Saturday, June 19, 2004

USA Today's review of Fahrenheit 9/11 says:

Despite all the hype and Moore's undeniable comedic talents, Fahrenheit 9/11 is a profoundly disturbing movie that struck me as far closer to heavy-handed propaganda than to art. Does anyone seriously believe, as Moore suggests, that the United States invaded Afghanistan primarily to pave the way for a natural-gas pipeline? Or that the war in Iraq was a single-minded effort to win new contracting business for Halliburton?

A single sentence captures the filmmaker's cheap-shot style. Describing George W. Bush's trip to Florida on Sept. 10, 2001, Moore gleefully declares in his voice-over, "He went to bed that night in a bed made with fine French linens." The way Moore presents this tiny detail conveys the impression that stalwart Democratic presidents such as Bill Clinton slept only on the cheapest sheets available from Wal-Mart. Maybe Moore and his fans can call this hitherto unreported Bush scandal "Linen-closet-gate."


There's lots more.

There are lots of ads by shadow parties attacking Bush. Here's a great one attacking the Democrats.

Andrew Sullivant points to Bush's spending record and asks why conservatives still support him?

The answer is that we knew what we were getting in 2000. Bush originally ran as a "compasionate conservative". Based on his record in Texas, this meant either "conservative on some things, moderate on others" if you were kind or "big-spender Republican" if you were blunt.

During the Reagan administration a frequent critisism of Republicans was that they were cruel and heartless. They cut the social safety net. Bush's version of being a conservative was that he would expand the safety net and defense. The result - no cuts anywhere.

Bush should get more credit for this from the left. As with Nixon, Bush is a lot more liberal in many areas than he is given credit for. Like Nixon, the Left is blinded by a war and refuses to acknowledge anything else that Bush has done.

The Right has two choices. They can support Bush or they can sit on their hands and hope that Kerry will win and prove so disasterous that he will re-invigorate the Right.

This happened to the Democrats in 2000. After eight years of Clinton triangulation, the Left wanted one of their own. Gore made a few speeches about class warfare but never really endeared himself to them. That's why Nader got so many votes. That's why Dean got off to an early lead by claiming to be from the "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party".

I keep reading about how the far Right is disenchanted with Bush but I don't think that it is as bad as with Gore. As I said above, the Right always knew that Bush was not a fiscal conservative but he has a lot of other qualities that conservatives like.

Plus the alternative would not be a centrist Democrat, it would be the one with the highest liberal voting score in the Senate.

No comments: