It may be recalled that Fahrenheit 9/11 won the top prize at last month's Cannes festival. This infuriated the Republicans and the right-wingers who went into overdrive to try and prevent the screening of the documentary nationwide, lest it influence November's presidential election. Although the film was financed by the Disney Company, under intense pressure from the right-wingers, Disney refused to let its Miramax subsidiary distribute it. Lions Gate Entertainment stepped in and released the film in New York and Washington, DC on Wednesday, June 23, and nationally on Friday, June 25. Although they could not stop the screening of the film, the Republicans gained an important victory. They prevailed upon the Motion Pictures Academy to give the film an R rating, as opposed to the expected PG-13 rating, meaning that 20 percent fewer people will be eligible to watch it. Thus far, the added publicity seems to have helped the film at the box office. Over the first weekend, the film raked in about 22 million dollars, (a record for a documentary), while at the same time beating out all the regular movies and finishing number one! Cynics say that, to suppress further publicity for the film, the Bush administration brought forward by two days the handover of Iraqi sovereignty to the Iraqis, so that media's attention is diverted towards that piece of news!

As The New York Times' Bruce Weber states: "The film, part polemic and part character assassination, presents President Bush as a buffoon and his administration as having filched the 2000 election, ignored the terrorists threats before September 11, 2001, and manipulated the facts and public opinion to a justify war against Iraq. The central motive for the war, the film suggests, is a desire to protect the ties of the Bush family and their inner circle to Saudi Arabian oil money." The film makes the point that the Iraq war did not result from an honest mistake; the deception was deliberate and carefully calibrated, and questions Mr. Bush's basic competency. The Bush administration has said many contradictory and false things over the course of the last three years to justify war against Iraq. The film documents many of their utterances. And in America, indeed in the whole wide world, there is no one better at documenting than director Michael Moore. Last year, Michael Moore won an Oscar for his documentary, Bowling for Columbine. During his acceptance speech, Moore blasted President Bush for attacking Iraq, something few dared to do at that time.

The film depicts the President as incompetent, cavalier, cynical, and insincere in the war against terrorism. Specifically, the film focuses attention on the bizarre way Mr. Bush reacted after being told by an aide that a second plane had hit the World Trade Center. The President was in a Florida elementary school reading My Pet Goat to children. He seemed puzzled and instead of rushing out and taking command of the nation under attack, seemed clueless and continued to read about the goats. (Later, he apparently asked Vice President Cheney what he (the President) should do! On another occasion, the President, while playing golf turned to reporters and emphatically said: "We must stop these terrorist killers," and in the same breath shouted, "Now watch this drive!" as he smacked a golf ball lustily! The most damning pictures of the president are in the Oval office seconds before going on national and international television to declare war on Iraq. The president was seen making faces and crossing his eyes like a comedian as though the declaration of war, which was to result in the deaths of hundreds of Americans and thousands of Iraqis, was a fraternity prank!

The President's supporting cast does not fare much better. The Vice President reiterates his pride in Halliburton, winner of all the no-bid contracts in Iraq. The Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, the Secretary of State Powell and National Security Advisor Rice all spout the untruths at the top of their voices. We also learn how Attorney General John Ashcroft tricked the legislators into voting for the Patriot Act, weeks after 9/11 by rushing them. Most Congressmen and Senators admitted not reading it before voting for it! The audience was reminded that Mr. Ashcroft was a sitting US Senator seeking reelection in 2000. His democratic opponent Mr. Carnahan died a month before the 2000 election, too late for his name to be removed from the ballot. The voters, nevertheless, favoured the dead guy over Mr. Ashcroft! In the film clips Mr. Ashcroft sings off note and begs the make-up artists to make him look younger! The most disgusting habit, however, belongs to the little Wolfowitz, the deputy Secretary of Defense. He is shown to wet his comb in his own saliva in his mouth before applying the comb to his hair. Not satisfied, he takes out more saliva from his mouth with his own hand and applies it liberally to his hair! This disgusting neoconservative Zionist is the intellectual brain behind the Bush doctrine of attacking Iraq first, Syria and Iran next in that order to make the Middle East safe for Israeli tyranny.

In one theatre one moviegoer kept on giving a running commentary on the principals whose names were being flashed on the screen: Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld ("He's dangerous"), Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge("He's an idiot"), Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz ("He's a traitor"), and President Bush ("He's clueless"). Lila Lipscomb, from Moore's hometown, Flint, Michigan, provides the most poignant moment of the film. When we meet her, Lipscomb is a super patriot; she flies a huge American flag from her porch everyday, she is proud that her daughter served in Gulf War I and her son is in Iraq, and she hates the war protesters. Then her son dies in Iraq, and gradually she is transformed from a Bush-admirer to a Bush-hater and a war protester herself.

The film addresses the fact that most of the American soldiers dying in Iraq are disproportionately poor whites, African Americans, and Hispanics. Moore follows two white army recruiters as they target poor neighbourhoods for recruitment. Of the 535 members of the US House of Representatives and Senate only one has a family member in Iraq. In a comical scene, Moore approaches Congressmen and Senators as they enter the Capitol, and asks them whether they have any children in the armed forces, and attempts to recruit their children for the army! Of course the legislators avoid him like a plague!

Republicans complain that Fahrenheit 9/11 is no more than a commercial for John Kerry and have approached the Federal Election Commission to classify the advertising of the scenes from the film as political, thus subject to rules that restrict broadcast of commercials. That is funny, because the Fox News Channel can be classified as a 24-hour commercial for George Bush, as can be hours and hours of haranguing of Kerry, Democrats and the liberals by Rush Limbaugh, Bob Grant, Sean Hannity and Michael Savage on the radio. Republicans know that only the converted are watching Fahrenheit 9/11 now. They know that if the big three -- CBS, NBC or ABC -- were to air the film before the election (very, very unlikely) that would be catastrophic for Bush. No one watching the movie can remain neutral. Republicans worry about viewers like Jerry Murrell, a retired stockbroker in Carmel, California and a Republican who voted for Bush in 2000: "All the offhand remarks they caught Bush making, he wasn't very presidential. My next vote is going to take a lot of thought." Said Monica Moody, a 20-year old conservative Republican: "After watching the film, I question his (Bush's) motive. I do question my loyalty to the president." Precisely the kind of effect Michael Moore had in mind!