So what does this do to the RatherGate time line:
Michael Moore, director of the movie Farenheit 9/11, said Sunday that he was given the same phony documents used by CBS News in its infamous Sept. 8 “60 Minutes” story but that he rejected them for inclusion in his film because his staff did not believe they were authentic.
“Back when I was making Fahrenheit, I was offered the documents that were given to CBS but I didn’t use them because we couldn’t verify them,” Moore said following a speech at the University of Central Arkansas.
Dr. Rick Scott, the university’s honors program director, told RatherBiased.com that Moore said he had a three-tiered-system of fact checking which led him to believe the documents were not valid. He did not say if his source was Bill Burkett, the disgruntled former Texas Army National Guard Other university officials confirmed this account.
The anti-Bush filmmaker said that he was unhappy with CBS for using the fakes in a report, implying that the Memogate controversy had aided the president’s reelection campaign. He added that he had turned down other too-good-to-be true scoops, including one from a woman who claimed to have attended a dinner attended by both the Bush and family of Osama bin Laden.
Moore himself has come under criticism for inaccuracies and dishonesty in his own work, spawning a number of critical web sites including Moore Watch and Moorelies.com, as well as a movie entitled Celsius 41.11.
The director will be speaking at the University of Florida tonight where he is expected to be asked further about the document controversy. In his UCA speech, Moore indicated that he had not spoken out on the matter but was willing to as “it will come up in the future.”
Reached for comment, CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather dismissed Moore’s assertion, pointing out that “to a hungry walrus, every stone looks like a plate of Kipling’s oysters.”
Not surprisingly, no one is quite sure what he meant by that.
I actually got it. And I think it’s the most lucid thing he’s said in quite a while.
But how the f@#k exactly does Michael Moore’s fact vetting process work? Things have to pass the look, smell and taste test?
I think the 3 tier analogy is revealing, though. Maybe it’s more of a wedding cake. Cake, icing and decoration?
Michael Moore fact-checking process:
1.) Does it make me look like some sort of hero and stroke my ego?
2.) Does it make W look bad?
3.) Is it tasty?
Knowing Moore, he’s probably lying. He suffers from a peculiar form of ADD, Attention Denial Disorder. He’s been denied attention since the DNC. Claiming he had a looksy at the memos that long ago and turned them down is too fanciful by half.
Besides, as immune to facts as that asswipe is, there’s no way he vets anything.
Can you imagine the end-stage moonbattery of the woman who said she had dinner with Bush and Bin Laden? She must have been especially demented for Michael Moore to take a pass.
Oh, and remember who Moore was sitting next to at the DNC? Think someone was, y’know, “overwhelmed with a feeling of tenderness, and was also aroused sexually, which his tight trousers made obvious to both of them.”?
Oh, yeah.
Hey, where is everybody? Is there a minstrel show tonight or what?
Hey, Jeff, will Edwards show up as a blonde tomorrow night? How about a redhead? I hear Cheney really likes redheads. Red-headed stepchildren. And rented mules. Or something
I sent my readers over to Bill’s and Ace’s so often that they decided to stay.
Now it’s nothing but tumbleweeds and cobwebs in here.
What am I, chopped liver?
Present company excluded. Although there’s no BREAKING NEWS EXCLUSIVE MUST CREDIT BLAH BLAH here.
Well, that’s not exactly true. There is that stuff, but it’s all either made up or involving an apple or my pants.
I smell rebranding, Jeff. Look, I know this is your gig but I’m willing to give you some killer stuff. How about…Protozoan Wisdom?
That’s gold, man, gold.
Are your pants tightening?
Oh, yeah.
This whole citizen journalism thing? A fad.
They’ll come crawling back when they need a good bunny joke. You’ll see.
Eh, I figure it’s possible that Moore is pretty skeptical about info that’s just handed to him. He’s more intent on crafting his own dishonesties, because then he can be assured that they walk that fine line of being blatantly misleading and distorting, but not an affirmative, technical “lie” in the absolute dictionary sense.
Oh, and he’s a fat disgusting fuck, too.
Wait till Edwards shows up with a brighter lip gloss than Kerry had last week.
Of course, that’s tomorrow night. Anything might happen between now and then. I still hold out hope that Kerry might yet spontaneously combust.
If you’re going to go in for rebranding, may I suggest ”faf-wisdom”? Hil-frickin-larious. Country bumpkin mixed with lefty politics and a touch of dementia for laughs. Ha!
Or not. Your choice.
(Here’s to hoping NOT!)
Oh, and can I be a tumbleweed? Cobwebs are so overdone.
Protein Wisdom: So what the hell is wrong with Jeff anyways? Whinin’ about cobwebs and such. Shoot. You got any idea apple?
red delicious: (munching on a grape)…dunno…hasn’t been the same since he got scared by the big guy in NYC…must be all those dolphins he keeps freakin’ out about.
Protein Wisdom: That and people stealin’ his bits, I guess…..
I’m here, but I never say anything cause I’m boring.
What about the pants? Don’t they have anything to say about this?
Gotta listen to the pants.
Maybe if they’d have covered the documents in hot wing sauce with a side of bleu cheese dip he’d have grabbed for them.
I’m just glad we’ve finally stopped discussing Jeff’s nipples.
Noooo!
You have mentioned The Body Part That Must Not Be Mentioned!
The pants say to Moore, “I can’t quite cover your fat ass.”
Burkett was pleased to be a “source of information” for Farenheit 911, and boasted about it in a few posts on the interweb…even hinting at one point that specific things Moore said about Bush’s guard service came directly from him.
Since I’m in tin-foil chewing mode this week —
I was sort of interested in Moore’s “dummied-up headline” scandal. It crossed my mind awhile back that the memos could have been dummies pasted up for the movie, based on Burkett’s tales, maybe just between Burkett and some Moore movie acolyte.
That’s probably not the case, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Burkett had kluged them together specifically to impress Moore’s people.
Of course it is going to come up again… too many people know that Moore’s folks had the documents. In hindsight, because of the aggressiveness of Clark on this issue and his connection with Moore, I’m pretty sure Wesley Clark ws aware of the memos, too.