I still have not seen Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11. I did not get to a theater when it came out, though I regretted that failure after hearing about packed houses, the camaraderie of kindred souls, etc. Still, with all the sound and fury the film generated, I figured I already knew most of what was in it.
In the months since Moore's documentary was released, I put off watching it on DVD, perhaps subconsciously feeling that to view it alone would be too depressing. The last thing I wanted, with increased talk of impeachment and indictment, was "Bush fatigue," that paralysis of spirit that accompanies acute powerlessness.
I tried to watch Fahrenheit 9/11 this week. I figured enough time has passed, the larger-than-life Moore has faded into the background or at least ceased being part of the story. I figured I could appreciate the film on its own terms.
I figured wrong. I had to shut it off after 15 minutes.
It wasn't the sound of the planes hitting the World Trade Center, though this brought tears, or the revelations that members of Osama bin Laden's family were allowed to leave the country while the rest of the nation was grounded, though this brought rage (to this day, Bush would rather hold hands all afternoon with a Saudi prince than talk for five minutes to the grieving mother of a dead U.S. soldier). Nor was it the August 2001 footage of Bush and his lapdog press corps trading quips on his permanent vacation at his ranch, though this recalled Yogi Berra's "deja vu all over again" quip. There's Bubble Boy, talking about his fishing, his bike riding, his brush trimming, while the intelligence reports about bin Laden attacking the U.S. with airplanes sat unheeded.
These scenes hit hard, to be sure, but the most nauseating were the ones that played before the film's opening credits rolled. These were intended as context: the Florida vote debacle, the evidence of a stolen election, the smirking dismissals of Bush's mob (e.g., the unctuous James Baker), the capitulation on the floor of the Senate, as one after another, dignified, defiant black congresspersons protested the election result before (oh, the irony!) being silenced by Al Gore, presiding over his own political beheading. The sight of spineless senators applauding Gore's capitulation nearly prompted me to put my Doc Marten through the screen.
These scenes make it clear that none of what followed, not one single moment of the previous five nightmarish years, was necessary or preordained. That something very sick happened with our electoral process, something that will spawn the sorts of conspiracy theories that grew from the JFK assassination. Indeed, recently a new book by British journalist Andrew Gumbel (Steal This Vote) was published that concludes: "Al Gore won the 2000 presidential election."
As New York Times columnist Paul Krugman put it, "Two different news media consortiums reviewed Florida's ballots; both found that a full manual recount would have given the election to Mr. Gore. This was true despite a host of efforts by state and local officials to suppress likely Gore votes … But few Americans have heard these facts. Perhaps journalists have felt that it would be divisive to cast doubt on the Bush administration's legitimacy."
When someone tells me (as they do, unsolicited and ad nauseum), "Well, at least Bush ain't Al Gore," the only appropriate response is: Are you fucking kidding me?! Are you suggesting someone could do worse than Bush?! Barney Fife could have done better than he has!
What I saw of Fahrenheit 9/11 was enough to convince me that there is no accountability in, or of, the Bush administration. Everything we had previously taken for granted — inviolable electoral process, Constitution, due process, open public discourse, freedom of assembly, separation of church and state, even our fucking language — all of it, has been mocked, cheapened and forever weakened by this crew.
I frankly don't care that Bush sat there, paralyzed by fear, reading My Pet Goat to children in that Florida classroom for several minutes after the terrorists attacked our nation on 9/11. What I do care about is that he was even sitting in that chair on that day, pawning himself off as the president of the United States.
