MOORE: 'I DON'T LIKE THIS FILM BEING REDUCED TO BUSH VS. KERRY' (COVER OF TIME)

New York – “I don’t like this film being reduced to Bush vs. Kerry,” Fahrenheit 9/11 director Michael Moore tells TIME’s Richard Corliss in this week’s cover story. Moore tells TIME, “When Clinton was president I went after him. And if Kerry’s president, on Day Two I’ll be on him.”

This election year, with stakes and tempers high, a potent non-fiction genre is emerging: the agit-doc, dealing with high-octane political issues, often in a confrontational tone, Corliss writes. Trailing on Moore’s box office clout, they are surging into the mainstream. One agit-doc, The Hunting of the President, co-directed by Clinton pal Harry Thomason, was originally to go to 30 theaters; now its distributor has revved the number to 125, and has put the film’s trailer on many screens showing Fahrenheit 9/11. The Army and Air Force Exchange Service, which books films to be shown on military bases around the world, has contacted Fahrenheit’s distributor to book the film, TIME reports.

“We’ve underestimated the audience’s desire to see [political] material,” says Robert Greenwald, director of Uncovered: The War on Iraq, a sober and devastating critique of Bush foreign policy. “I don’t think it’s about hating the President. It’s that politics has been brought home to the deepest part of ourselves. People now feel ‘Politics is Me’.”

Today people get their news and, just as important, their attitudes from more rambunctious sources: from the polarized polemicists on talk radio and cable news channels, from comedians and webmasters. That’s poli-tainment, and as practiced by Rush Limbaugh and a host of right-wing radio hosts, and by Matt Drudge on the internet, it hounded Bill Clinton’s presidency while spicing and coarsening the standards of political discourse, Corliss writes.

Fahrenheit 9/11 may be the watershed event that demonstrates whether the empire of poli-tainment can have decisive influence on a presidential campaign, Corliss writes. If it does, we may come to look back on its hugely successful first week the way we now think of the televised presidential debate between John Kennedy and Richard Nixon, as a moment when we grasped for the first time the potential of a mass medium to affect American politics in new ways. In which case, expect the next generation of campaign strategists to precede every major election not only with the traditional TV ad buys but also with a scheme for the rollout of some thermonuclear book or movie or CD or even video game, all designed to tilt the political balance just in time, Corliss writes.

Andrew Sullivan asks: Is Michael Moore Actually Mel Gibson’s Alter Ego? In a related essay, Sullivan writes, “There are times when the far right and the far left are so close in methodology as to be indistinguishable. And both movies are not just terrible as movies—crude, boring, gratuitous; they are also deeply corrosive of the possibility of real debate and reason in our culture. They replace argument with feeling, reasoned persuasion with the rawest of group loyalties.”

Let me see if this gets thru...

Michael Morre is now the FACE of the left. He is even more prominate than J F'n Kerry...I want as many people as possible to see this film for what it is, a bunch of twisted lies and propoganda because that is what the left is really all about. If the people that see this POS movie do not care about the truth then there gonners anyway.

I've seen numerous articles here from prominate lefties dissing the living tarnation out of this film because they know the America people now understand how disingenuous, power hungry, whacko, and FOS the far left really have become. The far left are taking over the party, can you say Mondale, Dukakis, Landslide.

I spoke to a young leftist, out of touch groupie of the anti-war gang who saw this and she thought it was great!! I told her it was nothing but twist and lies, she did not disagree with me. I said do you care about what is true? Fortunately, she does and from what I told her she is at least understanding now what Moore is trying to do. But, more importantly, I explained to her what we have to do to keep these Bastard Terrorist away from our shores, that there IS a war happening now, and I THINK the majority of people understand this, they just do not want to accept it.

There are far too many wilfully ignorant people in the USA that do not veiw the WOT as a war, but they are not going to vote for MM. And the really dangerous ones all have one thing in common, they ignor the truth. There is not enough of them to defeat Bush and because the MM's of the left are prominate they're going to dictate the looniness of Kerry's campaign and there's not a damn thing Kerry can do about it, he's stuck.

The farcicle left is giving that Wellstone funeral a run for the money...The More MM the better for the right.

“I don’t like this film being reduced to Bush vs. Kerry,” Fahrenheit 9/11 director Michael Moore tells TIME’s Richard Corliss in this week’s cover story. Moore tells TIME, “When Clinton was president I went after him. And if Kerry’s president, on Day Two I’ll be on him.”

Where to begin? There are lies and, then, there are damned lies. Moore's are of the latter variety. For starters, he made a film that was INTENTIONALLY Bush vs. Kerry so, for him to claim otherwise, is disingenuous, at best.

Second, NEVER in my recollection, did Michael Moore EVER go after Billy Jeff Clinton, the former First Felon. He may have gone after Uriah Clinton, the guy who runs a convenience store where he buys Twinkies by the gross, for running out, but NEVER in my recollection did Mikey go after Clinton.

With respect to his statement about Kerry, I took that with about 15 pounds of salt because it is so disingenuous. Moore will no more go after Kerry than he would Stalin, Saddam, Mao Tse Tung, or Hitler. As near as I can tell, Moore hasn't encountered a murdering tyrant that he isn't infatuated with.

So, I side with the previous poster who cited this as Moore vs. America. He's a true American HATRIOT!!

Happy Birthday, America!! Happy introduction to freedom and democracy, world!! Happy 4th of July, one and all!

I would like to remind Mr. Moore that socialism has no future in the United States of America. I will remind him with my sword if need be, but for now I will use the gentile words of Thomas Jefferson.

Thomas Jefferson's Last Letter
Ten days before the 50th of the signing of the Declaration of
Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote this letter in response to the
committees’ invitation to honor him at the celebration. Being in poor
health, Jefferson had to decline, but sent this letter in his place.
On the eve of this great anniversary, Jefferson was in his home at
Monticello, struggling to stay alive for one more day. Some 500 miles away
in Quincy, Massachusetts, John Adams was also dying. He passed away on the
day of the fourth, his last words reflecting the thoughts of an old
friend: "Thomas Jefferson still survives."
Shortly after midnight, Jefferson woke, and asked his granddaughter who
stood at his bedside, "Is it the fourth?" She said that it was, and then
perhaps he smiled. In one of the most remarkable coincidences in history,
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams--the two great architects of the
Declaration of Independence--died within hours of each other on July 4,
1826, 50 years after they created the words that gave birth to this great
land of liberty.
Monticello, June 24, 1826
Respected Sir,
The kind invitation I received from you, on the part of the citizens of
the city of Washington, to be present with them at their celebration of
the fiftieth anniversary of American Independence, as one of the surviving
signers of an instrument pregnant with our own, and the fate of the world,
is most flattering to myself, and heightened by the honorable
accompaniment proposed for the comfort of the journey. It adds sensibly to
the sufferings of sickness, to be deprived by it of a personal
participation in the rejoicing of that day. But acquiescence is a duty,
under circumstances not placed among those we are permitted to control. I
should, indeed, with peculiar delight, have met and exchanged there
congratulations personally with the small band, the remnant of that host
of worthies, who joined with us on that day, in the bold and doubtful
election we were to make for our country, between submission or the sword;
and to have enjoyed with them the consolatory fact, that our fellow
citizens, after half a century of experience and prosperity, continue to
approve the choice we made. May it be to the world, what I believe it will
be (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all), the signal
of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and
superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the
blessings and security of self-government. That form which we have
substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason
and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of
man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to
every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born
with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready
to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope
for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever
refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to
them.
I will ask permission here to express the pleasure with which I should
have met my ancient neighbors of the city of Washington and its
vicinities, with whom I passed so many years of a pleasing social
intercourse; an intercourse which so much relieved the anxieties of the
public cares, and left impressions so deeply engraved in my affections, as
never to be forgotten. With my regret that ill health forbids me the
gratification of an acceptance, be pleased to receive for yourself and
those for whom you write, the assurance of my highest respect and friendly
attachments.
Thomas Jefferson

Freedom belongs to all men and woman no matter where they are. Freedom is not an American enigma, nor is it something only for Americans. Our Founding Fathers knew this, we cannot forget nor be forced to do so. Our first flag bore these words, "Don't Tread On Me". I would remind Mr. Moore again that these words hold true today... You will not steal away my liberty, and you will not stand in the way of those who would seek it for themselves.

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