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Dull-witted but wealthy Texan oil man pulls family strings to take over the White House. His family connections to Saudi oil control his reaction to a devastating attack on New York and Washington. He summarily turns the country into a fear-based state, establishing acts that erode the Bill of Rights, as the Democratic party just follows along. He bombs and kills thousands of people in a country that had nothing to do with the attack, in order to secure oil rights in that country while solidifying power at home by manipulating the public through a pliant, embedded media.

Five years ago, this would have been a science fiction Tom Clancy-esque thriller. In fact, the parts where Arab terrorists kill thousands of Americans at once, and where incensed nationalists fly planes into the key buildings of our government, were already represented in the pages of Clancy thrillers.** Unfortunately, this isn’t a chilling summer blockbuster, it’s a documentary.

This latest documentary from writer-director Michael Moore (Roger & Me, Bowling for Columbine) takes a clear, lucid look at the public record of the Bush team, which may be a first look for many Americans. Unless they watch BBC News or The Daily Show with John Stewart, or read Harper’s Magazine or TheOnion.com, most Americans get a fairly monolithic, unquestioning, regurgitated blanket of news coverage from the conventional conservative media. What this film (download your favorite film live wallpapers) does, is take the Bush team’s own words and show what’s actually happening. This is simply an astonishing experience. Many individuals sense the whole of what this film shows, and talk back to Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, and Peter Jennings to no avail. And while the effect of the film may be depressing to those who find this information new, it’s a source of elation for so many others who realize that finally, there is a voice saying what we think, that’s getting through the system, that’s getting national play.

Yet Moore does far more than just excoriate the Bush team with their own words. He interviews dozens who lost loved ones on 9/11 and in Iraq, representatives of watchdog groups, and military personnel getting a far deeper understanding of the effect of Bush’s actions. He gives incredibly thoughtful attention to those suffering extreme loss, and the disenfranchisement felt by Americans victimized by the euphemistically-named Patriot Act, and the brutal, misguided violence of war in Iraq.

In sum, this film may be the first widely distributed, authentic record of what’s been going on for the last few years in this country. History books a few decades hence will likely compare embedded journalism to yellow journalism, Rupert Murdock’s Fox News to William Randolph Hearst’s Hearst Publications, the deception and disgrace of Richard Nixon to the deception and usurpation of George W. Bush.

In fact, the Hearst connection is quite telling in terms of the last time a film made such a dramatic criticism of standing American power. With Citizen Kane, Orson Welles took on a captain of industry, a Goliath with immense direct power and control over public opinion. It takes astonishing strength of character to stand up to that broad a power base, in which it’s so much easier to just play along like everyone else. Instead, Michael Moore’s film bucks the trend, unwilling to bend and unflinching in his vision. Yet, this dogged stubbornness and adherence to principles is the foundation of our country. While the Bush team talks about patriotism, coalitions, and freedom, Michael Moore is the true representative of Jeffersonian dissent.

The fact that Moore made this film, that it will get out to theaters, that it will get on DVD, and it will be seen all over the world, is perhaps the greatest thing that has happened to this country’s reputation in years. It demonstrates that Americans disagree with Bush, and that we as a nation can say that the person who stands in the place of our leader is undeserving, foolish, and a danger to both Americans and the rest of the world.

This film thus teeters on the brink of actually making history itself. Moore has strongly influenced the documentary form, encouraging vocal and forceful dissent among others, most recently represented by the utterly brilliant documentaries Control Room and The Corporation. The Moore method is unapologetic, but is necessary to cut through the clutter of conservative bluster, Bush propaganda, and sheepishly compliant liberals. By directing this approach to Bush’s preemptive-of-nothing invasion, Moore’s documentary is timed to directly influence the outcome of the next election, giving it a forward-looking level of extreme relevance that few American films ever achieve. While Moore quotes Orwell in the same way I did in my editorial 1984 Reloaded, this film calls to mind a sequence from 1984 when Winston hears rioting, and wonders if the revolution was about to happen and topple his one-voice/one-media/one-enemy/one-fear government. Fahrenheit 9/11 conjured similar feelings in me, when the usually blasé and staid film critics laughed, shrieked, and applauded at the press screening this week.

This bitingly smart and patriotic film stands up as a testament to the supreme power of truth, justice, and freedom of speech. It is virtually perfect.