jesus fucking christ: has no right-winger sat through all of Fahrenheit 9/11?

Last night on Letterman, John McCain -- that most rational and likeable of all GOP dudes -- explained that he felt a tinge of guilt over dubbing Michael Moore (present) "disingenuous" at the convention. However, it was not because he, like most of his colleagues, hasn't trawled through the whole thing. "I've seen excerpts," was his explanation*, a statement which has turned into the right's new mantra. How do you know it's bad, was Letterman's passive-aggressively courteous-but-probing query. "I haven't seen Catwoman," was the quip.

Meanwhile, on Bill Maher's not-completely-smug HBO show (a vast improvement over Politically Incorrect, but still...), a Republican Representative made the logic-free mistake of attacking Fahrenheit 9/11 in front of Michael Moore...then admitting he too hadn't seen the whole thing. "I've seen enough of it," he replied. (By the end, Moore, a fan of cutting people off halfway through sentences, had nearly made him implode with frustration.)

What in the fuck in my opinion. Since when is it acceptable to publicly decry something you haven't seen? Isn't it customary to begin your sentences with "I've heard that..." or "That looks like..."? And if it is (it is), then you do it casually, not punt it off as some assertive opinion. That's a smear.** The right has done a bang-up job of decrying Moore and, as usual, it's through the method of zealous repetition. Eventually, most of them admit to seeing only portions of it, but already the damage is done.

Speaking of which. the Kerry campaign seems to be in decline. However, I've noticed this might be due to Kerry not saying anything outlandish -- by and large, he keeps to the truth and backs up his knocks at Bush II. If they're not going to stoop to the Bush II level, then how about this: whore that aspect out. Tell people that you won't stoop to his level, won't mislead them through half-truths and assertions that never get backed-up. (One honking example: How long ago was it that Dubya said there were WMDs in Iraq?)

One more tangent: it was suggested to me that the SwiftBoat debacle was the right's revenge on Fahrenheit 9/11 (by, again, someone who hadn't had the basic fucking decency to see the movie -- "I've seen enough of it," was the predictable retort). Okay: unsupportable lies = the occasional neglect of the complete and total picture? Since when?

Oh yeah. Lucas didn't toally destroy THX 1138. The additions are very sporadic, though very stupid (yeah, the climactic car chase absolutely needed a kick-ass, The Fast and the Furious-style insert shot that doesn't remotely fit with the rest of the sequence). What's more, it works far better projected than it does on video: it's a lot easier to get lost in this vividly-presented world, a lot easier to forgive it its lanky script and over-reliance on Huxley and Orwell. (Definitely weird that, given the audience-friendliness of the rest of his films, this one likes to refrain from explaining most of its idiosyncratic touches.) See it on the big screen for the Antonioni-esque shot, almost all of which are done with telephoto lenses trained very tight on the action (or, as it were, non-action).

* Ironically, the author only caught half the interview, impatiently flipping between that and The Thing, which hadn't yet gotten to the good parts.

** McCain did, to his credit, cite an example: Moore's ludicrous portrait of pre-war Iraq as a pastoral land, filled with kids flying kites and folks running swap-meets and talent shows is, in fact, disingenuous. (So are a couple other things, but it mostly keeps to the facts.) He also added that Moore is a talented filmmaker, which, while nice, came off as pussyfooting in this context and something close to trying to glaze over those he alienated. There's a difference between being a "unifier" and clumsily trying to have it both ways, and McCain too often fell with a thud in the latter. Take Letterman's question about how Bush II's smears on Kerry are equivalent to what he (Bush II, that is) did to McCain back in 2000. McCain, of course, is firmly on W's side, but says he holds no ill will: "It was four years ago." Yeah, but if he pulled shit back then and is doing it again, shouldn't you logically take him to task for that? Or would that expose the man you support as the cowardly hypocrite that he is?