Fahrenheit 9/11

Last night I saw Fahrenheit 9/11 with a friend. The theater was packed on a beautiful summer week night. I don't know if the film's popularity can help get rid of Bush, but we have to take our victories where we find them.

I have always been a fan of Michael Moore. I enjoyed Roger and Me and Bowling for Columbine. In general I liked Fahrenheit also. It gave an up close and frightening look at our President. The prolonged close up of his face the moment he was told that planes struck the World Trade Center was terrifying. He looked frightened, vacant and confused. It was the perfect moment for a psychic reading.

Unfortunately I was put off by a very significant omission. Moore didn't say one word about Israel's role in pushing for war against Iraq. The neo-con hawks in the Bush administration are pro-Israel. These Sharonists give Israel carte blanche to build walls in Palestine, shoot unarmed protesters, take more land for settlers or do anything else they want. Israel wanted this war and the pro-Bush Christian Zionists and just plain Zionists pushed right along on this side of the Atlantic.

Why did Moore leave Israel untouched? It is a question that our journalists, the few we have, need to ask him. Bob Dreyfuss raises the question for Tom Paine. Israel is so untouchable that even leftists remain silent when they have the change to speak up. Then again, Moore supported General Wesley Clark for president. Perhaps he isn't such a leftist after all.

Our media is so skewed to the right that 90% of the country can be considered left wing. That doesn't mean that the rest of us have to buy into the drumbeat.

It doesn't hurt Moore that the increasingly right wing mainstream media have joined the Bushies in the attack. Bob Somerby at Daily Howler tells us more.