Dude, Where's My Country? (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "AT FIRST, it seemed like a small plane had accidentally flown into the north tower of the World Trade Center..." (more)
Key Phrases: stupid white men, nineteen hijackers, United States, Saddam Hussein, The New York Times (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The people of the United States, according to author and filmmaker Michael Moore (Bowling for Columbine, Stupid White Men), have been hoodwinked. Tricked, he says, by Republican lawmakers and their wealthy corporate pals who use a combination of concocted bogeymen and lies to stay rich and in control. But while plenty of liberal scholars, entertainers, and pundits have made similar arguments in book form, Moore's Dude, Where's My Country? stands out for its thoroughly positive perspective. Granted, Moore is angry and has harsh words for George W. Bush and his fellow conservatives concerning the reasoning behind going to war in Iraq, the collapse of Enron and other companies, and the relationship between the Bushes, the Saudi Arabian government, and Osama bin Laden. But his book is intended to serve as a handbook for how people with liberal opinions (which is most of America, Moore contends, whether they call themselves "liberals" or not) can take back their country from the conservative forces in power. Moore uses his trademark brand of confrontational, exasperated humor skillfully as he offers a primer on how to change the worldview of one's annoying conservative blowhard brother-in-law, and he crafts a surprisingly thorough "Draft Oprah for President" movement. Refreshingly, Dude, Where's My Country? avoids being completely one-sided, offering up areas where Moore believes Republicans get it right as well as some cutting criticisms of his fellow lefties. Such allowances, brief though they may be, make one long for a political climate where the shouting polemicists on both sides would see a few more shades of gray. Dude, Where's My Country? is a little bit scattered, as Moore tries to cram opinions on Iraq, tax cuts, corporate welfare, Wesley Clark, and the Patriot Act into one slim volume--and the penchant to go for a laugh sometimes gets in the way of clear arguments. But such variety also gives the reader more Moore, providing a broader range of his bewildered, enraged, yet stalwartly upbeat point of view. --John Moe

From Publishers Weekly

Flush from the success of Stupid White Men and an Academy Award for best documentary, Moore continues his rhetorical assault on the Bush administration. The book shares much with Al Franken's Lies besides liberal sentiment and satirical tone; not only do both authors rely on the hoary device of having God tell them He doesn't support the president, but they each claim to pack their carry-on luggage with baseballs to bean would-be hijackers. But where Franken attacks individual conservatives, Moore focuses on issues. His first chapter is a series of unsettlingly specific questions (based on rigorously footnoted facts) about the political and financial ties among Bush, the Saudi Arabian government and Osama bin Laden's family, though he leaps from the facts to speculation when he wonders whether the September 11 attacks might have been hatched within the Saudi military. Other chapters attack the public's susceptibility to what he casts as the fear-mongering tactics the administration has used to justify foreign military interventions and, he says, the erosion of domestic civil liberties, and he lays plans for a Democratic victory in 2004: in addition to a half-serious nomination of Oprah, he offers a prescient, reasoned and highly favorable evaluation of Wesley Clark as a candidate. Moore's arguments work best when delivered mostly straight, since he isn't always as funny as he seems to think he is. Straightforward propositions leavened with humor, like a guide to talking to conservative relatives, work fine, while efforts at flat-out farce ring hollow. But expect liberals to once again eagerly support one of their most prominent spokesmen by checking this out at the cash register.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 249 pages
• Publisher: Warner Books; Stated 1st Edition. edition (October 7, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446532231
• ISBN-13: 978-0446532235
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (909 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #387,689 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

186 of 223 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Just the facts, ma'am., October 11, 2003

By	Jonathan Roberts (Provincetown, MA USA) - See all my reviews

Hey folks, this is place for book reviews, not just somewhere to hammer your political stakes. If I want to know a good restaurant in which to eat, I don't get much help from people who say "that place sucks," or "it's awesome, maan." Those are not restaurant reviews. They are inarticulate blanket statements that tell me very little about culinary establishments. If some moron who doesn't like Italian food, but loves Chinese food, even if it is bad, makes those statements, I am not in a very good position to find a good restaurant.

But, hey, Moore's book is not exactly fine literature either, nor is it supposed to be. It is the stuff that touches nerves and induces one or two sentence leftwing or rightwing rants. While this may be bad for the Amazon book review section, it is good for political discourse.

And that is where many "professional" reviewers (or the publicists who pick abridged comments) fare little better than the guy who likes lousy Chinese food. The first splash review on the back of the book exclaims "Moore is a comic genius." This comment is like a court reporter exclaiming "Kobe Bryant is a basketball genius" after covering a pretrial hearing.

Well, Moore is damned funny, but the book is not primarily a comic work. Chapter 10 is hilarious, granted, but this is a book of serious political and social commentary peppered with quips and sarcasm. Moore fans already know that model, and they aren't the ones reading these reviews for the purpose of finding a good read.

The book is a Bush-bashing of epic proportions, but the weapon for the beating is not weird conspiracy theories as some might want to claim. Sure, Moore suggests that the war in Iraq is about oil, that the terrorist threat is a Republican political tool to exploit patriotic sentiment, and other ideas that put grins on the faces of liberals and frowns on the faces of conservatives. But the plain well-documented facts in the book do the talking (as they do in any decent piece of research).

Startling revelations of the Bush family's intimate business and social dealings with the Saudi Royal family are Moore's most powerful weapon. And, no, he is not relying on innuendo or rhetoric. Actually, he is using mainstream media sources, even those owned by arch-conservative Rup Murdoch. Moore describes how the Saudis were overtly protected from scrutiny after 9/11 by Ashcroft and company (to the great dismay of the FBI), while hundreds of other Arabs on American soil were rounded up like Japanese Americans during WWII, despite the fact that 15 of the 19 highjackers were Saudis. And that is just an appetizer.

In all, the book effectively discredits Bush and his agenda - from tax cuts to the Patriot Act to foreign affairs. Moore is persuasive in describing Bush's presidency as an absolute disaster for the country (our country if you were wondering which one).

On the disappointing side, Moore wants to have his cake and eat it too (the common pitfall of most political discourse). While Moore doesn't sketch out theories, he asks questions that imply, for example, that Osama wasn't perhaps as responsible as the Saudi establishment for 9/11. But he then asserts his desire for Osama to be caught and held responsible. This is a bit of a trap for Moore. He asks a lot of questions of Bush - legitimate questions that need to be answered. But the reader (particularly the unlikely conservative reader) may see these as rhetorical questions for which Moore is implying answers. The easy leap for the critic is "conspiracy theory." For those less likely to make that judgment, the problem may be more like the Osama one: Innuendo A is not consistent with Assertion B.

Perhaps inevitable, this flaw is the soft underbelly for those wishing to dismiss other parallel arguments which are well crafted and well researched.

Finally, does this book "suck" or is it "awesome?" Well, I read it in one sitting, which rules out "sucks." It is not awesome as in "awesome dude-meister!" It is awe inspiring for the plain questions it asks and the startling revelations it makes. Strip away all of Moore's prose if you wish, and you will be left with a body of research that should leave you sickened not only by Bush and his puppeteers, but by Congress, and maybe even your brother-in-law.

149 of 180 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Moore is brilliant again, October 10, 2003

By	John H Heckenlively (Racine, Wisconsin United States) - See all my reviews

I agree with those who say that anyone accusing Moore of not writing the facts is full of it. I have spent the past two months working on an anti-Bush book, and virtually everything I found confirms what Moore says in "Dude".

There are very serious questions about what happened both before and after 9-11 that the Bush administration is refusing to answer. Frankly, I think that Moore does not go far enough in
indicting the Bush administration for their crimes.

The entire Bush family is one virtual criminal enterprise, from Prescott to the present, and it is deeply disturbing that such people have their hands ILLEGALLY on the levers of power.

Aside from being the truth, Moore as usual is very, very funny. There are some actual laugh-out-loud parts of the book.

Best reason to buy the book: Moore is going to use all the money he gets from the Bush tax cut to work against Bush and the Republican party in 2004. So help make Mike rich!

41 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Truth about the critics., October 22, 2003

By	Truth (NH, USA) - See all my reviews

Wow, what a book! I must have looked stupid laughing out loud during my lunch breaks as I read it. But the laughter was mixed with concern about where our America is heading. His excellent, yet misunderstood use of sarcasm is well blended with the shocking, sometimes frightening and thought provoking questions he raises. I thoroughly enjoyed his previous book, but I admit I couldn't wait for this one because I knew that if he was outraged at Bush for stealing the Presidency in "Stupid White Men", he would be hilariously struck by the mess he has gotten us into in such a short time.

Now let's talk about the reviewers that "allegedly" read this book, but were "disappointed" to find those web sites that list the "factual errors" in this book. Isn't it convenient that they don't share the links to these sites so we can judge for ourselves.

So I decided to look for these myself, and I found some interesting ones. You know, I was really expecting to find at least ONE error or misrepresentation, but all they had were either inconsequential criticisms or debunking of opinions, not facts. In fact, none of the supporting articles that Moore references are even challenged!

Let me show you a few examples of the 17 "factual errors" noted at spinsanity.org:

#1. "Moore claims that [...] HarperCollins, which published Stupid White Men, "dumped [the book] in some bookstores with no advertising [...] yet on his web site Moore stated that "HarperCollins is doing their best to get the book out there." -Bryan Keefer, "Moore's myriad mistakes"

HOW IS THIS RELEVANT? Also, these were not FACTS, just opinions. Can there be "Factual Errors" in opinions?

Then he quotes Moore:
"There is usually very little in the way of an electronic or paper trail when it comes to terrorists. They lay low and pay cash. You and me, we leave trails everywhere"

And their "finding" is that "Moore evidently forgot about the credit cards used by the Sept. 11 hijackers". WHO CARES ?! That it NOT the point he's making. Plus, again, this was not a fact, but an opinion they're "debunking".

Their "error # 17" is actually a comparison in Poll results about the war intentions of Americans. They compare to polls that ask a different question (omitting the "with the support of UN and allies") and use them as a contradiction of Moore's allegations. Now who's twisting the facts?

And this one is outright ridiculous:

#7. "Moore uses fake quotes as chapter headings, implying that Bush (or administration officials) said things they never said"

Well duh! Chapter headings are meant to SUMMARIZE the text below. Any intelligent reader would know this and would read the referenced NEWS articles for the real quotes.

Another site that tries to challenge Moore is moorewatch.com. Now this one is heavy on ranting, but light on anything constructive. Here's an example from their article "Michael Moore: The Fact-check":

MOORE: Rush Limbaugh has been around for 20 years.
REALITY: This year marked his show's 15th anniversary.

Wow, they're right, Moore IS a liar! (That's sarcasm, for the literary-challenged)

Now here, they too show their ability to twist facts. They quote Moore: "Private jets, under the supervision of the Saudi government were allowed to fly around the skies of America"

They retort with: "The real truth of this incident is [...] No account has a flight of Saudis leaving the U.S. until after the resumption of normal air traffic".

Well that's NOT what Moore is saying. He says they flew WITHIN America while all other flights were stopped, not "leaving" the U.S.

The rest of their critics resort to name-calling to make their points. Though it really gets to me when they call Moore (and his readers) America-Haters, when it's obvious that Moore (and all of us) LOVE this Country. Its like the love you have for a parent which has Cancer, and you wish with all your heart someone can find a cure.