"Palme D'Or" for Mike Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11&

[kandrathe]

What is wrong with the movie?

To me it is a baseless, twisted, distorted, tasteless propaganda advertisement attacking the sitting president of the US with the sole aim of preventing his re-election.

Ok. Fine, it is an expression of freedom of the marketplace, and freedom of speech. It is a very well made propaganda film and earning its creator millions. When the American electorate process yields a candidate with integrity, fortitude and character, then I'll get excited about politics -- until then I'm voting libertarian (which fits my views).

If polls are an indication of American sentiment, then I am an atypical American. I currently do not agree with the rigid social agenda of the Republicans or the liberal fiscal agenda of the Democrats. I'm a little tired of America's political process being flooded with money with the major parties becoming the focal point of attack and issue ads the final three months.

Ok, specifically, how do I feel about Bush? Since the beginning of his Presidency, I've faulted his administration (and our media) for failing to communicate clearly and loudly on why he is taking a particular course of action. It is easy now for people to review history in hindsight and say "he went to Iraq for wrong reasons", but leadership to me means that you have to be willing to commit to even a risky course of action based on the information that you have. I give Bush credit for taking actions that Clinton was unable, or unwilling to take. The jury is still out on whether Afghanistan or Iraq can emerge from these wars with at least civilized governments. The UN tried the carrot approach (or sanctions) for the entire Clinton presidency, and when you run out of carrots, all you have remaining are sticks. We are doing the same dance with North Korea, placating their blackmail for food and fuel oil and in the name of compassion we are delivering it -- but it still smacks of appeasement to me. Any positive press spin on that one for America? No.

Again, this communication gap extends to Europe, but also gets distorted by your press even more. We have a wonderful publicly funded resource here called CSPAN which allows anyone to view more than just sound bites and political gaffs like the Wolfowitz incident. No, neither Bush nor Kerry are rocket scientists -- but neither are they the idiots they may be portrayed to be. You would hate to see you or I give a speech to a worldwide audience. Would this well communicated clarity of purpose convince all detractors? No, but it would give his advocates more to stand on than just a show of support. What made Reagan great was that he made difficult decisions for a well stated reason and then faced down his opposition from his moral high ground. So, how has Bush backed up Blair, or Howard? Not so good. I like to ponder what would the situation be now had the Iraq war not happened.

Then we get to domestic issues. Here is where I depart from both major parties -- except that both have now adopted an understanding of supply side economics and an appreciation for letting Alan Greenspan run the economy. We had three major blows to the US economy almost simultaneously, first the tech bubble (another deceptive phrase, I would call it scam) was stretched well beyond rational, second we had 9/11 hit Wall-street and then third, due to the resulting downturn, it was revealed that numerous high level firms and executives had cooked their books. So, who would have looked good in this economic situation? The prior administration is guilty of allowing the tech sector to get outrageously over extended, and the SEC, and Janet Reno might have done more to investigate suspicious corporate behaviors. Ok, then beyond economy we have the liberal penchant for spending my money, the conservatives wanting to regulate bedroom behavior, and both sides filling the budget with so much pork that even pigs blush.

Do I like Bush? No, now that he is trained in he is merely adequate and I would like the president to be more than adequate. Do I like Kerry? No, he is not a leader, he is just an errand boy.

Congressional Quarterly found that in 2003, Kerry voted with Kennedy 93 percent of the time on roll-call votes in which both men were present. While that might seem like a lot, it was, historically, a rather low number for Kerry; who voted with Kennedy 100 percent of the time on key votes in 2001, 1999, 1998, 1993, 1992, 1989, 1988, 1987, 1986, and 1985, according to a Republican analysis of CQ's designated key votes from those years.