In twenty-four hours I saw the last two winners of the Academy Award for Best Documentary, Errol Morris' Fog of War and Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine. Perhaps I saw too many documentaries in a short span, and my wife was ready to revolt.

Both films had an effect on me. With respect to Fog of War I have the following considerations:

• Robert McNamara comes off as a technocrat. I am not sure whether or not this is by design, and I am inclined to say not. In Morris' previous film, Fred Leuchter, a so-called expert on capital punishment, allowed his own arrogance to lead him down the path of Holocaust denial. His problem was that his mentality, focused on technology with which he was familiar, was not up to the problem of tremendous moral import. McNamara appears in something of the same light, almost Eichmann like in his reasoning. He solves problems posed by exercise of military power, but the rightness or wrongness of his decisions are not a reflection of his personality. He allowed himself to be affected by his "bosses". (My wife noticed that the only death that moved him was that of JFK, whose approach to anti-communism was vastly different than LBJ). It is difficult to distinguish between the mistakes that McNamara made and the principles set out by LBR in Vietnam. I sensed that McNamara was ultimately a small man who played a major role. He was not capable of grapling with the ethics of what he was doing.
  
  [On Edit: Erroll Morris consulted my advisor for the film. My advisor agrees with me that McNamara's personality bore the imprint of whomever was in charge. However, he compares McNamara to Albert Speer rather than Eichmann.]


• I wish that McNamara would say more about polarization. The undercurrent of the film--that misunderstandings guide warfare--is important, but it undermines another lesson that should be underlined: Clausewitz's "ascension to the extremes". I think that McNamara should have explained more about why excessive force was applied to the situation at all points, considering how it could have contributed to the war after his dismissal. Why was it so difficult to negotiate with the North Veitnamese? Why did victory have to be so complete? These problems are not resolved by alluding to "the fog of war". (The Presidential address of the AHA for this year picks up on similar themes: why the end to the Civil War could not be negotiated once it had begun.)


• The Twelth Lesson: businessmen are not necessarily able political leaders.

Michael Moore ought to be taken with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, I think that his was a powerful movie. I would address one issue: I had heard the critique that Moore fails in his comparison between Canada and US, not taking into account the effects of the Canadian social system. What I would say is that fear/social support is an unenunciated dichotomy throughout the film.