Foreign
\nAffairs<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A>. This is not to excuse Moore’s insulting stereotypes,
\nwrongheaded generalizations, implicit racism and other egregious mistakes — all charges that
\nJensen levels against it. At the same time, however, the critique illustrates something delusional in
\nJensen’s expectations.<\/P>
\nMy own reaction to the flick was favorable. I knew most of the movie’s theme and variations
\nbeforehand, as anybody would who follows the news. So very little of the information was
\nrevelatory. But I wasn’t bored, largely because I found the movie funny. <\/P>
\n
The moment I liked best — it made me laugh out loud — is a whacky one that some critics
\nhave singled out as juvenile: Moore commandeers an ice cream truck, sort of a Mr. Softee truck,
\nand circles the street near the Capitol while reading portions of the Patriot Act over a
\nloudspeaker. Along with the words, you hear the innocuous music of the truck’s ice
\ncream jingle. It’s Moore’s comic response to an interview with Rep. John Conyers Jr., of
\nMichigan, which is both hilarious and devastating for what Conyers says about the
\nCongressional legislative process in general and the Patriot Act in particular.<\/P>
\n
Another detail I loved is the video clip showing our bonehead Maximum Leader reading to
\nthe school children in Florida on 9\/11 while the World Trade Center and the Pentagon are under
\nattack. It’s bizarre and funny because of the goofy look on his face, a moment stretched
\nout for emphasis in slow motion. The bonehead appears to be channeling Alfred E.
\nNewman’s “What Me Worry?” gaze from MAD magazine. For that alone, the flick was worth
\nseeing.<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Attacks on “Farenheit 9\/11” from the usual suspects on the right are not surprising. But when it comes from the left it’s a story of “man bites dog.” Robert Jensen, a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of “Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity” from City […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-744","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-c0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}