What Michael Moore Didn't Know About Disney

[Rogue 9]

What Michael Moore Didn't Know About Disney

You may recall the bruising public fight last spring between Disney's Michael Eisner and Miramax's Harvey Weinstein over releasing Michael Moore's controversial "Fahrenheit 9/11."

Eisner asserted that he didn't want to release the film because he didn't want his company to appear partisan. The Disney board, which was busy demoting Eisner and giving half of his job to former Sen. George Mitchell, seemed to back that position.

Some said at the time that Eisner didn't want to release the film for fear of offending Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, whose family is severely mocked and criticized in the movie. Bush, it was thought, might exact revenge on Disney's theme parks in his state by denying them tax breaks.

The fight over "Fahrenheit 9/11" is said to be the catalyst for Eisner's attempt to seize control of Miramax and oust its founders, even though they've provided Disney with a record 75 Academy Award nominations and 65 wins over 10 years.

But it turns out that Eisner may have had more than tax breaks on his mind.

The embattled Disney chief had connections through Disney to at least two major entities that Moore attacked: Halliburton and the Carlyle Group.

One of those connections was through a Disney board member, Aylwin Lewis, who also happens to sit on Halliburton's board. That's the same Halliburton of which Vice President Dick Cheney used to be CEO and the same Halliburton that Michael Moore is quick to accuse of much malfeasance in his film.

Lewis, who did not return repeated calls, has had a meteoric year. He was recently named chief executive of Kmart, right before that company's merger with Sears. Previously he was the president and chief branding officer of Yum! Brands, the Louisville, Ky.-based corporation that owns Taco Bell, KFC and Pizza Hut.

In September 2003, he was elected to the Disney board and began his term of service this past January.

Lewis's first act was to brush off ex-board member Stanley Gold. Gold, who was then campaigning with Roy Disney to have Eisner removed from the company, sent Lewis a letter, published on the SaveDisney.com Web site.

"I'd like to offer you the opportunity to meet with us so that we can share fully our analysis, views, observations, concerns and suggestions," Gold wrote.

Lewis declined.

"I have asked to see the correspondence between you and the Board over the last eighteen months," he wrote back. "If at some point I conclude that a meeting would be beneficial, I will be in touch."

In other words: Get lost.

Lewis's connection to Halliburton, and Disney's abandonment of "Fahrenheit 9/11," now makes sense.

In "Fahrenheit 9/11," Moore is merciless about Halliburton. But he also lambastes another group right at the start of the film. That would be the private-equity firm the Carlyle Group.

Moore points out that on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, the Carlyle Group was holding its annual investor's conference, with former President George Bush in attendance. According to Newsweek, "[Carlyle] buys and sells whole companies the way some firms trade shares of stock."

What Moore didn't know was that the Carlyle Group's senior adviser since May 2001 has been Arthur Levitt, Jr., the former head of the Securities and Exchange Commission. There's certainly nothing wrong with that; Levitt is welcome to do whatever he wants.

But Moore perhaps did not understand that Levitt's son, Art Levitt III, was for many years a key Disney executive and a confidante of Michael Eisner, the chief opponent of "Fahrenheit 9/11."

The résumé of Levitt III, now the head of online movie-ticket company Fandango, is pretty much an all-Disney affair. According to the Fandango Web site, Levitt worked for Disney and Eisner from 1996 to 2000, and also served as vice president of corporate projects for Disney reporting to the chairman and CEO — Eisner.

Levitt III did not work for any of the Disney film companies, however.

His jobs, according to his Fandango biography, were mainly for the Disney theme parks. He "was responsible for such businesses as DisneyQuest, an indoor interactive theme park; and ESPN Zone, a sports, dining and entertainment complex."

Levitt III — whom, I am told, may have performed miscellaneous tasks for Eisner as a majordomo — also "oversaw the operation of Walt Disney World Resort's nightlife and entertainment complex, Pleasure Island, as well as the Disney Village Marketplace, the Disney Village Resort and the Disney Vacation Club. Levitt also played a key role in the development of Disney's Boardwalk Resort."

Of course, the really strange thing about all of this is that Moore, who's supposed to be a genius at connecting all the dots, really didn't know about Lewis or Levitt or their connections to Disney, the company that he thought was going to distribute his movie for Miramax.

I am told that Miramax's co-chairman, and fervent Moore supporter, Harvey Weinstein was unaware of the connection as well.

Of course, it might be a coincidence that Levitt Jr. works for Carlyle, his son has close ties to Eisner and Moore's movie raked Carlyle over the coals. But Levitt, like Lewis, did not return calls last week.

Link

[Glocksman]

Here's another interesting tidbit on Disney:
70% of their political contributions went to Democrats.

I guess Halliburton's control must be slipping.

[Master of Ossus]

Pretty much any big, powerful corporation is going to have huge webs of connection with pretty much every other big, powerful corporation. Top level executives are so "in-bred" that they're all pretty well related to everyone else at that level, and massive conflicts of interest (or, at least, potential conflicts of interest) exist. It only gets worse when you add in the government, since many of them were former top-executives (especially in this administration), and thus have similar pedigrees. I don't exactly find this "This board member knew X, who knew Y, who sits on Z's board" argument stuff to be particularly damning for any particular individual, but it does point to the serious institutional flaws at the highest echelons of big business.

[HemlockGrey]

[quoteHere's another interesting tidbit on Disney:
70% of their political contributions went to Democrats.

I guess Halliburton's control must be slipping.[/quote]

Except the article, unless I am grossly mistaken, was chiefly about Eisner, not Disney.

[Glocksman]

Here's another interesting tidbit on Disney:
70% of their political contributions went to Democrats.

I guess Halliburton's control must be slipping.

Except the article, unless I am grossly mistaken, was chiefly about Eisner, not Disney.

Let's look up Eisner.

Link

Other than a few token donations to Republicans, it looks like Eisner donates mainly to Democrats.

Like I said, the HalliburtonBu$HitlerZionistOilImperialist conspiracy's control is slipping.

[HemlockGrey]

And the fact that he makes numerous pocket-change donations to various politicos (the largest of which, incidentally, went to the Republicans) refutes the article...how?

[Rogue 9]

Here's another interesting tidbit on Disney:
70% of their political contributions went to Democrats.

I guess Halliburton's control must be slipping.

Except the article, unless I am grossly mistaken, was chiefly about Eisner, not Disney.

Let's look up Eisner.

Link

Other than a few token donations to Republicans, it looks like Eisner donates mainly to Democrats.

Like I said, the HalliburtonBu$HitlerZionistOilImperialist conspiracy's control is slipping.

You left the Fox News part out of that string, or did you neglect to notice the source?

[Glocksman]

And the fact that he makes numerous pocket-change donations to various politicos (the largest of which, incidentally, went to the Republicans) refutes the article...how?

Sure, he made a couple of donations to the Repub congressional PAC.

Given Disney's interest in fucking with copyright laws, he'd be stupid if he didn't considering who controls Congress right now. The Disney PAC split its contributions exactly 50/50 for exactly this reason.

But where did the vast majority of his money (and $77,000 is only pocket change to him, not to the majority of us) and the individual contributions from Disney go?

Again, to the Democrats.

The article really has nothing to refute.
Sure the interlocking connections exist, but so what?
There's no proof whatsoever of the conspiracy the author is implying existed. As MoO pointed out, at that level of governance, the relationships between various board members of a lot of companies WRT other companies appears like a huge web.

You left the Fox News part out of that string, or did you neglect to notice the source?

Eeep!
They'll drum me out of the VRWC for this.