++Bush sits stone-faced for seven minutes on 9/11 after an aide tells him that the country is under attack, continuing to read a children’s book to a classroom for a photo op, because none of his advisors are telling him what to do.
++Bush tells reporters that what he likes to do on his ranch is get down in the dirt and dig to see if he can find any bugs.
++The inauguration footage that we never saw: Bush’s limo stepping on the gas as it is pelted with eggs by protesters.
++Bush repeats “we’re gonna smoke ’em out of their holes” next to an old cowboy film that uses the same line.
++The hilarious Britney Spears soundbite: “Honestly, I think we should just trust our president in every decision that he makes and we should just support that.” It drives home the fact that so much of this country has had the wool pulled over its eyes by the current administration.
I think where the movie suffers the most is when Michael Moore inserts himself into the narrative. He is filmed driving a van with a loudspeaker around the Capitol to read the Patriot Act to Congress (because Congress apparently reads little of the legislation that is presented to it). He approaches Congressmen to ask them if they’ll send their children to fight in Iraq. These stunts, while providing brief comic relief, ultimately look like heavy-handed attempts to create dramatic action.
The film works most excellently when the facts and the subjects are left to speak for themselves. In word and deed our leaders have damaged their reputations more severely than Moore’s antics ever could. What Moore has done eloquently is present a timeline that poignantly illustrates the damning climate of fear and corruption that Bush has created in this nation and the world.