An add-on to the last item, about whether it's fair for Moore to show scenes of happy Iraqis from before the war: hawks have been fond of saying, "That dang liberal media is only showing the bad news from Iraq! What about all the good things that are happening? Kids are going to school! People are going to work! Life is happening!"

Well, kids went to school and people went to work before the war, too. It's either relevant for Moore to point that out, or it's irrelevant for hawks to point out these activities as evidence that the war has been good for Iraq. Can't have it both ways.

Good review. Hitchens has it out for everyone. He's a contrarian who takes his criticisms to a personal level.
Michael Moore is indeed partisan and the film does manipulate some facts and some events. However Moore does show that the all mighty dollar (and oil) really run this world and that political decisions are often made with that in mind. Or more specifically this war was not about our safety or about the liberation of Iraqis. There was something much more nefarious going on. But I don't belive in conspiracy theories so I won't go there.
Let's just hope Kerry wins the election.

All of this Monday-morning quarterbacking is plain silly. Nobody knew that the first plane strike on the WTC was a terrorist act until the second plane hit. By then it was simply too late to do anything; the damage had already been done.

I think Hitchens' point holds: Bush is not an action hero. If he had leaped to action and started ordering planes shot down willy-nilly before all the facts were in, the left would be excoriating him now for his "Rambo-like tactics."

As for the Bin Laden family flights out of the country after 9/11, here is the relevant portion from the 9/11 Commission report:

"One flight, the so-called Bin Ladin flight, departed the United States on September 20 with 26 passengers, most of them relatives of Usama Bin Ladin. We have found no credible evidence that any chartered flights of Saudi Arabian nationals departed the United States before the reopening of national airspace.

"The Saudi flights were screened by law enforcement officials, primarily the FBI, to ensure that people on these flights did not pose a threat to national security, and that nobody of interest to the FBI with regard to the 9/11 investigation was allowed to leave the country. Thirty of the 142 people on these flights were interviewed by the FBI, including 22 of the 26 people (23 passengers and 3 private security guards) on the Bin Ladin flight. Many were asked detailed questions. None of the passengers stated that they had any recent contact with Usama Bin Ladin or knew anything about terrorist activity.

"The FBI checked a variety of databases for information on the Bin Ladin flight passengers and searched the aircraft. It is unclear whether the TIPOFF terrorist watchlist was checked. At our request, the Terrorist Screening Center has rechecked the names of individuals on the flight manifests of these six Saudi flights against the current TIPOFF watchlist. There are no matches.

"The FBI has concluded that nobody was allowed to depart on these six flights who the FBI wanted to interview in connection with the 9/11 attacks, or who the FBI later concluded had any involvement in those attacks. To date, we have uncovered no evidence to contradict this conclusion."

From your post: "Moore's point in the film is still compelling: why were members of Osama's family allowed to leave without any kind of interrogation...?"

As you can see from the above excerpt from the Commission report, it simply isn't true that "members of Osama's family [were] allowed to leave without any kind of interrogation." At least 22 members were interviewed; "many were asked detailed questions."

And you ignored the central point of Hitchens' discussion of Clarke's involvement: According to Clarke himself, he was the only one who authorized these flights. However many times he appeared in Moore's film, it's pretty clear to everybody he is no friend of Bush 43.

Keep in mind too that the Bin Laden clan is one of the largest in Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden's father had 54 children by various wives -- not to mention numberless cousins, aunts, uncles, grandchildren, etc.

Frankly, to suggest that everyone with a Bin Laden name ought to be a suspect goes against the basic principles of our justice system. Moore is guilty of some of the worst kind of primitive nativism (which he often accuses the right of). What is he really saying here? That anyone who is related to a suspected murderer ought not to be permitted to leave the country? How does Moore want to apply this new law of his, across the board, or only to Muslims?

I'd like to think we are beyond such barbarous thinking. Are you at least beginning to see the absurdity and downright racism of Moore's insinuations?

For a more detailed explication of the errors, deceptions, and manipulations in "Fahrhenheit," see the following:

http://www.davekopel.com/Terror/Fiftysix-Deceits-in-Fahrenheit-911.htm

inkling, to your points:

"Nobody knew that the first plane strike on the WTC was a terrorist act until the second plane hit. By then it was simply too late to do anything; the damage had already been done."

Actually US intelligence warned Bush on August 6th that Bin Laden might be planning to hijack commercial airliners, so something might have been done then. Mossad agents had warned the FBI and CIA that terrorists had slipped into the US and were planning a major attack. Moussaoui had already been arrested as a suspected hijacker, and in August Minnesota FBI agents tried to work with the CIA, and were chastised for doing so. An FBI Minnesota supervisor said at the time he was trying keep Moussaoui from “taking control of a plane and fly it into the WTC."

On the day of the attacks, air traffic controllers suspected flight 11 had been hijacked before it struck the WTC, and NORAD was notified six minutes before the first strike, which they couldn't have prevented. However it's possible that flight 175 might've been stopped or diverted - I believe the 9/11 report is critical of both. (Air traffic controllers made a tape of their conversations at the time, but it was later destroyed.)

"If he had leaped to action and started ordering planes shot down willy-nilly before all the facts were in, the left would be excoriating him now for his 'Rambo-like tactics.'"

Maybe so, but this is a bogus argument - it assumes that there is no other response he might have made. What you describe would not have been decisive, effective leadership, any more so than his seven minutes staring into space. But I believe an effective leader would have excused himself from the class immediately, gracefully, and headed off to take charge.

Regarding the Bin Ladin flights, see http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/f911facts/index.php?id=35

I have learned and acknowledge that some of the Saudis who left the U.S. did have conversations with the FBI, at least that's the current story. However there was no *significant* interrogation as there was with other, less wealthy and influential Arabs (some of whom were carted off to jail and detained indefinitely).

"Frankly, to suggest that everyone with a Bin Laden name ought to be a suspect goes against the basic principles of our justice system."

Wow, you *totally* miss the point here and in the rest of the paragraph. No way nowhere did Moore suggest that they should be "suspect." The point was that they should have been *detained and questioned*, as others with even less connection to Bin Laden and terrorists were detained and questioned. The point of the film is that they not only left the U.S., but they did so with assistance from the U.S. government, and without any kind of real interrogation. Again, other Saudis within the U.S., lacking a cozy relationship with the Bush family, were treated quite differently.

"...anyone who is related to a suspected murderer ought not to be permitted to leave the country?"

Well, if the suspected murderer is leader of Al Qaeda and responsible for the complete destruction of the World Trade Center and murder of some 3,000 people, it might be reasonable to detain members of his family for extensive interrogation, yes.

Re. Richard Clarke, my point was that he was not "the hero" of the film that Hitchens makes him out to be. And though Clarke approved the Saudis' departure, he was asked to do so by someone, and somehow he's forgotten exactly who that was.

Moore's point about Clarke was that he was consistently frustrated in his attempts to call attention to the Al Qaeda threat, in a pattern of ignorance and denial within the Bush Administration that created a context in which the attacks could occur. Then, after the attacks by a group of men who were mostly Saudis and some Egyptians, the Administration implied an association with Hussein and Iraq to justify an invasion of that country, but largely ignored the relevance of Saudi participation, failed to sustain focus on Afghanistan or on the pursuit of Osama. If this doesn't strike you as fishy, I suggest that your thinking is clouded by ideology.

But I don't think the problems with the Bush Administration are about ideology at all. They're about deception and incompetence. In fact many thoughtful Republicans are beginning to question their support for Bush. Hopefully you'll take another look at the facts and give this more thought.