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July 01, 2004
More on Michael Moore - moron
Posted by Jon Henke
Newsweek presents some pretty damning evidence of Michael Moore's deception....
But a cursory examination of the claim reveals some flaws in Moore’s arithmetic—not to mention his logic. Moore derives the $1.4 billion figure from journalist Craig Unger’s book, “House of Bush, House of Saud.” Nearly 90 percent of that amount, $1.18 billion, comes from just one source: contracts in the early to mid-1990’s that the Saudi Arabian government awarded to a U.S. defense contractor, BDM, for training the country’s military and National Guard. What’s the significance of BDM? The firm at the time was owned by the Carlyle Group, the powerhouse private-equity firm whose Asian-affiliate advisory board has included the president’s father, George H.W. Bush.
Leave aside the tenuous six-degrees-of-separation nature of this “connection.” The main problem with this figure, according to Carlyle spokesman Chris Ullman, is that former president Bush didn’t join the Carlyle advisory board until April, 1998—five months after Carlyle had already sold BDM to another defense firm.
Not only does Moore mislead about the connections between Saudi money and the Bush family, Newsweek points out, he left out contraindicative information, such as the fact that "the one major Bush administration decision that most directly affected the company’s interest was the cancellation of a $11 billion program for the Crusader rocket artillery system that had been developed for the U.S. Army ( during the Clinton administration)".
But, I'll go one farther than Newsweek on the Saudi angle and point out--if not a deception--a quite misleading statement from Moore.
MICHAEL MOORE: How much money do the Saudis have invested in America, roughly?
: Uh, I've heard figures inside of $860 billion dollars.
[...]
MICHAEL MOORE: That's a lot of money. And uh, what percentage of our economy is that? That seems like a lot.
: Well, in terms of investments on Wall Street, American equities, it's roughly six or seven percent of America. They own a fairly good slice of America.
[...]
NARRATOR: It turns out that Saudi Prince Bandar is perhaps the best protected ambassador in the US. The US State Department provides him with a six-man security detail. Considering how he and his family, and the Saudi elite own seven percent of America, it's probably not a bad idea. $860b = 6-7% ownership of America.
I don't think so.
Estimates place total US wealth at approxiately 27 trillion. Of that, $860b is something around 3%.
What's more, per the Bureau of Economic Analysis report released yesterday...
"Foreign-owned assets in the United States increased $986.8 billion to $9,633.4 billion with foreign direct investment valued at current cost, and they increased $1,348.2 billion to $10,515.0 billion with foreign direct investment valued at market value. So, total Saudi investment in the US amounts to less than one year of current foreign investment in the US, and--contrary to claims that the Saudis own "7% of America"--their total investment in the US only amounts to about 7% of total foreign investment.
Quite a difference, isn't it?
Note: More on Newsweeks article--and Moore in general--can be found at Captains Quarters...
Ask yourself this: if the Saudis had Bush under their thumb, why would they have allowed him to attack Iraq, or even the Taliban? American armed intervention has destabilized the region to a greater degree than they have seen since the initial establishment of Israel, and al-Qaeda have been targeting the Saudi royal family ever since the first Gulf War because of their alliance with Washington. The increased instability does nothing to help the Saudis, and it forces them to reform where they would far prefer to maintain the status quo ante.
Instapundit...
filmmaker Michael Wilson is experiencing a "bidding war" for his film responding to Moore.
Oxblog...
Now, you might ask, why is the liberal media turning on Michael Moore? Because the media always goes after major public figures who accuse of it being biased. [...] In my own discussions with journalists, I've found them to be at least as annoyed by leftists' accusations that they are conservative mouthpieces than by conservatives' accusations that they are inveterate liberals. So don't expected Moore's bumpy ride to end anytime soon.
Moorelies....
Michael Moore's war room fired off one of their first salvos at Newsweek's Michael Isikoff last week. It may not have been the wisest move. Isikoff- the star investigative reporter for the one of the nation's most widely-read and respected newsmagazines- has now fired back with a new column, taking much, much more of Fahrenheit 9/11 to task, including the Carlyle connection, the bin Laden family-terrorism connection, and of course, the Saudi national flights debate.
VodkaPundit...
I'm guessing the real question regarding Moore's propaganda effort isn't how much it will hurt Bush--those who'd believe it were already voting against him--but rather how much the credibility of the Democratic politicians and media types who kowtowed to Moore last week will suffer in the aftermath. I suspect Tom Daschle in particular will rue his decision to attend the DC premiere.
RantingProfs...
Michael Isikoff was apparently bummed by his night out at the movies. I mostly bring this up because finally somebody mentions who cleared the Saudi flights out of the country.
....and--of course--the invaluable Memeorandum.
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