Posted on 04/05/2003 4:07:08 PM PST by DED
Michael Moore may be the toast of the self-annointed tastemakers of Canada and the Continent, revered for his irreverent unearthing of all that is corrupt and evil about Amerika. The problem is that Michael Moore's revealed truths about the U.S. are about as credible as Al Gore's claim that he invented the Internet.
As Andrew Sullivan pointed out in a revealing essay on Moore in the Sunday Times of London, "Less is Moore", Michael Moore is a serial dissembler. Once he's on a roll, the truth is about as important to Michael Moore as spousal fidelity is to Bill Clinton.
Here's how Andrew Sullivan put it in his Less is Moore critique of Michael Moore's much-praised "work": It was the Observer's "Movie of the Week." The Independent's reviewer described it as "a bracing and timely exercise in dredging for the truth." The Cannes film festival gave it a Special Jury Prize, with the audience giving the film a 13 minute standing ovation. And the media hype continues. In fact, there has never been a more appropriate moment for the film-maker Michael Moore and his rants against America than now. "Bowling for Columbine," the "documentary" that is now being shown across Britain and the world, is a movie almost designed to slake the anti-American thirst, whetted by the war on terror. And from an American too! Not since Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer have we seen such a successful export of anti-Americanism, a phenomenon carefully cultivated by some on America's campuses and liberal urban enclaves. And like most American products, it sells very well.
The only problem with this scenario is that Michael Moore is a serial dissembler. His book, "Stupid White Men," was laced with inaccuracies and falsehoods. His movie is just as bad.
Andrew Sullivan then goes on to document some of Moore's most outrageous whoppers. For example, here's some of the points Sullivan makes about the falsehoods and distortions that afflict Moore's best-selling book, Stupid White Men:
Take two compelling notions advanced in "Stupid White Men." The journalist Ben Fritz went through the book with a fine tooth comb. In the book, Moore claims that five sixths of the U.S. defense budget went toward one plane. He also claims that two-thirds of president Bush's campaign finances came from 700 people. These claims are so ludicrous it says something about Moore's credibility that he even believed them himself. Both are easily refuted by a quick look at the publicly available Pentagon budget and the records of the Federal Elections Commission, which compiles all campaign contributions. (In fact, Bush's campaign was more dependent on small contributions than Gore's.) But if you are going to argue that Bush was selected by plutocrats and that the Pentagon wastes all its money, you've got to come up with some facts to support your case. So Moore just makes them up.
As for Bowling for Columbine, here's what Sullivan had to say:
In "Bowling For Columbine," the entire premise of the title is false. In convoluted fashion, Moore tries to argue in the film that American gun culture is somehow related to American foreign policy. Even his most fawning critics concede he doesn't exactly make a logical connection between the two; and any historian of the Wild West would be a little mystified by the idea that American gun-culture sprang from post-war American global power. But never mind. The story Moore wants to tell is that the schoolkids who shot up Columbine high-school were so quintessentially American that they went bowling that morning; and that Columbine is also the location for a Lockheed Martin factory for "weapons of mass destruction." Hence "Bowling for Columbine." Neither of these assertions, alas, is true.
Dan Lyons of Forbes magazine has shown that, in fact, the two boys did not go bowling that morning. Early police reports to that effect turned out to be false. Moreover the Lockheed Martin factory near Columbine does not make "weapons of mass destruction," as argued in the movie. It makes space launch vehicles for TV satellites. Moore shows a clip of giant rockets. Nice try, Michael.
Also according to Sullivan, Moore distorts the significance of the notorious Willie Horton political ad used by the campaign team of George Bush Senior to so effectively discredit Democratic opponent and first-class dufus, Michael Dukakis, in the presidential election of 1988. As Sullivan notes, this political ad featured footage of a prison turnstile where inmates came and went at will. It was aimed at highlighting Michael Dukakis's over-generous furlough program for criminals when he was governor of Massachusetts.
As we all learned later, one particular Afro-American prisoner, Willie Horton, raped a woman while on parole during Dukakis' term of office. But, as Sullivan points out, the Bush ad never mentioned Horton or specifically played the race card -- an independent ad, not sanctioned by the Bush campaign, was the one that referred to Willie Horton.
However, just to make sure we all know realize what a corrupt, slimy man the current American president's father was, Moore superimposed his own tag line over the Bush ad in Bowling for Columbine: "Willie Horton released. Then kills again." -- as if this is how the original ad ran. As Andrew Sullivan notes, the point is to make today's audiences believe that Bush Senior ran a blantantly racist campaign. Something that is completely false.
The sad thing is that the Academy, not mention the educated audiences around the world who are enthusiastically lapping up this tasty bowl of anti-American agiprop, don't care to know the truth about the Bush campaign or anything else about the United States. The distorted picture of America presented by master dissembler Moore is just the way these audiences prefer to see things -- even if it is total B.S. And who better to feed them this hateful America-baiting dish, than the supreme America hater and ingrate himself, Michael Moore?
(Excerpt) Read more at iconoclast.ca ...
He also got caught faking the scene where he walks into a bank, opens a new account, and walks out with a 'bonus' gun. The bank actually went through all the same procedures as you would if you bought a gun, and it would take weeks to get the gun. Moore has Europeans believing you can walk into a bank and walk out with a gun.
More Moore? He got caught using actors who he put up to claiming they were real people in real situations, when the 'situation' was completely set up for the camera.
But Hollywood was determined to make a statement, just like the Nobel prize committee did when they gave the peace prize to former president and nuclear sub commander and current liberal on a pedestal, Jimmy Carter.
Liberals - they never learn. Thank goodness other people DO.
As Charlton Heston starts speaking, note his tie and the curtain behind him. [pause] Now look at them again. Isn't it amazing the way Charlton Heston is such a chameleon?I imagine such a DVD would sell much better than one without such commentary (a lot of conservative people would buy it to show what liars Moore et al. are), and since Hollywood is about money first and liberalism second, I think a studio might be pursuadable to do such a thing if their contract with Moore would allow it.
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