Fair And Balanced, Mate

Figures I'd have to go to just about the other end of the Earth for this objective view of Moore and Fahrenheit 9/11.* More objective than Moore, anyway. It's mildly critical, but fair in those criticisms, I think. Anyway, what's particularly interesting is this section:

Moore spends a lot of time in his movie attacking the Bush family for its links to the Carlyle Group, which has links to Osama bin Laden's family.

Moore tries to make the Carlyle Group sound shady, by saying that it invests in oil projects. I wondered how many of the people who leapt to their feet to applaud knew that the seats from which they leapt were also owned by the Carlyle Group. See, it also invests in the shady business of cinemas, including 300 that are now showing Fahrenheit 9/11.

The NY Post has said essentially the same thing:**

Reports Sunday's New York Post: "The Carlyle Group - which [Moore] bashes in the movie as some sort of shadowy war profiteering company - has become part owner of Loews Cinemas, which is currently showing his film."

But according to Newsday, guess who actually doesn't have ties to Carlyle? That's right...George Bush.**

...Sunday's Newsday debunks his claim that President Bush has any financial links to Osama's kin.

Citing Craig Unger's book "House of Bush, House of Saud," Moore invokes the name of James R. Bath, who served with Bush in the Texas Air National Guard and who managed the Texas investments for the Bin Ladin Group during the 1970s. Supposedly, one of their investments was in George W.'s Arbusto Energy.

Reports the paper:

"Moore implies the bin Ladens wanted to curry favor with Bush while his father was CIA director. But Unger's reporting - omitted by Moore - says that Bath denies putting bin Laden money in Arbusto."

I sent Ken an interesting e-mail a while back which traced another connection to Moore through Disney and Miramax. I can't remember if he posted it, but I'll try to find it and post it here, just in case. Found it.


* It looks like you have to register, but look for the "continue without registering" small print.
** I would have linked directly to the original articles, but you have to pay for the Post, and although Newsday has a print version of the article (I checked), they apparently don't have one on their web site.

UPDATE: Although W wasn't a member of the Carlyle Group (as far as I could find, it was only his daddy.), you know who was? George Soros. The same George Soros who is a major supporter of John Kerry, and who donated $8 million to anti-Bush organizations America Coming Together and MoveOn.org. Soros invested some $100 million or so through Carlyle. Funny you don't hear too much about that.