Moore shows us the real Bush

Moore shows us the real Bush: "Michael Moore's film ''Fahrenheit 9/11'' still has legs. It has earned more than $56 million since its release and has spawned nearly the same amount of words by commentators. It's the consensus among academic film buffs that the only other documentary that has had the same sort of impact was 'Woodstock,' which memorialized the 1969 rock festival.
''Fahrenheit 9/11'' appeals to the same generational crowd: the Woodstock nation grown up. Early audiences have been made up of this AARP demographic, but, thanks to Moore's celebrity and his previous Oscar-winning film, ''Bowling for Columbine,'' the patrons of ''Fahrenheit 9/11'' have been a mixed group.
Moore's documentary, in many ways, is just an extension of his latest book, Dude, Where's My Country?, one of many anti-Bush volumes published during this presidential campaign season. Coincidentally, the New York Times Book Review, on July 4, ran a full-page ad for an upcoming film, ''The Manchurian Candidate,'' and a half-page ad for Moore's ''Fahrenheit 9/11'': When the country's most influential book review runs movie ads, it's announcing the age of literacy is over. Moore certainly will reap more profit and impact from the movie than from his book."


BY WILLIAM O'ROURKE