Finally got around to seeing this Thursday at the Art - I was wondering why it wasn't at the Beverly, but now I suppose I know.

A few comments - from reading various "this movie lies!!!" websites, I'd been led to believe that the thing would spend all sorts of time on conspiracy theories and the idea that Papa Bush was somehow pulling all the strings via the Carlyle Group. However - it doesn't. The ties of the Bush family to both defense contractors and Saudi investors are documented, in a sort of "hey, these people share some interests mainly tied together by the good ol' greenback," which is well warranted (if anything, it serves to point out that the Bushes are part of the "moneyed elite" and "people who have ties with ruling foreigners" W so often tries to portray himself as down-homey and distant from - the scene later on with the "haves and the have mores" does this wonderfully also) but it mostly stays there.

Not being a huge fan of Michael Moore's usual "forced confrontational interview" schtick, I was happy to see that there was not much of it in there.

While I realize that this film has a major objective to speak about Bush and his failings in this election year, I think the movie would have been even stronger if it spent some more time pointing out that it's not just Bush (or even his cabinet, although they are arguably worse) that is the problem - the close ties between the US and Saudi Arabia, the obsession with the Middle East and having a hand in the region's politics stemming from concerns over control of its natural resources, have been an integral part of US foreign policy since after WW2, through administrations led by both parties. In a similar vein, President Clinton wasn't all that shy about economically strangling Iraqis and bombing them under cover of "no fly zone enforcement" either - it's all of one nasty piece. In decades to come, the "Gulf War" and the sanctions era and the "Iraq War" might well be considered a single drawn out conflict.

I'm glad I saw the film, and I liked it quite a bit, despite those problems. While it certainly makes its case that the Bush administration is not quite what they make themselves out to be, I hope that viewers do not come away with the reassuring idea that to vote Democratic in the next election is all that we need for a solution - while I'm certainly not planning to vote for Bush, voting him out is only the tiniest baby step toward what we need to do, as informed citizens.