1
Last Call
Cheap-Shot Season
N
umbers
don't lie.
From a pool
of 202.6 million
Americans old
enough to vote,
54.7 percent, or
110.8 million
Americans, pulled a
HARRY
lever, marked a ballot
MRSBAUM
or hung a chad in the
Columnist
2000 presidential
election.
According to most polls, 80 percent
of voters, or 88.6 million if the 2000
numbers hold up, have already made
up their minds in this year's contest,
leaving 22.1 million Americans on the
fence.
So far, the election has been as nasty
as it's ever been since the Vietnam era.
Extremists on both sides of the political
spectrum have talked smack about the
other side on cable news programs.
The Internet is filled with sites that
support one candidate, and what's
worse, some have dug the extra mile
towards hell by using Hitler references
about the opponent. Classy.
The election's main focus is directed
towards the war on terrorism, and in
the last two weeks, the liberal side
spoke the loudest.
First came Bill Clinton's book, My
Lift, which soared in sales and put the
former president's face on the front
pages and as the top story on the news
for a week.
He claimed that Ken Starr and the
right-wing Republican obsession with
impeachment and the Lewinsky affair
kept him from acting against Osama
bin Laden.
Then came Fahrenheit 9/11,
Michael's Moore's polemic on the Bush
administration, the 2000 election and
the war on terrorism.
I was one of the 3 million people
who saw Fahrenheit 9/11 on opening
weekend.
Most critics were right to assume
that the movie was preaching to the
converted — I saw way more
Birkenstocks than dress shoes in the
crowd, if you know what I mean.
I was also prepared for the cheap
shots Moore made in the movie. He
spliced some out-of-context footage to
drive home different points:
• Bush referred to his supporters at a
Harry Kirsbaum's e-mail address is
hkirsbaum@thejewishnews.com
black tie fund-raiser as the "haves and
the have mores.
• Bush gave a serious statement on
terrorism at a golf course, then said,
"Now, watch this drive."
Moore said himself that the movie
wasn't a documentary, but his opinion
on the administration.
How much more powerful would
the movie have been without the cheap
shots?
The segment that follows Lila
Lipscomb, the Flint mother whose son
fights, then dies, in Iraq; or scenes of
the Marine recruiters stopping young
African Americans in a Flint shopping
mall; or the Taliban representative visit-
ing the United States are the most
powerful footage in the film.
The movie could have been much
more powerful if he would have left
out those cheap shots, but cheap shots
on both sides have become the bread
and butter of this year's election. With
the 24-hour news cycle, you don't have
to wait too long to hear one.
Most people would prefer the facts.
I read a transcript of NBC News
Andrea Mitchell's interview on June 24
with a CIA insider who criticizes the
Bush administration in a new book,
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He also said that the real war is
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"No one wants to be bloodthirsty, but
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Anonymous might be trying to sell
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views.
Right now, the race is a dead heat.
The first side to admit that they
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best chance of getting the majority of
those 22.1 million undecided voters. Fl
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7/ 2
2004
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