Fahrenheit 9/11 was not meant to be unbiased. Michael Moore has stated that he honestly hopes it's one of the factors that helps Bush not get re-elected. Now, while I'm not a big supporter of Bush, I walked in expecting to get a good amount of the extremist rhetoric that, well, either side of the political spectrum is capable of. That's just a reality of the situation.

What we got was anything but that. Interspersed with George the Second's seeming incompetence and the trail of the Bush family's associations with Saudis both in personal and business dealings was something even more important. He goes beyond conspiracy theories, beyond the paperwork that doesn't match up and the informational black holes to the end result - the people affected by not only the events of September 11, 2001, but also by the military conflicts that have unfolded since then. Even more moving is the fact that Moore manages to accomplish this balance in a manner respectful to those whose lives have been destroyed.

There are those that will retort that Moore edited things to suit his needs. Well, excuse me for sounding a little crass here but - No shit, Sherlock. However, the irrefutable fact is that there was anything to edit in the first place. If there wasn't, it wouldn't be much of a documentary, now would it? One of the drawbacks of being in the public eye all the time is that an amazing amount of your time is on tape, and footage of the President of the United States showing up for a PR opportunity when a plane crashes into the Twin Towers doesn't lie. The fact that we can, four years later, see the moment when the President finds out about the second plane into the Twin Towers, and then get to watch him sit and read a children's book for seven minutes afterwards doesn't lie. George? Let me tip you off to a small tidbit here. If you'd been so kind as to get up and do something about the fact that terrorists were flying planes around the East Coast like James Dean on a bender, the parents of the children in front of you would have understood why you let the photo op go. I'm willing to betcha money on that. Granted, I don't have as much money as you do since I haven't had the opportunity to drive a couple companies into the ground, but I'd lay down a twenty of the cash I made parking cars over the weekend on it.

Moore's coverage of September 11 was accomplished not by flaunting the haunting footage of two planes crashing into skyscrapers in New York, but by simple dint of a black screen while the sounds of that day ran through the speakers of the theatre. This avoidance of a scene that no one will ever forget shows a greater consideration and respect for those 3,000 killed and the families left behind than the Bush campaign has shown themselves capable of, as more than one vulgar campaign ad can attest.

Beyond the undeniably political message of this movie is a hard fact that outstrips the money, and the oil, and the fact that at times our Commander in Chief looks like a monkey that doesn't know which trick will yield a banana.

People are dying.

Due to the actions and ambitions of George W. Bush and those around him, people are dead. Americans, Iraqis, Afghanis. People. Are. Dead. Meanwhile, there are conferences being held about how to best land the government contracts with the most profitable yield for corporate America. Because, yes, we need to establish that. The citizens of Iraq have electricity for a few hours a day, but before we fix that, let's make sure that the pipeline from the Caspian Sea is in place. While it can be argued that such pipelines bring work and therefore an increased standard of living for the area, I can't help but wonder if it isn't better to start people out from a standard of living that's somewhere above the Stone Age before we worry about who gets the rights to build cell phone towers? Granted, this means that the government of Iraq is going to run at an economic loss for a decade or so, but you'd think if anyone would be able to advise on how to manage a situation like that, it's the Bush administration. After all Dubya not only showed entrepreneurial prowess in private business, but has managed to increase the deficit of our country to record amounts - a minimum of $525 billion.
(If you think I'm exaggerating that figure, well, even the Pakistanis are doing the math provided by Reuters when the administration won't.)

This, it seems, is the fruit of compassionate conservatism. In the world according to President Bush, people die and those that survive are lost in the shuffle, for they are fodder to be rifled through. The greatest examples of this are the men and women in the military.

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