Posted on 05/26/2004 1:37:30 AM PDT by kattracks
A FEW YEARS AGO Michael Moore, who's now promoting an anti-President Bush movie entitled Fahrenheit 9/11, announced he'd gotten the goods on me, indeed hung me out to dry on my own words. It was in his first bestselling book, Stupid White Men. Moore wrote he'd once been "forced" to listen to my comments on a TV chat show, The McLaughlin Group. I had whined "on and on about the sorry state of American education," Moore said, and wound up by bellowing: "These kids don't even know what The Iliad and The Odyssey are!"Moore's interest was piqued, so the next day he said he called me. "Fred," he quoted himself as saying, "tell me what The Iliad and The Odyssey are." I started "hemming and hawing," Moore wrote. And then I said, according to Moore: "Well, they're . . . uh . . . you know . . . uh . . . okay, fine, you got me--I don't know what they're about. Happy now?" He'd smoked me out as a fraud, or maybe worse.
The only problem is none of this is true. It never happened. Moore is a liar. He made it up. It's a fabrication on two levels. One, I've never met Moore or even talked to him on the phone. And, two, I read both The Iliad and The Odyssey in my first year at the University of Virginia. Just for the record, I'd learned what they were about even before college. Like everyone else my age, I got my classical education from the big screen. I saw the Iliad movie called Helen of Troy and while I forget the name of the Odyssey film, I think it starred Kirk Douglas as Odysseus.
So why didn't I scream bloody murder when the book came out in 2001? I didn't learn about the phony anecdote until it was brought to my attention by Alan Wolfe, who was reviewing Moore's book for the New Republic. He asked, by email, if the story were true. I said no, not a word of it, and Wolfe quoted me as saying that. That was enough, I thought. After all, who would take a shrill, lying lefty like Moore seriously?
More people than I thought. Moore's new movie attacking Bush was given a 20-minute standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival. Moore has described the movie as breaking new ground and revealing new facts, but the accounts by reviewers suggest it merely provides the standard left-wing, conspiratorial critique of the president. Reviewer Lou Lumenick of the New York Post, who gave Moore's previous movie Bowling for Columbine four stars, said the anti-Bush film would be news only "if you spent the last three years hiding in a cave in Afghanistan." Still, I suppose it's not surprising they loved it in France.
In publicizing the movie, Moore has been up to his old dishonest tricks. Just before the screening at Cannes, he charged that Disney had told him "officially" the day before that it would not distribute Fahrenheit 9/11. Moore said this was an attempt to kill the film. He indicated a newspaper article had the correct explanation of Disney's decision: "According to today's New York Times, it might 'endanger' millions of dollars of tax breaks Disney receives from the state of Florida because the film will 'anger' the governor of Florida, Jeb Bush."
Later, in a CNN interview, Moore admitted he'd learned nearly a year ago that Disney would not distribute the movie. By pretending he'd just gotten word of this, Moore was involved in a cheap publicity stunt. And it wasn't the New York Times that said, on its own, that Disney feared losing tax breaks. It was Moore's agent who was quoted as saying that in the Times. Disney denied its president Michael Eisner had told the agent of any such fear. "We informed both the agency that represented the film and all of our companies that we just didn't want to be in the middle of a politically oriented film during an election year," Eisner told ABC News.
Where does this leave us? I think it's time for Moore to be held accountable. In Stupid White Men, he has 18 pages of "Notes and Sources," but he offers no evidence for the sham interview with me--no date, no transcript. How could he, since the interview never happened?
I have just the person to look into Moore's lies and distortions. Al Franken has taken special interest in public liars, writing a bestseller called Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. Al, the Moore case is now in your court.
Fred Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard.
Somehow, after watching Fred Barnes on that show, I never ever heard him say "uh"...
Moore is not just a liar, he's a psychopathic, congenital liar. I'll bet he believes the exchange with Fred Barnes really did take place. The day is coming when Moore is committed, or worse.
A: "New York Minute."
And to think the poor bastard had to endure 20 REAL minutes of a standing ovation without telling another lie.
Sorry, but I have no sympathy for Fred Barnes. He should have never appeared on The McLaughlin Group. I watched it for the first time recently and barfed as the useful idiot traitor Buchanan pretended to represent the conservative side.
He says it depends on when you started timing (last image, credits roll, end of the credits, house lights, etc.). He says that he walked out after awhile and went to the lobby.
The applause was not for him. It was a modern day Nueremberg Rally exhibiting antiAmericanism.
>>>The applause was not for him. It was a modern day Nueremberg Rally exhibiting antiAmericanism<<<<
Very Good. And lets not forget to thank the Leftist Hollywood Freaks who voted for it.
Nothing like a rush to judgement. Give the show a chance. It has its moments.
Harvey Weinstein has bankrolled Tarantino's career as a director. It has been mutally rewarding (Pulp Fiction was the film that made Miramax a lot of money). Harvey most recently backed Tarantino's vanity project that is Kill Bill (an homage to 1970s grindhouse exploitation and kung fu films).
Harvey had been told that Disney would not release his film (they said this last year). Harvey recently lost face in the film community though because "Disney backed out" this year. Technically Disney did since Harvey had to buy the film back from Disney. If Disney truly was not involved all this time, they would not have funded it or had any contractual ties to the film.
There is evidence to suggest that at least one other award may have been awarded for reasons other than just "best talent".
Harry Knowles knows Quentin Tarantino very well (Quentin comes to Austin every year to visit Harry) and flew Harry to China to witness some of the filming of Kill Bill.
Harry has also dealt personally with Harvey Weinstein (going so far as to say that the Weinsteins have tiny male apendages; this was when Miramax was no longer paying for the production of Lord Of The Rings).
Is there merit to the allegations? I don't know. It sounds plausible (this does not improve Tarantino's standings), I am just relaying the suspicions of someone who personally knows these cretins.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11 Wins Palme D'Or at CANNES! OLDBOY Picks Up Prize Too! (AICN on the awards)
Tony Blankley and Buchanan equally divide that chair. I like the way Eleanor is either ignored or ridiculed.
Why can't Barnes sue fatass Moore? This goes way beyond misquoting or taking quotes out of context. The idiot made up THE ENTIRE INTERVIEW!
Maybe NBC Nightly News or Dan Rather or Jennings or CNN will pick up on the story.
Maybe not.
MM's website purports to show proof that Moore did, in fact, interview FB in 1988 on this topic. The website includes links to his interview and a Wash Times article about it. They're almost impossible to read (they're in gif format). Here's the URL: http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=19
Because 1) He didnt know about the anecdote at the time, untill many years later when Barnes was contacted by Mr. Wolfe who was reviewing Moore's latest book, and 2) libel suits in this country with very few exceptions, are for the most part unwinnable. It isnt enough that you have to prove that the guy you're suing lied. You can prove that in a court of law, and still lose. Because you also have to prove "malice" on top of that. That's hard.
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