Over the past twenty-four hours, it's become obvious that the credibility of Michael Moore even among his natural allies has diminished to near zero. Last night Newsweek blew apart the central thesis of his paean to conspiracy-theory paranoia, Fahrenheit-9/11, by utterly refuting the notion that the Saudis had bought the entire Bush family in the 1990s. Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball, no right-wing apologists, did that with simple research and understanding of the calendar.

Now today, two major opinion columnists on the Left have shredded Moore's tactics and conclusions even more vociferously than the deferential Isikoff and Hosenball. First, Richard Cohen writes of Moore's film in today's Washington Post (via Memeorandum):

I brought a notebook with me when I went to see Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" and in the dark made notes before I gave up, defeated by the utter stupidity of the movie. ... Moore's depiction of why Bush went to war is so silly and so incomprehensible that it is easily dismissed. As far as I can tell, it is a farrago of conspiracy theories. But nothing is said about multiple U.N. resolutions violated by Iraq or the depredations of Saddam Hussein. In fact, prewar Iraq is depicted as some sort of Arab folk festival -- lots of happy, smiling, indigenous people. Was there no footage of a Kurdish village that had been gassed? This is obscenity by omission.

Next, Ellen Goodman follows up with her own disapproval towards the Oscar-winning documentarian, whom the Academy may wish to avoid during the next voting cycle, titled "Limbaughing To The Left". (That's not a compliment, by the way, when coming from Goodman.)

But at some point, I also began to feel just a touch out of harmony. Not even this alto believes that the Iraq war was brought to us courtesy of the Bush-Saudi oil-money connection. Not even the rosiest pair of my retro-spectacles sees prewar Iraq as a happy valley where little children flew kites. ...

Moore described his movie as an "op-ed piece," not a documentary. Well, I know something about op-ed pieces. Over the long run, you don't get anywhere just whacking your audience upside the head; you try to change the mind within it. You don't just go for the gut. You try, gulp, reason.

Bear in mind that both columnists take plenty of opportunity to take shots at the Bush administration, although Goodman also writes about the lack of intelligent discourse between the right and the left in this country, which people should take time to read. Both Goodman and Cohen, especially Cohen, argue persuasively that not only will F-9/11 fail to convince anyone but the true ABB believers, its falsehoods and propaganda will repel the centrists.

If Tom Daschle, Tom Harkin, Barbara Boxer, and the other Democratic leaders who showed up for the premier and lavished praise on this film are reading the papers today, they have to feel cut off at the knees. After all, Michael Moore will make tons of money off of this film and continue to produce movies regardless of how F-9/11 plays out from here. But if Moore's lunacy sticks to the fools who jumped into his cesspool with both feet, their careers may be over sooner than they think, especially Daschle, who faces a strong challenge from John Thune in November.

QandO has a good roundup on Moore, and Instapundit notes a lot of blog reaction as well.

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