Tom McMahon

Sicko

Kyle Smith reminds us about Michael Moore:

The silliness of Moore’s oeuvre is so self-evident that being able to spot it is not liberal or conservative either; it’s a basic intelligence test, like the ability to match square peg with square hole. ... Even Moore does not believe what he says, and his films don’t bring about change-—union membership did not skyrocket nor corporate downsizing trickle off after "Roger and Me," there was no movement towards banning guns after "Bowling for Columbine," and John Kerry did not have to fill out any change of address forms in 2004. Moore's documentaries are mere political slapstick that could have been made by a third Farrelly brother or an eighth Stooge. I will pay him the honor of treating him with his own meds. How else can I deal with a film that calls Hillary Clinton "sexy"?

Then he proceeds to demolish Moore's latest effort:

Moore glosses over wait times, hoping his audience is too stupid to notice. He asks a handful of Canadian patients how long they had to wait to see the doctor. Oh, 20 minutes, 45 minutes, everyone says. So if Moore finds five people who didn’t have to wait, there’s no waiting for anybody! “To any Canadian who has ever been forced to go to emergency, this would seem unbelievable,” writes Thomas Malkom, a vehemently pro-Moore columnist for Canada’s paper The Star. The Canadian Supreme Court struck down a law forbidding private insurance in a 2005 decision, ruling that "Access to a waiting list is not access to health care" The decision resulted from a Canadian case in which a man waited a year for hip-replacement surgery, and Canada has started down the road of privatization. Check out the Canadian movie "The Barbarian Invasions" (which is, like "Sicko," a fiction film) for a view of how Canadians view their system: agonizing waits; trips across the border to Vermont to get access to modern technology; fetid facilities modeled, seemingly, on an American one—the Confederate field hospital in "Gone with the Wind."

A Perfect, Shining Example Of Why You Lost

From Right Thoughts:

I’ll give you a perfect, shining example of why you lost.  His name is Michael Moore.

Before Moore burst forth with his theories of 9/11 conspiracies, “seven minutes,” blood for oil, Taliban pipelines etc., very little actual criticism was levied at Bush beyond the misguided notion that something errant happened in Florida.  If Moore did not exist, I believe that cooler heads would have realized that a never-ending flow of recounts all proved one thing: Bush won.  Period.  And we would have moved forward.  9/11 would still have happened and we might have had a chance at keeping some of that unity we all felt, but along came Moore, and in tow came the most extreme elements of the American left.  Bolstered by the Hollywood liberal, the MoveOn/Democratic Underground lunatic, the darkest fringes of radical American liberalism were given credence simply by being a market share.  Fine…free markets are great.  Moore has a message, you provided an audience, money was exchanged.

But then you started taking those messages into the political arena as though they had validity.  And most of America looked at you like you just grew a third eye right in front of them.  And still you persisted, getting more and more hateful, telling more lies, spinning out-of-context elements and juxtaposing any and every situation in order to try to hammer home your talking points.  No matter what the discussion, you brought it back to one of Moore’s talking points.  If the topic did not fit your need, you forced it, or just ignored it altogether and ranted away.

You never stopped for a minute to consider the fact that you might be wrong.  And yet that very behavior is one of the greatest criticisms of Bush by the new radical left.  Ironic, I think.

A Review of FahrenHYPE 9/11

A Cox and Forkum Cartoon From The FahrenHYPE 9/11 Companion Book

Excerpts from a review on The Evangelical Outpost:

In the wrong hands, a rebuttal film like this could have easily turned into a knee-jerk defense of George Bush. But while Morris and company defend the President when they think it’s warranted, their primary concern is pointing out the many ways in which Moore misled viewers of his "documentary." Their task is, of course, made easier by Moore’s slovenly filmmaking.

For example, two of the strongest points in the film are when HYPE focuses on an Oregon State Police officer and a disabled war veteran, both of whom were included in F911 but who were never interviewed by Moore. Video footage, apparently obtained through news or other sources, was used by in F911 without their permission. The interview by the young war vet, his body broken but his pride unbowed, is particularly moving. He not only contradicts Moore’s claim that wounded soldiers are not being taken care of by the government but he expresses his fury at being used against a cause he believes in. ...

Unfortunately, HYPE won’t reach the vast audiences that saw Moore’s work of propaganda. Many will never hear about it while others will simply refuse to entertain a dissenting opinion. But at least now when a defender of F911 praises Moore’s movie I’ll ask them if they’ve seen the rebuttal by Morris. If they’ve drunk the poison, they should at least have sampled the antidote.

Fahrenhype 9/11

Fahrenhype 9/11

Michael Moore: Not Really From Flint?

From the best-selling Michael Moore Is A Big Fat Stupid White Man:

Throughout his career, Moore has portrayed himself as a Flint native whose consciousness is shaped by the city's industrial experiences. "Ben [Hamper] and I both grew up in Flint, Michigan, the sons of factory workers," he writes in the introduction of Hamper's book Rivethead. Roger & Me constantly hearkens back to Moore's life in Flint. His speaker's bureau describes him as "born in Flint," his web site calls him a "Flint native," and his production company's web site informs us that "Michael Moore was born in Flint, Michigan, where his father and most of his relatives worked in the automobile factories…." Asked to describe the source of his empathy for the worker, Moore told People's Weekly World that "I think it's just the function of growing up in Flint, Michigan." These claims are reflected in almost every biography: Moore is described as "a Flint native," "the man from Flint," or as hailing from his "hometown of Flint."

In fact, Moore was born and raised in Davison, Michigan, and attended Davison High School. While Davison is near Flint, proximity doesn't translate to similarity between the two towns. Davison is the wealthy, white "bedroom town" of the area, largely inhabited by management, not labor. Davison's median household income is one and a half times that of Flint's, and its median house value is just over twice that of Flint's. Davison's 2000 unemployment rate was a minuscule 4.6 percent, a third that of Flint's, and its poverty rate was half the national average. Davison is also lily-white to a staggering degree: African-Americans make up only one-half of one percent of its population.

Michael Moore, Copy Doctor

From NewsMax.com:

Filmmaker Michael Moore's Bush-basing documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" apparently has upset more than Republicans. The Bloomington Pantagraph newspaper in central Illinois has sent a letter to Moore and his production company, Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., asking Moore to apologize for using what the newspaper says was a doctored front page in the film, the paper reported Friday. It also is seeking compensatory damages of $1.

A scene early in the movie that shows newspaper headlines related to the legally contested presidential election of 2000 included a shot of The Pantagraph's Dec. 19, 2001, front page, with the prominent headline: "Latest Florida recount shows Gore won election." The paper says that headline never appeared on that day. It appeared in a Dec. 5, 2001, edition, but the headline was not used on the front page. Instead, it was found in much smaller type above a letter to the editor, which the paper says reflects "only the opinions of the letter writer."

"If [Moore] wants to 'edit' The Pantagraph, he should apply for a copy-editing job," the paper said.

September 11 Survivor Says F911 Insults The Victims of The Attacks

Michael Niewodowski was a chef at the Windows on the World restaurant at the World Trade Center until Sept. 11, 2001. Here are some excerpts from a recent column he wrote:

'From Here to Eternity." Tora, Tora, Tora." "In Harm's Way." These are three films made about Pearl Harbor. There have been more than 20 films made about Pearl Harbor, and over 200 films made about World War II. These films inspire patriotism, courage, and nationalism. They tell us about the honor and bravery of the soldiers and the nation that supported them. Two and a half years after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the world watched American forces fight on D-Day. Two and a half years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the world is watching Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11."

On Sept. 11, 2001, I stood across the Hudson River, watching the Twin Towers burn, knowing that if the plane had struck at 9:46 a.m. instead of 8:46 a.m., I would be dead. As a survivor and witness to the attack on the World Trade Center, I am more than insulted by this film. I am outraged. This film is based on conjecture, hearsay and propaganda. At a time when this country desperately needs to rally in support of our brave soldiers and our strong leaders, Moore is content to spread discord and divisiveness. The base of his argument is that the Bush administration had strong ties with the bin Laden family. However, sound facts are conspicuously absent from this "documentary."

He Beats It Like A Red-Headed Stepchild

A couple of Michael Moore entries from around the web . . .

Jonah Goldberg: Which brings me to Michael Moore. He has officially become one of those rare figures who simply by his existence illuminates a great deal about politics. I don't need to know very much about you or your ideas to know that if you think Michael Moore is just great, a truth-teller and a much-needed tonic for everything that is wrong in American life, you are not someone to take seriously about anything of political consequence, or you are French. But I repeat myself.

Ben Hammersley : Christopher Hitchens reviews Fahrenheit 9/11, and, well, he beats it like a red-headed stepchild.

Drudge Pulls Out All The Stops!

Michael Moore Photo As Published On The Drudge Report

I don't think there are any of us from that era who could survive such an onslaught. We all have photos that look just as dorky. There, but for the Grace of God, . . .

And why do I keep thinking of Bill Murray in Caddyshack chasing the gopher and yelling, "I guess the time for foolin' around is pretty much over" ?

Cory Doctorow Goes Nuts Over Ray Bradbury Ripping Michael Moore

An odd but not totally out of character rant by Mr. BoingBoing. How dare he say anything against the King of Cannes, eh Cory?

Michael And Me

Andrew Anthony in the Observer about Working-Class Man-of-the-People Michael Moore sending his child to an exclusive private school:

He makes it sound as if the other school was just a random choice, but private schools on the Upper West Side are all restrictively expensive, and mostly white, just as the state schools are disproportionately black.

'Is that a bad thing?' he asks rhetorically of his decision, 'I don't know. Every parent wants to do what's best for their child. Whatever I can afford, I'm going to get my kid the best education I can get.' I suggest that, while that may be a natural instinct, it's hard to see why it's any different from the Republican philosophy of each man for himself and his family.

'I'm not a liberal. When you come from the working class and you do well enough whereby you can provide a little bit better for your family, get a decent roof over their head and send them to a good school, that's considered a good thing. If,' he emphasises, 'you're from the working class. What's bad about it is if you get to do that and then shut the door behind you so nobody else can do that.'

Of course, it's nobody's business but Moore's where he sends his child, except he makes it his business to detail the hereditary privilege of his subjects and tends to make his political arguments personal. In Fahrenheit 9/11 one of his stunts is to attempt to get Congressmen to sign their children up for the war in Iraq.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Let Me Present The Next Jerry Lewis!

The German Cult of Michael Moore: "It's probably safe to say that few countries have embraced the work of American author and documentary filmmaker Michael Moore as feverishly and enthusiastically as has Germany. His diatribe against U.S. President George Bush Stupid White Men sold nearly 1.1 million copies in German – comprising an astonishing one-third of the book’s total global sales. Compare that with the 630,000 copies he sold in the United States, with its far larger population and you can begin to see why industry magazine Publisher’s Weekly compared his popularity here to that of comedian Jerry Lewis in France. " (via Matthew Stinson)

Moore Admits to Altering "Bowling for Columbine" DVD

In a new column on his website titled "How to Deal with the Lies and the Lying Liars When They Lie about 'Bowling for Columbine,'" filmmaker Michael Moore has admitted to altering a caption he inserted over a 1988 Bush-Quayle commercial in the film. I hate to waste my time on this guy, but he has a strange, cult-like following in certain circles.

Another Valuable Public Service Site

"MOOREWATCH is dedicated to unearthing the truth behind the doublespeak and falsehood that spews from the mouth (and keyboard) of Michael Moore on a regular basis. Moore is a disingenuous danger to this country, and his assumptions and assertions should not go unchallenged. The collective expertise and research abilities of the entire Internet are more than enough to debunk most of the nonsense Moore regularly puts forth as fact, and we at MOOREWATCH hope to be the clearinghouse for this information."

Michael Moore, Humbug

by Kay S. Hymowitz: "Moore is hardly the first to engage in a little nostalgic mythmaking. What makes him unique is his willingness to construct his myths on a scaffolding of calculated untruths. It’s an irony worth savoring. Moore’s chief conceit is that he is the lonely truth teller, seeking out the story no one else is brave enough to touch. He repeatedly blasts the media for ignoring issues that only he, a lowly college dropout, has the courage to bring before a hoodwinked public. “In the beginning there was a free press—well not really, but it sounded good,” the announcer of his TV series, The Awful Truth, would say as the show opened. But the awful truth is that Moore himself is a virtuoso of lying—which is the only way he can give the appearance of truth to his untenable theories. "