Posted on 07/17/2004 3:50:25 PM PDT by Kerry Crusher
Two eminent American liberals effused their respective vapors into the gasbag of American culture this month. One of these men, as President of the United States, served during a time of unprecedented peace and prosperity. The other is a blowhard whose immensity has reached “smelly fat” proportions and who trades in conspiracy theories and ideological rants.
Guess which has won the hearts of our dear friends in the mainstream press?
Okay, so maybe Bill Clinton isn’t all that eminent. And while I will not read Mr. Clinton’s book or see Mr. Michael Moore’s film any time soon, I hold out the possibility Fahrenheit 911 is a more meaningful contribution to American cinema than My Life is to our literary canon. But the divergent reviews of these two cultural achievements demonstrate that along with the Democrat Party, the press has “Moved On.”
With near unanimity, the media has cheered Moore’s Fahrenheit. In Monday’s Washington Post, William Raspberry essentially says Michael Moore is a liar whose personal bias taints the credibility of his film’s every frame, but it’s okay because he hates George W. Bush:
“I wish Moore had been more scrupulously honest, more interested in examining other points of view, less inclined to make the facts line up to serve his purposes. But I can't say he reached the wrong conclusion.”
He’s not alone in his obsequious hat-doffing to Moore. Here’s film critic Rex Reed, who sees the obese, low-budget filmmaker as more honest than does Raspberry: “Sometimes sarcastic, always funny, Mr. Moore is armed with facts, and he presents them accurately and succinctly.”
Far from critics, these folks have become cheerleaders. They’ve even begun to parrot the message of the far left. “Mr. Moore, who has tackled corporate greed (Roger & Me) and gun control (Bowling for Columbine), now feels driven and obligated to strip the façade from a swaggering, bow-legged, grammatically challenged bully and a cabinet that is beginning to look more like the Third Reich every day,” writes Reed. Yes, President Bush is a stupid, strutting cowboy Nazi. But we knew that when we voted for him.
Now contrast the steady stream of accolades for Moore with the Bronx cheers we’re hearing over Clinton’s book. In his review for the Washington Post Walter Isaacson writes, “His beguiling recollection of his childhood is stapled together with a hastily-disgorged data pump on the day-by-day chronology of his presidency that features stretches of unrelated paragraphs beginning with such phrases as, ‘also that week ….’”
And, of course, the New York Times published a widely circulated, and unflattering criticism: “The book, which weighs in at more than 950 pages, is sloppy, self-indulgent and often eye-crossingly dull -- the sound of one man prattling away, not for the reader, but for himself and some distant recording angel of history.”
Does anyone else remember the time, just a few short years ago, when we could barely get the Post and the Times to print an unbiased – let alone critical – word about Bill Clinton? And yet now we can almost hear their eyes roll as their scribes write their scoffing reviews of My Life. What happened?
Well, like the Democrat Party itself, today’s newsrooms no longer find their vision blurred by Clinton’s teary-eyed treacle, but rather by the bloody-eyed rage toward President George W. Bush. Gone are the days of Clinton’s New Democrats and “Third Ways.” Today’s news agencies are selling hate and they have neither the time nor the inclination to pretty it up with fancy words and phony sentimentality.
Elemental to Bill Clinton’s political success was his ability to flatter middle-Americans into believing he endorsed their values, even while he privately flouted them. That’s no longer good enough. So the media has ripped the microphone from Bill Clinton and planted it right into the sweaty palm and pudgy digits of Michael Moore, who will only gladly spew misprision on our ways out in the open.
Then again, the press is only taking their cues from the Democrat Party itself. DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe and Kerry campaign bigs have publicly wrung their hands over the possibility that Clinton’s My Life tour will outshine their charismatically-challenged putative nominee. So they have nudged the ex-president aside. And yet they have wrapped their arms around Moore’s ample carriage, and gleefully use his film to raise money and register voters, who leave theaters in a white-hot rage after a generous helping of Two Minutes Hate.
I never thought I’d say this, but I miss Bill Clinton.
(Excerpt) Read more at crushkerry.com ...
The lack of sugar coating is most appealing!
Right on, KC. I'm bookmarking your page and pinging my partner in gothic conservatism to your story, and your site. Might we link to your page from ours?( http://www.RightGoths.com )
That thought could only exist in my head if Hillary were President.
Good point.
Sure. We're pretty back up on shoutouts, but we'd love to link up to you.
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