Reader Mark Warner points me to this Washington Post article that details the Polish reaction to the launch of Fahrenheit 9/11 in their country. [Lazy day, today, Captain? -- I prefer to think of it as being responsive to the CQ community...] The Poles are unimpressed with Michael Moore's film, as they get a strange sense of deja vu:

"Fahrenheit 9/11" opened Friday in Poland - a U.S. ally in Iraq - with some critics comparing director Michael Moore's style to totalitarian propaganda. ... A critic for Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland's largest daily newspaper, condemned the movie as a "foul pamphlet" too biased to be considered a documentary and said it reminded him of methods used by Nazi propaganda filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl.

"In criticizing Moore, I have to admit that he has certain abilities - Leni Riefenstahl had them too," reviewer Jacek Szczerba said.

The Rzeczpospolita newspaper wrote that, "Michael Moore will not convince Poles with his film. People are very sensitive to aggressive propaganda, especially when it pretends to be an objective documentary or a work of art," the paper wrote.

The article gives a balanced view of Polish response, noting that Poles are not happy with their participation in Iraq and may be more sympathetic to the film as a result. On the other hand, after having lived for decades under the brutal reign of two truly genocidal regimes -- the Nazis and the Soviets -- one can safely assume that Poles can smell bad propaganda from a far distance, and the reek coming from F-9/11 has them warned.

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