In the late afternoon of Monday 17 May 2004, the most anticipated film at the Cannes 2004 competition is premièring in the Salle Lumière. It is Michael Moore's FAHRENHEIT 9/11 (USA: 2004). Two years earlier, Moore had established his name with the successful BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE (USA: 2004), a critical-populist investigation of the topic of violence in America, inspired by the Columbine high school shootings of 1999. FOR FAHRENHEIT 9/11 Moore has turned his cameras and unconventional research methods to the alleged relations between the Bush and Bin Laden families. The agit-prop documentary unabashedly pokes fun at the American President and counters the official image of Bush as a strong leader with an equally oversimplified picture of the spoiled rich kid, the failed businessman, and the uncommitted politician who preferred going on vacation and who ignored numerous warnings just prior to 9/11.

Moore shows footage of Bush visiting a primary school class just as the first airplane has crashed into the Twin Towers on the morning of 11 September 2001. We see someone coming in and whispering into the president's ear. The images are not even that unflattering in and of themselves. Bush is made to look bad by the mocking voice-over, which guides our interpretation. We hear Moore suggesting what the president was thinking. Was he at a loss for what to do, sitting alone in the classroom with no one telling him what to do? Was he considering his options? Was he regretting hanging out with the wrong crowd (the Saudis and the Bin Laden family)? Did he wish he had spent less time going on holiday and more time in the oval office? Was he, at that point, already considering blaming Sadam Hussein in order to distract attention away from his own failing policies? Whatever he was thinking, Moore emphasizes, although he had been told the country was at war, he did not get up and do anything for a full seven minutes, preferring to continue reading a story about a goat with the children.

Throughout the film, Moore expresses a particular interest in the legitimacy of American intervention in Iraq and displays sharp political opposition to the Bush administration.