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6/30/2004 03:31:00 PM | Timothy

What if Fahrenheit 9/11 fact-checkers held George W. Bush to the same standard as they do Michael Moore?A member of Moorewatch.com postsIt’s time to point out another of Michael Moore’s whopping lies and distortions. This one concerns the Taliban’s trip to Texas. (In the quoted text below, NARRATOR is Michael Moore.)
NARRATOR: Or was the war in Afghanistan really about something else? Perhaps the answer was in Houston, Texas. In 1997 while George W. Bush was Governor of Texas, a delegation of Taliban leaders from Afghanistan flew to Houston to meet with Unocal executives to discuss the building of a pipeline through Afghanistan bringing natural gas from the Caspian Sea. And who got a Caspian Sea drilling contract the same day Unocal signed the pipeline deal? A company headed by a man named Dick Cheney: Halliburton.In 1997 George W. Bush was indeed Governor of Texas, and Bill Clinton (a Democrat) was President of the United States. Note that Moore does not state that Bush had anything to do with the Taliban meeting, because Bush indeed had nothing to do with it. He only states that Bush was governor at the time (a fact), thereby implying that he had something to do with the meeting (a lie). The Taliban’s entry into the United States was requested by the Unocal corporation and cleared by Clinton’s State Department.
If someone is implying an untruth is that a lie? Let's remember how the administration defends itself against charges that it mislead the country about the relationship between 9-11 and Saddam by saying their statements were technically accurate. Moore is misleading here. But if you want to say Moore is lying here, apply the same standard to the President. Somehow I do not think that many Moore-bashers on the right will do that (just as the mainstream media devotes what seems to be a great deal more effort to immediately fact-checking Moore's movie than George Bush's pre-war claims.)



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