    • Why Michael Moore has to suffer for the stupidities of Gore Vidal is beyond me, but I suppose it’s a distraction from coming to terms with the difference between the deer-in-the-headlights seven minutes President Bush spent after the attacks with the heroic mien Bush displays in the authorized hagiographical TV-movie by Lionel Chetwynd.

    I could go on and on, but what would be the use? Hitch is approaching the Iraq and Afghan wars with all the enthusiasm and vicarious Dutch courage of a drunken fan watching a hockey fight. What a waste of an excellent wordsmith.

  19. 19.

    Slartibartfast

    June 23, 2004 at 3:44 pm

    Ummm…apparently you’re having a problem with the distinction between truth and drama, Andrew. Or do you think DC 9/11 was presented as a documentary?

    I’d have thought Timothy Bottoms as President would have been a dead giveaway, but you never know.

  20. 20.

    Dean

    June 23, 2004 at 4:12 pm

    Am I the only person who remembers the news stories about *pro-Saddam* Kurdish forces slugging it out w/ anti-Saddam Kurdish forces in the late 1990s, you know, under the “no-fly zone”?

    http://204.27.188.70/daily/09-96/09-09-96/a06wn036.htm

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/not_in_website/syndication/monitoring/media_reports/2588073.stm

    So, operating in the Kurdish area is hardly the same as out of the reach of Saddam. Indeed, operating with Kurds doesn’t mean he wasn’t operating w/ Saddam’s people.

  21. 21.

    Kimmitt

    June 23, 2004 at 7:07 pm

    HH — the Republican leadership of the time came out against Clinton’s actions in Kosovo.

    Not that that makes Moore right, just that it gives him company.

    Quotations here.

    Rep. DeLay was particularly critical, and it’s not surprising that Sen. Inhofe said something foolish.

  22. 22.

    willyb

    June 23, 2004 at 7:20 pm

    “Richard Clarke testified that he approved the flight of Saudi nationals
    (including the bin Ladens) out of the USA. That doesn’t answer the very interesting question of who initiated the flights.”

    The following is the link from the article by Hitchens: Clarke claims responsibility, http://www.hillnews.com/news/052604/Clarke.aspx, dated May 26, 2004.

    ” 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.”

    “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 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.” [Richard Clarke]

    “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. ”

    Andtrew, Do you know something the rest of us don’t know?

  23. 23.

    Kimmitt

    June 24, 2004 at 3:45 am

    Wait, I’m lost — the September 11th Commission is credible on the right wing now? Crap, it’s Thursday on the East Coast. That explains it.

  24. 24.

    Dean

    June 24, 2004 at 8:09 am

    Kimmitt:

    Are you really this dense? Do you not see the difference between testimony and conclusions?

    Witnesses are called and they testify under oath. Barring the presumption that they are perjuring themselves (something apparently reserved only for cases involving sex), their testimony is generally considered truthful (which is not the same as accurate).

    The 9-11 Commission hasn’t even written a report yet. But its STAFF has released their opinions. To equate staff findings with testimony is about as sensible as saying that courtroom testimony is the same as jury verdicts.

  25. 25.

    willyb

    June 24, 2004 at 9:34 am

    Kimmitt,

    While phrasing his post as an attack on Christopher Hitchens’ fact checking, Andtrew’s post seemed to be lending backhanded support to the conspiracy theories advanced by Michael Moore. I was only asking Andtrew to develop his support for the first item on his list.

    Most of the information I posted was related to what appeared to be direct quotes. If you read the material, you will note that Clarke takes responsibility, would do it again, and can

  26. 26.

    cchuck

    June 25, 2004 at 8:47 pm

    Right, right, willy you idiot: whether something is politicized or not is a matter in the eyes of the beholder — if the commission says something you don’t like, u can call it “politicized”, and if they are on your side, then not. How about you idiot has some honesty to say this.
    Idiot.

  27. 27.

    joe

    July 2, 2004 at 5:21 pm

    I don’t understand the vitriol being directed at Moore. It seems to me that people are upset because he presents a biased perspective. Big deal. He certainly does not hide that fact and even if he did, we all know him well enough to know that he has a particular slant. What he does in his film is much less biased or unfair than what Fox news and the current administration put out on a daily basis. It seems to me that people (particularly those on the right) are angry simply because Moore uses tactics that feel should be reserved exclusively for their use. As for Hitchens, his article is fueled not so much by a concern for the inaccuracies in Moore’s film, but by a deep personal animus. The nasty tone of his article depletes any value to his arguments.

  28. 28.

    piglet

    July 14, 2004 at 1:25 pm

    Here’s an interesting comment on Hitchens’ “cowardice” accusation (not for the idiots in this forum but for those who might be interested in a nargument).
    http://www.nypress.com/17/26/news&columns/MattTaibbi.cfm

  29. 29.

    piglet

    July 14, 2004 at 1:36 pm

    “Hitchens destroys Moore”? Just give us one example where Moore is clearly proved wrong. The interesting thing is, Hitchens doesn’t callenge any of the facts presented by Moore. All he’s saying is he doesn’t like the attitude. Fair enough, but who cares?

    One example: Moore says in the film that Bush ought to have worked much harder to catch Bin Laden in Afghanistan instead of attacking a country that posed no threat. Now, Hitchens says that because Moore was against the Afghanistan war, he is being inconsistent. Bullshit! The purpose and justification of the Afghanistan war was to catch Bin Laden. In this respect, the adminsitration has clearly failed. This is a fact, and Moore is perfectly right to point it out.

  30. 30.

    piglet

    July 14, 2004 at 1:45 pm

    Another example, but this is my last: Moore says that the soldiers who are dying because Bush sent them to war are mainly poor and African-American. Hitchens “responds” by saying that blacks have already fought in the civil war – a point which is completely irrelevant to the film. Moore’s point, that the rich white men who are in charge of sending poor soldiers to their deaths should at least be held accountable for their actions, is obviously and incontestably correct, and Hitchens, like all the other critics of Moore, simply has nothing to say about it. If you call this a glorious argument, hell, you are real easy to please.

  31. 31.

    piglet

    July 14, 2004 at 1:48 pm

    “not for the idiots in this forum but for those who might be interested in an argument”: I’d like to stress that I meant to say “not for those in this forum who are idiots but for those who are interested in an argument”. Language can be tricky.

  32. 32.

    piglet

    July 14, 2004 at 4:28 pm

    Here’s a good discussion of Hitchens, strictly by the merits:

    http://hollywoodbitchslap.com/feature.php?feature=1150

Comments are closed.

Trackbacks

  1. The Galvin Opinion says:
    June 23, 2004 at 11:16 pm

    DAILY 7: FAHRENHEIT 9/11 MOVIEW REVIEWS

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  3. Slant Point says:
    July 1, 2004 at 3:58 pm

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