Posted on 06/21/2004 4:25:32 PM PDT by The Raven
One of the many problems with the American left, and indeed of the American left, has been its image and self-image as something rather too solemn, mirthless, herbivorous, dull, monochrome, righteous, and boring. How many times, in my old days at The Nation magazine, did I hear wistful and semienvious ruminations? Where was the radical Firing Line show? Who will be our Rush Limbaugh? I used privately to hope that the emphasis, if the comrades ever got around to it, would be on the first of those and not the second. But the meetings themselves were so mind-numbing and lugubrious that I thought the danger of success on either front was infinitely slight.
>>>SNIP<<<
To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of "dissenting" bravery.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.msn.com ...
Thanks for your comments on #116 and #117. I sent her another email just now.
Hitchens never ceases to amaze me.
I've read some of the reviews on rottentomatoes.com so far. It's interesting -- even some of the positive ones take him to task on certain things. For one thing, I think a lot of critics, although they may agree with his politics, think Moore is a self-promoting jackass who condescends to the "common people" he claims to champion.
For as much as the left has tried to demonize Rush Limbaugh as being deceitful when it comes to facts and hypocritical when it comes to his private life, the left was far too silent for far too long with regards to Michael Moore's own distortions and hypocrisy (a rich anti-capitalist who made a mint selling anti-Americanism abroad).
Look at Newsmax and go farther in the hyperbole behind claims. Look at Art Bell and go kookier in the claims. Look at Jon Stewart and dumb down the political humor. That is where Michael Moore resides on the landscape. No wonder the intellectual crowd has grown tired of his tirades and see him more of as a liability this election.
What a great point by point rebuttal of Moore's unlimited capacity to lie and smugly play Monday morning quarterback.
From the sound of Hitchens' review, Leni Riefenstahl looks like an ameteur compared to Moore. His brazen disregard for glaring contradictions within his own film defies any conventional protocal about documentary filmmaking.
LOL That's fabulous!
bump
And no apparent clue, either. There is ample documentation regarding the serious factual problems with Moore's film. But I doubt you'd be interested.
What a shame. You were just zotted all the way back to Canada.
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