I subscribe to MM's e-newsletters, and this is what I got this morning:

January 23, 2004

George W. Bush, A.W.O.L.

In last night's Democratic Presidential debate in New Hampshire, broadcast on the Fox News (Nusciance?) Channel and ABC's Nightline, Peter Jennings went after Wesley Clark -- and me -- because I said I want to see Clark debate Bush... "The General vs. The Deserter."

Jennings, referring to me as "the controversial filmmaker," asked if Clark wanted to distance himself from me and my "reckless" remark. Clark would not back down, stating how "delighted" he was with my support, and that I was entitled to say what I wanted to say -- AND that I was not the only one who had made these charges against Bush.

The pundits immediately went berserk after the debate. As well they should. Because they know that they -- and much of the mainstream media -- ignored this Bush AWOL story when it was first revealed by an investigation in the Boston Globe (in 2000). The Globe said it appeared George W. Bush skipped out in the middle of his Texas Air National Guard service -- and no charges were ever brought against him. It was a damning story, and Bush has never provided any documents or evidence to refute the Globe's charges.

George W. Bush was missing for at least a 12 month period. That is an undisputed fact. If you or I did that, we would serve time.

Senator Daniel Inouye, Democrat of Hawaii and a World War II veteran, joined with Vietnam vets Sen. Max Cleland and Sen. Bob Kerrey to challenge Bush on the gaps in his military record. "The question is, where were you, Governor Bush? What would you do as commander-in-chief if someone in the National Guard did the same thing? At the least, I would have been court-martialed. At the least, I would have been placed in prison," Inouye said.

The Washington Post, the New Republic, and others also presented the evidence that Bush had fled from duty.

The most comprehensive piece I've seen was on Tom Paine.com with all the relevant links and documents.

There are far more important issues to deal with in this election year. Poor Peter Jennings. What was he doing on Fox? All that seems left of his Canadianess is the way he pronounced my name ("Michael Moooore"). The question he posed to Clark was typical of a lazy media looking for a way to distract the viewers from the real issues: the war, the economy, and the failures of the Bush administration. But if they want to really get into the issue of Bush and his "service record," then I say, bring it on! The facts are all there, including the empty flyboy suit.
Yours,

Michael Moore

mmflint@aol.com

www.michaelmoore.com



PS: This is the second time I've been thrown into a New Hampshire presidential debate. Four years ago, Republican Alan Keyes was asked why he jumped into Michael Moore's mosh pit to the music of Rage Against the Machine. Now THAT was an issue of substance!

Hello Little Brother. Happy birthday, my friend. I miss you, and I wish I was there to celebrate it with you!
Love Always
Sara

Yesterday I touched on Michael Moore's Oscar acceptance speech. I found the text on his website, and for those of you who hadn't heard it, here you go:

"On behalf of our producers Kathleen Glynn and Michael Donovan from Canada, I'd like to thank the Academy for this. I have invited my fellow documentary nominees on the stage with us, and we would like to - they're here in solidarity with me because we like nonfiction. We like nonfiction and we live in fictitious times. We live in the time where we have fictitious election results that elects a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons. Whether it's the fiction of duct tape or fiction of orange alerts we are against this war, Mr. Bush. Shame on you, Mr. Bush, shame on you. And any time you got the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, your time is up. Thank you very much."

As always, throughout time, politics and opinion... Fuck, what's it all about?

I'm not real smart, politically. I have my opinions, and am the first to admit a lot of them are unfounded and wrong. But, I do like thinking, and I like people that make me think, even if I don't agree.

Michael Moore: I love the bastard.

www.michaelmoore.com/

I've read a couple of his books, and to be honest, he goes a little off the hook even for me (and I lived in a Bush-run Texas - talk about scary!), but I love the hell out of him. He's one of those people that if I ever got to meet, I'd just want to give him a big hug.

Check out his website (link above - I hope I did it right). There's always a lot of stuff to check out. I just about always crack up, and sometimes, even while I'm sitting here in my fucking cubicle pretending to work, he makes me just cry.

One feature he has on his website is letters from soldiers in Iraq (he gets stuff from various sources: military magazines, home-town newspapers, where sometimes the letter from little johnny got his gun writes to mom and dad, and it makes the fucking Ken-Ten Bee). Today, in particular, he's got a letter on there that a soldier wrote to him, and it's just beautiful. I don't like war, I don't want it, I would never fight for anything just because the guy in the suit says so (now, don't get me wrong, I'd fight if I felt the right to), but I thank God for people like this dude, and all the others out there in uniform (tools or not).

And I agree with him. I'm not sure who saw Michael Moore's Oscar acceptance speech (although from the anti-TV talk on the journals, I assume not many of you). I was watching with my very naive friend Bob, and I cheered. Bob says, I just don't understand why he would do that. I told Bob, because he can. Because that's America. When you can receive and deserve an award by some stupid, yet for some reason respected, committee, and not have to kow-tow and say, o, thank you, o wise ones.
Rock on, Mike!

"Emancipate yourself from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds
Have no fear for atomic energy
Cause none of them can stop the time"