h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

So I saw Fahrenheit 9/11. Overrated. Makes fine points about U.S.-Saudi relations, W's incompetence, and the administration's complete ineffectiveness and deception, but does so in a way that reeks of phoniness.

In my opinion, Moore is at his best when he's showing real footage of Bush and real documents substantiating Moore's claims - because Bush's record is plenty to prove Moore's major claims. Also, Moore is good at finding news footage of particular subjects - the brutality of the war, for example - to contrast with the administration's speechifying. That's well done.

Here's a few things I didn't like (in handy list form!):
1) Moore's use of Al-Jazeera footage. C'mon, man, it's Al-Jazeera; American audiences know that they stage interviews and spin current events with reckless abandon.
2) Moore's use of ploys like asking members of Congress to sign their kids up for the armed forces. Honestly, who wouldn't look ridiculous responding to something like that? Most of them did the predictable thing and walked straight past Moore, knowing he was aiming to make them look hypocritical. Tactics like the ones Moore uses are amusing, sure, but only in limited quantities. And they're not as informative or enlightening as he evidently thinks they are.
3) Moore's editorial comments, which are often lengthy, out-of-place, or just unnecessary. Moore's a good enough communicator that he shouldn't have to resort to spelling everything out for the audience.

Y'know, I keep wondering if some political organization is going to stop messing around with those stupid campaign ads and put out a genuine piece of invective like Moore's. As a voter, I'd appreciate not having to wade through hours of mind-numbing, pointless campaign commercials when all the Dems really have to do is point out what a [insert your favorite expletive here] Bush is. They could play clips of his campaign promises and footage of what he did to break 'em. They could show his claims about 9/11 and follow that with excerpts from the 9/11 Commission's report. They could play clips of his (and Rummy's, and Cheney's, and Colin Powell's, and Condoleeza Rice's) utter lies about Iraq, and follow that with his (and others') sheepish waffling (Bush: "Saddam Hussein has WMDs." Bush in State-o'-Union Address: "Saddam, we are fairly certain, conducted WMD-related program activites.") They could even show a best-of-Bush gag reel, with all his blank stares, smirks, eyebrow twitches, inane laughs, vacant expressions, cowboy mannerisms, mispronunciations (Bushisms, as they're called), and tasteless jokes. My dream would be to copy the style of a positive ad for Bush, but instead show Bush garbling words and saying utter nonsense. Then, against a waving American flag, in bright red, bold letters, the ad would say, "BUSH," which would be followed by, "Is An Utter Moron" and "Vote Somebody Else in 2004."

I would also love to hear a good old-fashioned protest song. This could be in the style of Bob Dylan, or Charles Mingus ("Give me the name of someone ridiculous") - or somebody could just dedicate "Liar" by the Sex Pistols to Bush.