The Staton Jones Report

NEW YORK — Poor John McCain.

Here's a guy I've always sort of liked, a courageous war hero reduced to carrying water for the Bush campaign. (Related stories: Moore index page)

So it was Monday night, as I sat in the press section — unbeknownst to Sen. McCain — when he switched from pro-war convention speaker to film critic. Out of nowhere, he began to attack my movie, Fahrenheit 9/11, calling me a "disingenuous filmmaker." The problem is, he hasn't seen the movie, a fact he later admitted to Chris Matthews on MSNBC.

I know Republicans are mad that my film may have convinced just enough people to tip the balance in this election. Yet with all the serious issues facing our country, and right smack in the middle of an important speech about the need to catch the terrorists and continue the war in Iraq, McCain decided to turn the convention into the Ebert and McCain Show. He claimed that I portrayed Saddam's Iraq as an "oasis of peace."

Some of the 20 million who have seen the film must have wondered, "Did I miss that scene? I knew I shouldn't have gone out for those Goobers." All I can imagine McCain was referring to was a brief cutaway just as President Bush announces the commencement of the bombing of Baghdad on March 19, 2003.

Human-rights groups say thousands of civilians were killed because of our bombing. I thought it would be worthwhile to show some of the faces of Iraqi people who might soon meet their death.

I felt really bad for McCain standing there on the stage. The man wanted to be president. That dream was snuffed out during the 2000 primaries, when George W. Bush's supporters spread nasty rumors about what five and a half years in a North Vietnamese POW camp might have done to McCain's sanity.

Then there were the calls to potential white voters in South Carolina to inform them that McCain had a "black baby." (He and his wife adopted a child from Bangladesh.) The Bush supporters also spread other rumors that questioned McCain's patriotism, even though the man was a decorated war hero while W. chose to oh, let's not get into that again.

Still, McCain has offered to soldier on for Bush. So how does Bush's campaign treat him? It doesn't tell him I might be in the press section, officially credentialed.

It has him say some gibberish about my movie. Everyone then sees me, I start laughing my ball cap off, the crowd goes bananas, and poor McCain must think he said something funny or cool, so he says, "That line was so good, I'll use it again."

Agghh!

Thousands of Republicans turned to me chanting "Four more years." I thought, "That's strange, Republicans are usually good at math, but they're off by a few dozen months. Bush only has two months left." So I held up two fingers to correct their miscalculation. But that just drove them into more of a frenzy.

If you have never had this happen to you, I insist you try it at least once in your life. It is better than an angry mosh pit at a Slayer concert. As a quiet salute to Beavis and Butthead, I held up my index finger and thumb in an "L" — the international sign for loser — which is what I hope their candidate is about to become.

As for McCain, he had to beg the mob to be silent and listen to the rest of his speech. He must have wondered why a party that promises to protect us from terrorists booed my name more loudly than Saddam's or Osama's. Actually, no one mentioned the "O" name Monday night because, well, that would acknowledge that they have failed to find him.

Perhaps that is why Bush told Today anchor Matt Lauer that we can't win the war against terrorism. Perhaps that is why they were more mad at me than the bad guys. I'm much easier to remove.

Maybe I'll call up McCain and treat him to a movie down the block, one I know he will enjoy, considering he agreed that I was right when Chris Matthews said a main point of my movie is that "war is often fought by people without power."

If he will join me at the movies, he'll see brave soldiers like himself face the camera and tell the truth to the American people about what is going on in a place called Iraq.

Read it here

NEW YORK — Welcome, Republicans. You're proud Americans who love your country. In your own way, you want to make this country a better place. Whatever our differences, you should be commended for that.

But what's all this talk about New York being enemy territory? Nothing could be further from the truth. We New Yorkers love Republicans. We have a Republican mayor and governor, a death penalty and two nuclear plants within 30 miles of the city.

New York is home to Fox News Channel. The top right-wing talk shows emanate from here — Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly among them. The Wall Street Journal is based here, which means your favorite street is here. Not to mention more Fortune 500 executives than anywhere else.

You may think you're surrounded by a bunch of latte-drinking effete liberals, but the truth is, you're right where you belong, smack in the seat of corporate America and conservative media.

Let me also say I admire your resolve. You're true believers. Even though only a third of the country defines itself as "Republican," you control the White House, Congress, Supreme Court and most state governments.

You're in charge because you never back down. Your people are up before dawn figuring out which minority group shouldn't be allowed to marry today.

Our side is full of wimps who'd rather compromise than fight. Not you guys.

Hanging out around the convention, I've encountered a number of the Republican faithful who aren't delegates. They warm up to me when they don't find horns or a tail. Talking to them, I discover they're like many people who call themselves Republicans but aren't really Republicans. At least not in the radical-right way that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, John Ashcroft and Co. have defined Republicans.

I asked one man who told me he was a "proud Republican," "Do you think we need strong laws to protect our air and water?"

"Well, sure," he said. "Who doesn't?"

I asked whether women should have equal rights, including the same pay as men.

"Absolutely," he replied.

"Would you discriminate against someone because he or she is gay?"

"Um, no." The pause — I get that a lot when I ask this question — is usually because the average good-hearted person instantly thinks about a gay family member or friend.

I've often found that if I go down the list of "liberal" issues with people who say they're Republican, they are quite liberal and not in sync with the Republicans who run the country. Most don't want America to be the world's police officer and prefer peace to war. They applaud civil rights, believe all Americans should have health insurance and think assault weapons should be banned. Though they may personally oppose abortion, they usually don't think the government has the right to tell a women what to do with her body.

There's a name for these Republicans: RINOs or Republican In Name Only. They possess a liberal, open mind and don't believe in creating a worse life for anyone else.

So why do they use the same label as those who back a status quo of women earning 75 cents to every dollar a man earns, 45 million people without health coverage and a president who has two more countries left on his axis-of-evil-regime-change list?

I asked my friend on the street. He said what I hear from all RINOs: "I don't want the government taking my hard-earned money and taxing me to death. That's what the Democrats do."

Money. That's what it comes down to for the RINOs. They do work hard and have been squeezed even harder to make ends meet. They blame Democrats for wanting to take their money. Never mind that it's Republican tax cuts for the rich and billions spent on the Iraq war that have created the largest deficits in history and will put all of us in hock for years to come.

The Republican Party's leadership knows America is not only filled with RINOs, but most Americans are much more liberal than the delegates gathered in New York.

The Republicans know it. That's why this week we're seeing gay-loving Rudy Giuliani, gun-hating Michael Bloomberg and abortion-rights advocate Arnold Schwarzenegger.

As tough of a pill as it is to swallow, Republicans know that the only way to hold onto power is to pass themselves off as, well, as most Americans. It's a good show.

So have a good time, Republicans. It could be your last happy party for awhile if all the RINOs and liberal majority figure it out on Nov. 2.

Michael Moore? Al Franken? Hollywood slime? No, Soldiers.

Soldiers? Yes. Soldiers hate America? Well, as we know, anyone who doesn't love George W. Bush and his moronic international policy hates America, right?

Well, no, but when the dittoheads are around, just pretend you believe that — it will save you some hassles.

Documentary film maker Mike Tucker released his film, Gunner Palace at the end of June, and it is currently making its way through art cinema from Berlin to... probably other parts of Berlin. Gunner Palace presents a cinema verité-style look at the soldiers in Iraq. If you have a system than can play Apple Quicktime video (sorry Xine/Linux users), there are some interesting previews here and here.

A more detailed about the film was run in the the Gardian (UK), and, of course, there's the film-maker's site linked above. It may not make it to a theater near you, but a DVD release is in the works.

American Icon, Julia Child died today, just three days short of her 92^nd birthday. Ms. Child introduced French continental cuisine to America, so memorials will undoubtedly be picketed by brain-dead Freepers. She also (literally) set the stage for future celebrity chefs such as Emeril Lagassi, Paul Proudhome and Debbie Fields (how is a woman who makes cookies that hot?).

The Smithsonian web site has an interactive page about Julia Child's Kitchen. Enjoy and Bon Appetit.

Salon has a long piece on Michael Moore's "presence" at the DNC.

Moore admonished the crowd that it would take unrelenting hard work to remove the Bush administration in November. "They will not go easy. Believe me, they're better fighters than we are. They eat hate for breakfast. They're going to fight, smear and hate all the way. So we have got to get out there and counter it with the truth." The right-wing likes to claim the flag as its own, added Moore, but they're not true patriots -- "they're hate-riots."

Moore ripped into docile, high-paid journalists who do the government's bidding: "You've got your little American flag pins, you're not just embedded -- you're in bed with the wrong people."

Moore said that despite his political views, he has always fared well in the entertainment industry because the "greed" of the executives who distribute his books and films "supersedes their hostility towards me." But when it came to Disney, the original backers of "Fahrenheit 9/11," "greed didn't work this time." Even though the movie has already made more money than any other Disney film released this year, Moore observed, the company decided to dump the film.

Moore said it took Canadian journalists to figure out why. He credited newspeople from the north with breaking the story that a wealthy Saudi family owns 17 percent of Euro Disney, after saving the company's troubled division with a $300 million bailout, in a deal brokered by the Carlyle Group. "Fahrenheit 9/11" makes much of Carlyle, an international financial power in which the interests of the Saudi dynasty and Bush dynasty merge. "But no American journalist will ask (Disney chief) Michael Eisner about that."

I hadn't heard that the Saudis put $300M into Disney ... I wonder if it was the Globe and Mail that broke the story (the National Post certainly didn't). That's interesting and it does provide a catalyst for Disney to drop the film despite the profits it was virtually guaranteed. I'm delighted that a Canadian company (Lion's Gate Ltd.) that profited instead.

Oh, and tonite Moore allegedly is showing Fahrenheit 9/11 in Crawford, Texas. Woot!

Which is more ridiculous? A War Hero dressed up as a Rocket Scientist, or a Politician dressed up as a War Hero?

John Kerry is wearing a "bunny suit" while visiting a NASA facility where he inspected a space vehicle being prepared for launch. The suit is designed to keep particulate matter from coming off of people and ending up on the probe, and is a common outfit in clean room environments. Mr. Kerry had to wear this outfit to examine the probe, just like he'd have to wear a scuba suit to go diving. Nothing weird, silly or out of the ordinary here.

President Bush is wearing a flight suit (with his gentals noticably bunched in the front). The last time Mr. Bush wore an outfit like this, he was about to go AWOL from the Texas Air National Guard. It's a slap in the face of real Air Force pilots for him to don it since he didn't fly the jet that landed him on the aircraft carrier, and he could (should have?) have landed on the carrier in his Air Force One helicopter wearing a suit (which he quickly changed into after this photo was taken).

Mr. Bush was playing war hero when he wore this costume, whereas Mr. Kerry was simply wearing protective garb while visiting a space probe. Many major media outlets chose to run the photo of Kerry as if he was some kind of nut. Is that the best our "journalists" can do?

Headline sez it all. Fahrenheit 9/11 earned $103M by today. It's officially a world record.

Having viewed Outfoxed on Sunday evening with 20 other like-minded MoveOn.org members, I have come to the less than astounding conclusion that all media is biased and I now find myself recognizing it instantly. Things I would have accepted before as "reporting" no longer fit the bill.

For instance, Monday's Buffalo News featured an article entitled Trend Breakers complete with color photos and right wing bias. The author, Greg Morago (Hartford Courant), compares reality TV shows Nip/Tuck and American Idol to Fahrenheit 9/11 and My Life. Did anyone else catch this attempt to lead us to believe that Fahrenheit 9/11 and My Life are of no more significance than live cosmetic surgery and the songstress of the moment? This article is yet another indicator of the media's belief that we can indeed be led around by the nose and don't deserve a President who is capable of having an original, intelligent thought.

Fahrenheit 9/11 broke $80M this weekend and will almost certainly hit $100M before it finishes in the art house theaters.

Check out this Onion "infograph" about Fahrenheit 9/11. I particularly liked "Role of Michael Moore played by Michael Moore instead of camera-friendly John Goodman".

Check out the dilligent anti-porn efforts of Fox News. While running a story railing against online porn, they showed a screen shot of a typical adult website with a woman's breast blurred out ... but the genitals of the fellow who's mounted her still clearly in the "shot". Way to go, Faux Nudes!

To whom do they make out their "Decency Act" $275,000 fine check?

The weekend totals for Fahrenheit 9-11 have been raised to $23.9M from $21.8M, making this film even more of a blockbuster.

Studio executives and box office analysts are asking themselves that question after Michael Moore's documentary stunned Hollywood with a $23.9 million take last weekend.

That number is more than $2 million higher than distributor Lions Gate Films predicted Sunday, prompting speculation that the movie could be the first to earn the title "blockbuster documentary."

"I'm going to say this guardedly, but this has the potential to be the first $100 million documentary," says Paul Dergarabedian of box office tracker Exhibitor Relations.

It's official. Fahrenheit 9-11 is the top grossing film of the weekend, and the top earning documentary ever. Read the linked article for all the other "firsts" it achieved this weekend.

If you know an independent voter who is confused about Bush & Co., take them to see this film. Pay for it yourself. The future is at stake here.

Moore's film is powerful, moving, and relentless in savaging the reputation of George W. Bush. And after seeing the film, unless you worship "Shrub" in a private shrine, you'll see the incompetence shining through all the haze that Faux News puts up. Former President G. H. W. Bush called Michael Moore a "slimeball" for attacking his son, but both 41 and 43 get a good solid beating in the film (Moore even catches Bush shouting out to him to "get a real job"). If you didn't know the answer to the question "whose your daddy?" for the Bushes, Moore spells it out clearly: The Saudis. You know, the same folks who destroyed the World Trade Center.

The film attacks Bush's ties to the Saudis, his "selection" by the Supreme Court, the PATRIOT Act, his economic policies, and of course, the War in Iraq. Many condescending reviewers attack the film for being heavy-handed and "partisan" (imagine!), but I think Moore restrained himself quite a bit in the film. It has to be outrageous if the message is going to break through the layers of bullshit clouding most American's heads. And this film is both horrifically depressing and hilarious (unless you think Bush's facial ticks are not funny). Like he says, if you come into the theater "on the fence" you won't be when you leave. And if you are a compassionate human being (and not a GOP droid) you'll fall on the Democractic side of that fence.

Hope to see you in the theaters! Joe Bob sez "check it out!"

Update: Box office receipts should break $20M by Sunday (thanks to Mike Jones of The 18 1/2 Minute Gap for the link to box office estimates).

President Clinton's biography My Life has broken first day sales records across the country. Even in Texas, near President Bush's hacienda, it's selling well.

At Hastings Books, Music & Video in Waco, Texas, near President Bush's adopted hometown of Crawford, manager Steven Kling said he expected to sell out of his store's 100-plus copies by day's end.

Hastings, sadly, went out of business in my hometown north of Dallas. But I can well imagine the ugly looks carting the Clinton bio around would elicit in Crawford these days.

Salon reports that Fahrenheit 9/11 now has a distributor, and will be in the theaters on June 25^th. I predict the GOP will stage highly coordinated protests, possibly violent (like anti-abortion protests), at the theaters.

On the TV news crawl in Toronto today is this little gem:

George Bush says he has "total disdain for Michael Moore"

High praise indeed.

The New York Times is reporting that Michael Moore's latest documentary, Fahrenheit 9/11, has won the top prize at Cannes. The last documentary to do this was Jacques Cousteau's The Silent World in 1956.

Hats off to Michael and we look forward to seeing this film, if not in Amerika, at least in Canada, eh.

Stage and screen veteran, Tony Randall, died today at age 84. He leaves behind a wife and 7-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son. What a dude.

Last September, Randall was booked as a speaker at the National Funeral Directors Association, where he made some controversial remarks about his own funeral:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Actor Tony Randall has a fantasy: when he dies President Bush and Vice President Cheney show up to pay their respects but they're turned away — because his family knows he didn't like them. Feeling his own mortality while suffering a cold, Randall, 83, made his remarks as the National Funeral Directors Association announced a new code of ethics for its members, beginning in 2004.

Funerals should be planned as a celebration of life and "a touch of humor doesn't hurt a bit," Randall said.

A comedian, Randall is best known for his role as Felix Unger in the 1970s sitcom "The Odd Couple."

He said his 6-year-old daughter, Julia, is old enough to appreciate the subject of death, and actually revels in it.

"She loves to talk about death," Randall said. "She loves stories about death. If I start a story, she says 'Does anyone die in this?' and I say 'No,' she doesn't want to hear it."

I don't think Julia will like this story, but I do. I'd really like Bush or Cheney to show up, but they know better. I found AP story posted to Free Republic and other Rabid Right sites, accompanied by tasteful comments such as this:

Not surprisingly, I have a fantasy about Tony Randall's funeral as well. I show up to the wake early, piss in his casket, and leave a bad Thai meal shit on his chest.

Fifty bucks says W doesn't even know who this fucking fart is, or if he does, it's as an anal-retentive teabagger in a shitty TV show.

Fuck Tony Randall.

Free Republic — as it sometimes does — managed to scrape up a lone conservative who could bump the needle on an EEG:

Tony Randall is a classic - this is a cheap shot by him, but I have always been a fan.

Randall is 'Mr. New York.' I've bumped into him at the opera and classical music room at the W 4th St Tower Records, on the Subway, etc.

He is an oldschool NYer - hopelessly liberal, in that NYC way. I wish he wasn't, but he clearly is.

His is a cool guy and a class act, notwithstanding this cheap shot.

See people? Genuine people can unite others across ideological divides!

Thanks, Tony, whereever you are (or aren't) for all the film and T.V. we'll be enjoying in digital clarity for years to come.

Time has a review of Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore's new documentary about Bush's war on Iraq. The review is surprisingly complimentary, and reiterates many of the kudos that other (less corporate) reviewers have noted. In particular, that the depiction of the human loss in both the U.S. and Iraq because of both Gulf Wars is devistating.

The film has its longueurs. The interviews with young blacks and a grieving mother in Moore’s home town of Flint, Michigan, are relevant and poignant, but they lack the propulsive force and homespun indignance of the rest of the film. “Fahrenheit 9/11” is at its best when it provides talking points for the emerging majority of those opposed to the Iraq incursion. In sum, it’s an appalling, enthralling primer of what Moore sees as the Bush Administration’s crimes and misdemeanors.

Time ends the piece by referring to Moore's film as the first salvo in his "War on Error". Cute. Sad that it's not the "War on the Lack of Outrage".

Salon's review is here.

If you're old enough to remember the brilliant British puppet-based political and current events satire telly prog Spitting Image, then you'll be glad to read this. If you've never seen it, hope that this deal comes through. The Spitting Image shows were scathingly brilliant (many in the US probably best know the puppets from the mid-80s Genesis video Land Of Confusion), and they gave us the immortal RS-232 Interface Lead song. Which, dammit, I cannot find on the Web.

It takes a repressive regime to bring out the best satire. The return of Spitting Image would be a mithril lining within a global thundercloud the color of crude oil.

Edit: here is the best clip from Land Of Confusion easily available, to see the puppets in action.

The New York Times is reporting that Walt Disney Corp. is presuring Miramax from releasing the next Michael Moore documentary, which links the Bush family with the bin Laden family of Saudi Arabia.

The Walt Disney Company is blocking its Miramax division from distributing a new documentary by Michael Moore that harshly criticizes President Bush, executives at both Disney and Miramax said Tuesday.

The film, "Fahrenheit 911," links Mr. Bush and prominent Saudis — including the family of Osama bin Laden — and criticizes Mr. Bush's actions before and after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

This is yet another example of corporate consolidation closing the voice of dissident Americans and further eroding our rights of free speech. Maybe it's time to get serious about banning the Mouse from my House.

Brad Vanderburg pointed out this extremely helpful voting guide. It's an interactive guide that will help you figure out what you need to know to survive this election season. Give it a whirl. Everyone must report back here after they are done.

From the NY Daily News via The New Republic:

I hear that "Plan of Attack," supersleuth Bob Woodward's still-secret study of President Bush's war on terrorism, will be very bad for the Bush reelection campaign - which is still reeling from gun-toting former terrorism chief Richard A. Clarke's critique of Bush, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and other administration figures in "Against All Enemies."

Woodward's book, to be released next month, will receive not only a multipart series in The Washington Post, but also the Mike Wallace treatment on "60 Minutes" April 18 - when I am absolutely confident that the common corporate ownership of CBS and Woodward's publisher, Simon & Schuster, will be mentioned.

Alistair Cooke has died.

OK, no big shock — he was 95 — but the average worldwide level of human quality just dropped noticably.

Tom DeLay is still alive.

Sigh.

Actually, the new documentary on Karl Rove, based on the book Bush's Brain, is not being released in theaters, but I wish that it was:

The documentary, based on the book of the same name about presidential adviser Karl Rove, had been kept tightly under wraps before making its world premiere to a packed theater at the South by Southwest film festival.

Both the book and the film depict Rove as the true brains behind the Bush administration, and practically a co-president.[...]

In interviews with Republicans and Democrats, we learn that Rove had his eye on the White House long before Bush ever did.

Rove helped Bush get elected as Texas governor in 1994 and again in 1998 before leading the charge toward the presidency in 2000. Even former Texas GOP Chairman Tom Pauken acknowledges that Bush wouldn't be president without Rove.

But Rove also helped Republicans get elected to key positions throughout the state -- and it's suggested that he doesn't simply want to beat the opposing candidates, he wants to destroy them.

"He seems to effectively rationalize and compartmentalize," said Moore, a former television correspondent who has covered Bush since his unsuccessful run for Congress in 1978. "I think he is able to say to himself, `Yeah, this is maybe outside the rules, this may be wrong, this may even be illegal, but I'm doing it for the greater good of the party."'