All week, I've been kind of obsessed with the Fahrenheit 9/11 trailer.
My coworker told me I had better see the movie as soon as I could, as she was getting worried about how many times she'd look over to my computer and see me watching it.
It was like a train wreck. I couldn't look away.
So when the opportunity came up to see the movie on opening night, I figured I should go.
I didn't really feel anything one way or the other about Michael Moore before tonight. I knew he was a loudmouth Democrat, and I liked that. I thought he made kind of an ass of himself at the Oscars last year, but only because I really can't tolerate anyone whining about how Gore really won the 2000 election (he didn't, and every time someone brings it up it makes Democrats sound like petulant loser six-year-olds). I haven't read any of his books, I haven't seen any of his movies.
Now, having seen this one, I still don't feel anything one way or the other about him. I don't think he's a hero, I don't think he's the antichrist, and anyway, he's not the story.
The movie is good. The movie is smart, and it is powerful. There were times when I burst out laughing. There were times when I sobbed. Not just quiet tears, oh no, we're talking out-and-out sobs. There were many times when I rolled my eyes, and shook my head, and felt sick inside.
But I don't know yet what it all means. I know that I can't see it again. I have a friend from the play who called last night and said she wanted to see it with me because I was her only Democrat friend, and I told her I was seeing it tonight but that I might see it again with her on Sunday.
But I can't. I just don't think I could take it again, not that soon.
Just as I was writing this, I talked to Eliza, who was on her way home from the movie, and we sort of agreed that we didn't really know what to say about it just yet. I think it needs to settle in. I think I need some time to wrap my head around the outrage, and the helplessness, and the hopelessness that I feel right now.
I do know this: it has to stop. It has to stop.
I know there aren't a whole lot of Republicans who are going to go see this movie. I wish they would. I want one of them to see it, to take all the video footage of even just the events in Iraq at face value, to blow off everything they might find to be partisan rhetoric, and then explain to me why I should support this war, or this administration, or this president.
Because I really, really don't understand. I don't understand why I should vote for Bush, and I don't understand why anyone would. And I'm not saying that to be sarcastic or partisan or argumentative. I honestly, genuinely, do not understand. I try to make my mind a blank slate, I try to approach it from all sides, I try to imagine what the pro-war argument is, and I just can't come up with one.
And that feeling scares the life out of me.
Alas. Because I can't go to bed on such a downer, I will share a moment of light-hearted bipartisanship with you.
We get streaming CNN on our computers at the office, and because what we do doesn't take a whole lot of brain activity, I usually have it playing in the corner of my screen while I work. I've been watching a lot of "Crossfire" lately, and I realized today that, as much as it pains my little Democratic heart to say, there really is no denying it:
Tucker Carlson is hot.
(I could so make a joke about both his name and
his bow tie, but I'm afraid I'd just freak y'all out.)