I'm going to give the liberals credit and assume that they don't mean to be cozying up to Michael Moore the way they are. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they're all drunk on their Bush-hatred and suffering from Clinton-withdraw and just aren't thinking clearly. I can't help but imagine them all waking up on the first Wednesday in November, rolling over and seeing Michael Moore in bed with them -- really seeing him for the first time -- and finally understanding why they were asked to leave early. "Did we really spend the last six months dancing with THAT?" they'll ask themselves while crawling to the toilet.

Michael Moore is a documentary film maker -- in the same sense that Hannibal Lecter is a gourmet chef: he's got the skills, but his concoctions are quite appalling once you realize what's actually in them. Moore's Bowling for Columbine won the Best Documentary Oscar in 2003, despite the fact that it contained enough propaganda, distortions, and outright fiction to qualify more as a fantasy film than an actual documentary. Moore's latest heaping helping is Fahrenheit 9/11, in which he attacks President Bush for having been asleep at the wheel prior to 9/11, having handled the crisis badly, and having lead the US into an unnecessary Iraqi war, all the while covering up his shady ties to a Saudi Arabian criminal element. Disney, the film's potential distributor (as a parent company to Miramax, which funded the feature) backed away from the film upon arrival, and Moore's pals at Miramax made some hasty deals to get it distributed quickly, with hopes that Fahrenheit 9/11 will undo the Bush presidency in November.

Coming out of the Cannes Film Festival with the Golden Palm award, Fahrenheit 9/11 received an immediate golden shower of kisses from America's film critics and left-leaning cultural icons. Roger Ebert gave the film a big thumbs up on his television show, saying that Moore "represents my political views." Ebert's partner, Richard Roeper, fawned all over the film as well. The Rotten Tomatoes website shows that 81 percent of the film critics polled love the movie, which will be released on the 25th of this month. Ebert predicts another Oscar.

There's only one problem: All advance reports indicate that Fahrenheit 9/11 contains some of Moore's most elaborate fantasies yet.

Moore accuses the Bush administration of being soft on Saudi terrorists. In fact, it was the Bush administration that named thirteen Saudis and a Lebanese for the bombing of Khobar Towers, home to hundreds of U.S. airmen in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. That bombing killed 19 and wounded hundreds. That bombing, by the way, happened on June 25th, 1996… during Bill Clinton's watch. How did Clinton respond to the bombing? By letting Saudi Arabia handle it, by never once pressuring to allow American investigators to interview the bombers once they were apprehended, and by smoothing over the whole incident for fear of angering his political supporters in Saudi Arabia. Bush, the man Michael Moore aligns with Saudi terrorists, had the backbone to go after the specific Saudis involved on June 21, 2001 – five years after the bombing, and almost three months before 9/11.



And what of Bush's unnecessary war on Iraq? Another liberty taken with international law by the commander in chief? Hardly. Anyone paying attention in the 1990s knows that Bush inherited the Iraqi problem from Clinton. When the first President Bush left office, he left the world a Saddam Hussein with his hands tied as tightly as possible. Forbidden to sell his oil and surrounded by U.N. Weapons Inspectors, Saddam had little opportunity to rebuild his arsenals and restate his threat. However, over eight years of lax enforcement and a blind eye from the Clinton administration, Saddam grew stronger, more threatening, and cockier. For eight years Saddam wiggled out of sanctions and limitations. For eight years Saddam kicked out one Weapons Inspector after another, defying the world to do anything about it. And how did Clinton respond? With speeches and with the occasional bombing whenever he needed to distract us from his own missteps. Never once did Clinton respond in a meaningful way. Never once did he demand U.N. intervention, nor did he ever mobilize the American military to deal with the problem on the ground. By 9/11, any reasonable person saw Saddam Hussein for what he was: more of a threat than ever.

In a nutshell, President Bush the senior made a mighty effort to reign in the Iraqi madman… President Clinton played the sax while the middle east burned… and President Bush the junior got stuck cleaning up the mess. And yet, somehow, Michael Moore has found a way to blame Dubya for the mess he inherited.

Only two Presidents have ever had the guts to use the military to contain Saddam Hussein, and both of them were named Bush. Only two Presidents have had the guts to use the military to strike back at terrorists; one was the late, great Ronald Reagan, and the other one was Dubya. I'd say that if the current President continues to conduct himself in ways befitting of these kinds of comparisons, he has little to worry about from a crackpot like Michael Moore.

As the summer wears on, Moore's statements get nuttier and nuttier. He has said that he'd get Fahrenheit 9/11 released even if he had to break the law to do it. He's claimed that he has footage of an interview he conducted with Nick Berg, the American beheaded by terrorists in Iraq last month, but that he will keep it out of his film out of respect for the Berg family. Maybe if he respected the Berg family all that much, he'd never have mentioned the footage of Nick in the first place… but then again, a headline addict has to get his regular fix. Not that any of this should be any surprise. There is no limit to the depths to which Michael Moore will sink. Check out what he posted on his website in April of this year:

"I oppose the U.N. or anyone else risking the lives of their citizens to extract us from our debacle. I'm sorry, but the majority of Americans supported this war once it began and, sadly, that majority must now sacrifice their children until enough blood has been let that maybe -- just maybe -- God and the Iraqi people will forgive us in the end."

As James Lileks points out, that's essentially the same reason those terrorists gave for beheading Nick Berg in the first place.

Sober up, liberals. You've got your arm around the ugliest dog at the party.