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Bump for good news:

Both ABC and NBC issued reality checks on the movie this evening...both good pieces of journalism that were fair and balanced....in fact, I would say slightly negative toward the movie if not more so.

First up: Lisa Myers of NBC. She critiqued about 4 main points of the movie (and both NBC and ABC did not mention anything about the scene where Bush finished reading to the kids instead of running from the room and running people over like George in Seinfeld, which apparently is what Michael Moore believed he should have done). The reporters, unlike Moore, found nothing odd about Bush staying calm in the face of a crisis. Anyway, Myers also mentioned how Moore ambushed senators about having their kids go to the war in Iraq. But, way to go Myers because she mentioned the fact that Moore edited the responses to make them seem worse (particularly that one congressmen who spoke out and said Moore simply left his response out that he has kids in Iraq). Myers also scoffed at the Bush-Bin Laden connection and "laziness" of Bush regarding terrorism and the Bin Laden families flying out; Myers said that the govt. only approved people to fly out who were not wanted for questioning by the FBI, so that claims of favoritism was exaggerated. Myers concludes her report by cautioning that Moore's "excesses and distortions" clouds his message.

Next, ABC's Dan Harris did a report questioning the integrity of the movie. And....this was pretty awesome...he used Richard Clarke to rip on Michael Moore. This is no doubt because Clarke is the terrorism expert for ABC, and a reporter under deadline will go to the easiest expert source. However, it is significant because, as Harris noted, Moore uses Clarke in the movie as some vindicator for his views. Clarke himself is used in the ABC report to repudiate this claim. Harris, in the voiceover for his report, pretty unambiguously stated that Clarke himself "green-lighted the flights [of the Bin Laden family]," something ignored in Moore's film. Clarke is then quoted on camera as stating that the family did not pose a danger, thus explaining his action and that Bush was not trying to cover anything up unlike what Moore claims. Clarke then rips Moore on his mention of Bush supporting Bin Laden via business and family relationships. All in all, very balanced report for a news organization tied to Disney and the makers of Moore's film. It even is more scathing than Myers' report, which was just fair and balanced. The Harris piece is biased against Moore even, IMO. He concludes with an interesting analogy that I forgot, but it basically means not to expect a fair analysis of the facts from Moore.

Nice to see some decent journalism on Moore's film. It must be REALLY awful for the mainstream media to be tearing it to shreds.

Let's thank these reporters. I could only find an e-mail for Lisa directly at Rumor Mill News: lisa.myers@nbc.com

Use with caution, and if it does not get through, save your message for the general NBC e-mail.

Here is NBC Nightly News e-mail: Nightly@nbc.com

For ABC and Dan Harris, try: http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/WorldNewsTonight/WNT_newemail_form.html

You also, according to Rumor Mill News, can contact Dan Harris directly at: dan.harris@abc.com Again, be cautious in case the direct e-mails do not work.