I think that Eric Garris, our esteemed webmaster, expected too much from this movie, and, with all the promotional controversy surrounding it, one can hardly blame him. I think we have to take Michael Moore’s movie for what it is, not for what we wanted it to be: it is not the definitive treatment of how and why we were dragged into this war, but a compendium of all the insights and prejudices of the American Left at this particular moment in history. As such, it is interesting and instructive, if occasionally off-the-wall.
The Saudi-bashing is indicative of the Left’s apparent inability to do anything but undermine its own ostensible program of peace: the Saudi-Bush family conspiracy theories are pure partisanship, however, and it seems to me that Moore is unaware of how this makes the case for a "civilizational" war against the entire Arab world. For example, it’s interesting that Moore gives a sinister intonation to the statistic that approximately 7 percent of the American economy represents Saudi investment, yet complains about the closing of factories in his Rust Belt home town.
The first 20 minutes of this movie are a near-complete disaster, but, for me, even this segment is redeemed by the shot of the vulpine Paul Wolfowitz licking his comb and then running it through his greasy locks. As for the rest of the film, why don’t you just check out my Monday column on the subject, (read it early) here.