Fahrenheit 9/11. Pretty much everything that's been said about it is true.

It's heartbreaking; it's manipulative; it's old news; it's a powerful evidentiary hearing in the case against the Bush administration.

Ultimately, it's simply frustrating.

While it won't likely change the minds of the staunchest Bush supporters - who wouldn't see a Michael Moore documentary if their lives depended on it - anyone else sitting near the fence can't possibly walk away from it without having their eyes opened.

Wide open.

The problem is what happens when you walk out of the theater. We're still at war with no end in sight. We've been forcefed John Kerry as the only option to getting rid of Bush, which is like choosing between death by a thousand cuts or lethal injection...you're still dead in the end.

Kerry's not going to end the war. He's not going to pull our troops out of Iraq. He's not going to significantly change our foreign policy. He's not going to challenge big business' chokehold on the American people. Or the Iraqi people, or any people, for that matter.

John Kerry is not the answer.

Hell, even Moore thought Wesley Clark was a better option than Kerry during the primaries. If you're going to play at war, at least put some real experience behind it.

In the opening minutes of Fahrenheit 9/11, when 14 representatives led by the Congressional Black Caucus challenge the formal registration of the 2000 Electoral College vote (on the basis on thousands of disenfranchised voters) and Al Gore declares them out of order because they're missing a signature from a senator, ANY SENATOR, my blood started to boil.

Where was John Kerry that day? Or Lieberman even?

And the Green Party, which originally positioned itself as the progressive alternative to the center-drifitng Democrats and showed some guts in 2000 against the objections of many, myself included, have decided to spurn Nader and their own guy, Peter Camejo, in favor of a bullshit "safe-state" strategy with some no-name candidates that will probably lose them much of the ground they've gained over the past decade.

[Great new essay on the Greens and Kerry here.]

So what to do? Is this a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation? Is another four years of Bush really that much worse than four years of Kerry and a false sense of security? Might it be better for Kerry to go down in November, defeated by a healthy margin that reflects the Left's disenchantment with the Democrats, and opening the door for impeachment proceedings against Bush & friends?

Another four years of Bush, or another four years of compromising? Which is the bigger risk?