BISMARCK - Sen. Byron Dorgan ought to condemn Michael Moore's new anti-President Bush movie, not appear in it, his Republican opponent said Friday.
Mike Liffrig of Mandan said Dorgan's statement in the preview for "Fahrenheit 9/11" is false. In it, the Democrat U.S. senator for North Dakota says high-ranking federal officials arranged to fly members of Osama bin Laden's family out of the country after the Sept. 11 attacks. The comments come in the last seven seconds of the two-minute preview, which can be seen on Internet Web sites for the movie.
Liffrig called Moore "an American-hating, left-wing nut" and says Dorgan should have refused to take part in Moore's work. He said that if the film results in additional deaths of U.S. soldiers, "some of that blood is on his (Dorgan's) hands."
"If Byron Dorgan doesn't know who Michael Moore is and doesn't know Michael Moore is the No. 1 anti-American filmmaker, then he should resign," Liffrig said.
Dorgan said in a prepared response that it was not Moore who interviewed him and he has never met Moore. Dorgan said he's "not promoting anything."
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In the clip, Dorgan does not accuse President Bush of arranging the flights, nor that the bin Laden relatives were flown out while the nation's flights were grounded.
But Moore alleges that is the case. And in a prepared response to Liffrig's Friday comments, Dorgan said, "Even when all commercial aircraft were grounded in the United States following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, an airplane flight or flights were authorized to fly around our country to pick up some members of the bin Laden family as well as other citizens of Saudi Arabia for the purpose of flying them out of the Untied States. ... When 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudi citizens and members of al-Qaida, I think it's important to ask who authorized those flights and why."
To ask such questions is not "floating a conspiracy against the president," Dorgan said in response to Liffrig's assertion.
In recent reports, former White House terrorism chief Richard Clarke takes responsibility for arranging the flights and says the FBI approved.
The FBI says it did not approve, Dorgan said Friday.
Dorgan spokesman Barry Piatt said this week that the full Moore film also includes Dorgan criticizing the Transportation Safety Administration for allowing butane lighters on flights following the terrorist attacks. Would-be shoe bomber Richard Ried would have been successful blowing up his flight if he had had a butane lighter instead of matches, Dorgan believes.
Dorgan also had what he called a "nanosecond" appearance in Moore's previous documentary, the Oscar-winning "Bowling for Columbine." In that movie, Dorgan says "South Park." In February 2003, Dorgan told The Forum he believes it was taken from tape of a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on children's-hour TV programming.
Liffrig was unaware that U.S. Rep. Mark Kennedy, R-Minn., also appears in the "Fahrenheit" preview. Kennedy has recently complained that the film shows Moore asking him a question, but does not show Kennedy's answer.
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The Moore movie issue is the second time in a month that Dorgan has been criticized for ties to liberal cultural icons. Earlier, his political action committee, the Great Plains Leadership Fund, plugged a fund-raiser in which donors of $5,000 or more to the political action committee would receive a pair of tickets to singer Madonna's concert in Washington, D.C.
Readers can reach Forum reporter Janell Cole at (701) 224-0830
