Republicans & Conservatives: Archives

Good comments, Eric. Moore’s movie will make him a lot of money as he keeps underpaying and union-busting his employees while outsourcing his production costs to Canada (showing himself to be the distillation of the kind of robber-baron he supposedly deplores) but there’s a great potential for political backfire here. The election is going to be won or lost in the middle. The left is likely to love the film, as it plays to all their prejudices, but everybody else will be horrified by its blatant dishonesty.

Moore’s movie is one part of a picture which includes the upcoming Republican convention, during which the left promises to stage the biggest freak show in human history on the streets of Manhattan. The American people are going to see this and likely take note of the true nature of the oppostion to Bush. Moore’s movie, together with one long window-busting, bottle throwing Israel-hating solidarity-fest with Saddam—Halloween in August—should do wonders for Bush’s poll numbers. I can’t wait, though I do intend to avoid midtown—better yet, get out of town altogether and watch the pageant on FOX.

I’d been wondering recently when, and what form, the Moore-Mashing might commence and look like, coming from my fellow Editors in the Red State column.

I may have asked this previously, Eric and Martin, but are either of you planning to see the film? I’d be more interested in reading your collective, personal assessments than the disheveled, Marxist/Orwellian diatribe of the Right’s version of Hunter S. Thompson!

I watched yesterday as a seemingly hurt Bill O’Reilly fretted and begged John Podesta to ask Bubba and Hillary to come on the show to talk about Clinton’s new book. The whole of Fox is acting like the uninvited guest to the hottest party in town, after being one of the two U.S. networks not getting a ratings boosting sit down.

But, back to Moore’s film! I don’t know what to make of the fact that the movie has now been expanded from 500 to over 800+ screens, when it opens on Friday. (Purchasing my tickets tomorrow.)
Close to 9 out of 10 reviews I’ve read have been overwhelmingly positive, so much so, that the negative reviews all fit on one page at the StopMichaelMoore.org site.

Moore is taking on his critics one at a time. He just finished with Isikoff from Newsweek, so Hutchen’s is on deck! (There is a great item about O’Reilly on Moore’s site, too)

I noticed Eric did visit Moore’s site, yet never bothered to utilize his direct responses to many of the claims used here. Why then are these few shrill, outlandish and over the top remarks made by Moore, not stopping increasing numbers of Americans from boycotting this propaganda?

According to Campbell Brown on yesterday’s Hardball, the White House staff has been forbidden to see the film.

Ah, yet another reason that will spur more people to go see this film!!

Bert:

I’ve NOT seen Moore’s movie, nor do I plan to. Yet from having read quite a bit about Moore as well as having read and heard his own comments in his own words, I have a pretty good idea of what he is all about.

Moore has himself admitted that he hopes his movie helps defeat George Bush. Based on that, its fair to assume that he isnt going to present a flattering picture.

Moore, to his credit, is a great marketer and a pretty good movie maker. What he is NOT, though, is a good documentary maker. He edits his films in such a way as to present his viewpoint, which isnt necessarily the truth.

For instance, in Bowling for Columbine, he edits parts of at least two different Charlton Heston speeches to make them appear to be one speech, and inserts them into the movie to appear that Heston is answering comments made by anti-gun lobbyists. Did Heston say the things…..YES. But were they totally out of context and therefore presented improperly—-YES.

Bert—it is Moore’s tactics that make his movies untruthful and slanted. That doesnt make them bad movies necessarily, but it most certainly makes them untruthful and slanted. Perhaps if you view them without the partisan prejudice that seems to emanate from the left, you might see him for what he is.

How can anyone or anything deter from the anti-war movement, Eric? The anti-war movement is centered around the central premise that self defense is necessary and war is always a last resort out of a sense of respect for human life and dignity.

I fail to see how any political point of view could harm that central premise held by a majority of Americans.

I saw Moore’s first film years ago and found it mildly entertaining. It never occurred to me to think of it as a documentary. It was obviously a tongue-in-cheek tirade against the big, bad, business people who are so cold-hearted that they actually close factories that are losing money.

I remember thinking that Moore was like the snotty little kid who jumps out from behind a tree to throw snowballs at passing cars. I got a kick out of his aggressiveness and his abrasive tactics, which reminded me a bit of “60 Minutes” in its early days, but without the class. Most kids grow out of that stage. Some, like Moore, obviously don’t.

I didn’t watch his second film because the only thing worse than several kids being murdered by a couple of pinheaded losers, was for someone like Moore to use the tragedy for his own financial gain. I chose not to contribute.

Anyway, the film industry will continue to lavish awards on him for documentaries that aren’t. Of course what would you expect from a group whose members make their living pretending to be someone they’re not?

NOTOTH

I think you Republicans should see the film anyway, if only because it contains some raw footage you should see. Forget the Moore diatribes and ambush interviews and tricky editing - from what I understand this movie contains lots of raw footage that the mainstream media won’t show due to cowering deference to both the Bush Administration and to corporate sponsors:

— Interviews with actual American soldiers in the field, interviews conducted without US military public relations’ permission.

— The footage of Bush making goofy faces seconds before telling the nation we are invading Iraq. Was he not aware of the gravity of his impending announcement?

— The footage of Bush continuing to sit dumbly in front of those schoolchildren in Florida for seven minutes after learning that not one but two jets had crashed into the WTC and that “America is under attack”. What was he waiting for?

— Third-party footage of American soldiers in the field “behaving badly”. (Despite what many right-wing folks think, I don’t mention this because I delight in the degradation of American soldiers; I mention it because the misbehavior of soldiers, however sporadic, is a fact of life that we are prevented from knowing about by the aforementioned cowed American media even though it’s something we should take into account before we decide to occupy a huge foreign country)

— Footage of American casualties (another reality of war that Americans should be shown every single day).

Those of you who refuse to see the movie: Are you afraid of seeing this stuff? Would it undermine your faith in the Bush Administration? If it’s just that you don’t want to give $10 to Michael Moore, I might understand, but I think I’d pay $10 just to see that footage. If it was the Clinton Administration being exposed I’d probably pay the $10, too (anyone see The War Room?).

Eric, you seem to take a perverse delight in listening to Pacifica Radio. I imagine at least you will see Fahrenheit911, won’t you?

I was thinking maybe I would get a hold of a pirated version of the movie and make a dogma-free remix of the movie. I’d take out all of the speculative conspiracy babble, blank out the snide Michael Moore voiceovers, and ruthlessly chop out all of the scenes with Michael Moore in it. Essentially creating a “Michael Moore-free” version, leaving only the raw footage scenes to stand up on their own without editorial commentary. Would you like to see that version of the movie? I think I would.

-Cf

Speaking of other media, I read the Wall Street Journal opinion page (www.opinionjournal.com) fairly regularly, and it never ceases to amaze me how willing they are to distort the truth and take things out of context.

For a example, last month they ran a opinion piece that was titled “Unfit for Office:
I was on Mr. Kerry’s boat in Vietnam. He doesn’t deserve to be commander in chief.”

So, do you take the headline to mean that he served with John Kerry? Guess again. If you read the text, he was on the SAME BOAT, but at a DIFFERENT TIME. You have to click on the story to learn this.

They also rival Moore for sheer tackiness. They recently took a swipe at Kerry for being divorced — never mind that they have just been singing the praises of the first divorced president.

This is the second bestselling newspaper in the US, with a higher circulation than the New York Times. Where’s the outrage?

How can there be such strong opinions about something that no one writing on this blog has seen yet? It’s all a bunch of bull.

Martin,

…during which the left promises to stage the biggest freak show in human history on the streets of Manhattan.

Yeah, I forgot about that. That will be fun to watch too!

Cf-

I think you Republicans should see the film anyway, if only because it contains some raw footage you should see.

I would like to see it myself. But like I said I’ll wait until I can give Walmart part of the money. One scene that I really like is something I’ve seen in previews…

It’s that snippet where Bush is giving a press conference or making a statement on the golof course and then he turns around and says, “Now watch this drive,” then proceeds to whack a golf ball. I love it! Classic.

I think it has the opposite effect on me than what Moore intended. It makes me like Bush all the more.

Bayviking:

Are you a fan of David Duke, the former Grand Wizard of the Klan?? Have you ever heard him speak in public??? No????? Well, neither have I, yet I know enough about David Duke, his past, and his beliefs to know that I don’t much agree with him.

Same with Michael Moore. I’ve seen one of his movies, I’ve read from his own website, I’ve seen him in interviews, etc. I don’t need to see his movie to know what its about, what its style is, and what editing trickery he will use. He has a style and he hasnt changed from it.

Bayviking, you see, you can learn a lot about a movie and its director without actually having seen the movie. Note that I’m not specifically referring to details about the movie, but rather to details about Michael Moore. These details are in the public domain, free for anyone with the brains to find them.

Your point simply doesnt hold water.

Actually, I believe Moore has addressed the charges in his usual blunt style. Now I don’t agree with everything he says, and I do think his films are more propaganda than documentary. I even think that sometimes he’s too obnoxious for his good.

But I do believe that as much as he shoots his mouth off with his opinion, he nonetheless keeps his facts straight. Unlike many of his critics, to their detriment. One thing I prefer to do when faced with critics offering new, potentially damaging information, is to see if it’s true first. God bless Google. And you know what, it’s a wonderful tool, especially for finding out the holes in opponents arguments or revelations.

Like the whole 90% millionaires for the Democrats, 60% average folks for the Republicans thing. I looked at that, and went on a fact checking mission. What did I find? The mother of all statistical misinterpretations. The statistics in question were organized according to brackets. Now, they were advertised by the network of dittoheads out there as representing what proportion of the total funding came from whom. An actual look at those statistics reveal that those percentages were the proportion that each party had of funds at those brackets of contribution. The share of people who paid that much money, not the proportion of the total contributions being paid by people at that level. This isn’t just a nuance, this is a crucial difference in the meaning of the numbers.

Recently, a certain individual on this site stated that Joseph Wilson contradicted himself in his book. I looked into it. What did I find? I found that what Joseph Wilson debunked in terms of the leader was something that was several orders of magnitude greater than what he talked about hear from an official. I also found that he pretty conclusively debunked that greater threat. Additonally, if the letter forms the basis of Bush’s sixteen words, then the threat he alleges by those words is much less serious than his people let on.

And the sad thing is, this happens time and time again with the conservatives. Some grandiose claim gets made, one looks into it, and finds that the writer, or the people it was passed on to simply didn’t do their homework. Finding proof for one’s beliefs is more than just searching along until you find somebody who says what you want to hear, it is also a critical process of establishing just what is the case and what is not.

I think the conservatives are allowing themselves to become too insular, to reliant on ideological tests, not reliant enough on evidence and scholarship. They dismiss sound sources on the basis of what publication a story comes from rather than on the facts and agreement of facts between different, independent sources.

The consequence? They are behind the curve in their interpretation of the situation. The main difference between “conservative news” and “liberal” has mainly been one of slant, with the Conservatives adding little new information, little new journalism to the mix.

Which means that conservatives have basically been on the defensive, trying to redefine and spin the news that neutral and liberal sources have offered. It is only when conservative media sources start adding new, sound information to the mix that’s not going to be undermined by critical analysis that Conservatives are going to stop losing the influence they’ve had.

Like the whole 90% millionaires for the Democrats, 60% average folks for the Republicans thing…

I couldn’t quite follow your explanation. Could you restate what the statistics really said?

Stephen, that was one excellent argument. It is amazing how much the GOP avoids so much of the data coming out of conservative think tanks. When do you last hear a GOP politician state that we cannot grow the economy out our current level of debt? Yet, that is hard data being produced by conservative think tanks.

So, in addition to a dearth of empirically sound evidence to make their case, they are very selective about the data that comes from their own think tanks since their ideology all too often contradicts the hard data. I must say in the same breath however, that the Dem’s have a very similar proclivity.

Lawn Boy, here’s how it worked out:
The Conservative media reported that over 90 percent of democratic fundraising came from people donating millions, while sixty percent of the Republican fundraising came from sources donating around 200 dollars.

I started with the Mallard Fillmore strip. Imagine a strip that stars a duck that basically spouts the conservative and neo-conservative line. There you would have it. Anyway, The number struck me as a little odd, so I thought I’d look into it.

As it happens Bruce Tinsley, creator of the strip, gave a source. Mona Charen.

I can say that she or an associate are like the source of this myth. Before, the source on this was a rather liberal Columnist for the LA times, named Ronald Brownstein. Looking at the way he wrote and phrased his article on the subject, it became clear that he was talking about brackets of donation rather than the proportion of money coming from a certain socio-economic group.

It gets better: I go onto the site he gives as his source. That is, www.opensecrets.org, and I look up the information about donations. Lo and behold, it becomes quickly obvious that these were separate brackets, and that the bulk of the money either party was making was being made at the 1000 to 10000 dollar bracket. In short, Mona Charen, and every pundit or dittohead who accept that story from then on, did so because of a substantial misinterpretation of the numbers. Instead of correctly identifying those numbers as representing the share of donations within certain brackets(92% share of donations over a million for Democrats, 8% share of those donations for Republicans), they instead treated that as the fraction of the total fundraising recieved (92 percent of Democrat fundraising coming from millionaires.)

And the thing is, this isn’t the first time by any means. I suppose Democrats can be this way, but they don’t have the sense of creeping bias that the Republicans have, or the paranoia about news sources. Because of that, they aren’t all that prone to seal themselve away from bad news, the way Republicans have.

Joe,

I am not here to debate Moore’s past efforts, which are just now being exorcised by the Right because he is taking direct aim at Bush. (By the way, Heston’s comment about the root of violence in America, as seen in Columbine, was not edited, but was abhorrently racist!)

Neither after Friday, will I engage in debate with anyone on WatchBlog, who has not seen the film! This controversy begins and ends with veracity contained in the 95 minutes of Moore’s film - and, the political discourse in its aftermath, should also!

Stephen D.,

I’m in total agreement with David! Thanks for a pointed and articulate assessment that I’ve been fumbling around trying to put into words. I have saved it for future plagiaristic opportunities.

I think the conservatives are allowing themselves to become too insular, to reliant on ideological tests, not reliant enough on evidence and scholarship. They dismiss sound sources on the basis of what publication a story comes from rather than on the facts and agreement of facts between different, independent sources.

The consequence? They are behind the curve in their interpretation of the situation. The main difference between “conservative news” and “liberal” has mainly been one of slant, with the Conservatives adding little new information, little new journalism to the mix.

Stephen,

First off I’ve never heard of this demographic percentage claim. I’m scouring opensecrets looking for a breakdown of donor by income, where is it?

Ah, here something close to it: Donor demographics.

Bush: % from Donors of $200 or less = 24%
Kerry: % from Donors of $200 or less = 30%

Bush: % from Donors of $2000 or more = 58%
Kerry: % from Donors of $2000 or more = 39%

Something isn’t adding up here. There’s percentages missing from both.

Let’s see: Source of funds…

Bush
Small Individual contributions (Kerry
Small Individual contributions (lawyers and lobbyists. (Aren’t lobbyists supposed to be the scourge of democracy?) And has done a better job in disclosing where those funds have come from despite having to process so many more dollars than Kerry.

Back to Michael Moore. He’s wrong. As such he’s discredited himself already. I’d see the movie but the more people who see the movie the more money he will make and the more movies he will make in the future. I am voting with my dollar. Now if his message is so important for America to see before the election, he can provide me and every American who wants to see it with a free ticket or a free copy of the movie and we’ll all watch it.

Does anyone see the hypocrisy of a man who decries capitalism, making ‘obscene’ amounts of money off of his distorted political views? Disclaimer: I am all for making obscene amounts of money, but don’t pretend you hate it and then accept the cash.

Distinguish between capitalism and greed. Is it safe to assume that on some level, you think capitalism is okay?

No, not really. I think our economic system is unfair and unjust and it’s not democratic and it has to change. When I say that last line in the film, “One evil empire down, one to go,” our system is the one that’s got to go. Now, don’t ask me what to replace it with because I don’t know. I wish somebody would invent a system that takes the best things of capitalism and socialism and puts them together. The things from capitalism that encourage individuality and creativity and ingenuity, and those things from socialism that say no one shall be left behind. Why can’t we have that? Why do they have to be at odds?
-moorewatch.com

The content of the film is widely known—specific episodes have been described in detail by a number of reviewers, so saying you have to see the film to discuss it is pretty bizzare. Moore has made very specific allegations, ie., about the Bush family’s supposed ties with the Saudis, that can be discussed on their merits (or lack thereof).

In the world of Michael Moore, I suppose Kerry is a slave to the Saudis as well—after all, some of them are known to dip their falafel in Heinz Ketchup.

Because of my line of work, I could probably get a cassette of the film under the table (though not the final version, which I understand was undergoing edits as late as last week), but I sure don’t plan to help line Moore’s pockets by buying a ticket. I don’t think I have to sit through _Triumph of the Will_ to criticize Goebells, and neither do I have to watch the work of his spiritual heir, Michael Moore, to know that the film is a hatchet job.

Dittoheads never really seem to get the joke. Why is that?

I’d go on O’Reilly but, like a coward, he walked out on a screening we invited him to (with Al Franken just a few rows away!). I personally caught him sneaking out. Embarrassed, he tried to change the subject. He said, “When are you coming on my show?” and I said, “Turn around and watch the rest of the movie and I will come on your show.” He walked out. Fair and balanced
michaelmoore.com

Martin,

Seeing the film gives one irrefutable credibility to debate the veracity of Moore’s admitted partisan objective. Bizarre would better describe the chance and risk some are willing to take, to openly injure the respect for their viewpoint - in deference to personal spite.

The recently released, 180+ pages of documents relating to the administration’s position on torture and the Geneva Convention, did little to quell the controversy as the White House had hoped. Insisting there is nothing in the way of pertinent information contained in the unreleased documents, this explanation will suffice for most Republican leaders and Bush supporters, no questions asked.

However, the drastic drop in Bush’s approval rating on Terrorism, signals that the American voter is not satisfied, at all.

Quick someone tell Moore he forgot to put this in his movie:

Bill Clinton Page 110: “In the ethics class [at Georgetown] I took good notes, and one day in August another student, who was smart as a whip but seldom attended class, asked me if I’d take a few hours and go over my notes with him before the final exam. … [T]he guy got a B on the test. Twenty-five years later, when I became President, my old study partner Turki al-Faisal, son of the late Saudi king, was head of Saudi Arabia’s intelligence service, a position he held for twenty-four years.”

Eric-
This was a while back, you’re not looking at the same data I was. Besides, what I was looking at concerned the parties as a whole.

The discrepancies concerning hard money donation are not really discreptancies if you look at the headings. They are talking about donations of less than a certain amount, and more than another amount.

The table does not contain a percentage for amounts donated that were less than $2000, but More than $200. For Bush, I guess that percentage is about 18%. For Kerry, that percentage is more like 31%.

As for the page in question, here it is.

Heres the Mona Charen article in question. Her wording is rife with selective quotation and ambiguous phrasing. She also neglects the context of the data- that of all the thousands of donors out there only 23 gave a million dollars or more, and that many of the people giving at those ranges, and the ranges above that (1000 to 10000, for example) are not exactly working class people. These people are relatively well off, especially if they can waste hundreds if not thousands of dollars paying for a political campaign.

Bruce Tinsley Then published this. It’s the fourth one down. He sets it up as being this Earth shattering revelation. But as you can tell from the articles above, the closer I got to the truth, the less earth-shattering it became. The truth is that the Republican party still caters more to the interests of the upper class than the Democrats do. Even Bush himself has called them his base. So a little research on my part has left me, having faced your supposedly explosive revelations mirroring the sentiments of one Marvin Martian: “Where’s the Earth shattering kaboom?

Personally, I think it’s a better idea to start from the facts, and build to an earth-shattering revelation only if it’s justified. To just seek those things out is to commit Tinsley and Mona Charen’s mistake, and let one’s sentiments overrule one’s appreciation of the way things really are.

I also believe that we should allow the facts to moderate us, to take the steam out of our partisan rhetoric. Having studied neuroscience and information theory, I’ve become convinced that the human mind is very capable of maintaining a non-realistic point of view indefinitely, save for one thing: the facts. Science has so improved our lives not because it has any particular priveleged claim on the truth, but because it is a system that allows the facts to moderate theories, to filter out the garbage that human minds are fully capable of generating, and let only our most accurate imaginings of the way the world works win out.

As such, science and similar intellectual disciplines may never present us with the perfect truth, especially regarding human behavior, but they will be more reliable than disciplines and philosophies that allow our most psychotic pictures of the world to take hold without any opposition.

That’s also why I think Democracy works. It will never give us a perfect government, but it does force candidates into a postion where neither their office, nor their powers in that office are absolute, and their interests are forced to compete with those of many others.

Unfortunately, I don’t think some people are comfortable with the idea of not getting what they want. Of being hemmed in by other interests. They don’t see that there is an intentional lack of ideological purity in our system of goverment, that negotiation is the rule, not the exception, of gaining and maintaining power.

blue, what’s your point? That Clinton’s aquaintance with a member of the Saudi royal family from his college days is the equivalent of the Bush family’s deep and 30-year-strong financial and political ties with the Saudi royal family?

I’m not going to speculate on the nature of the Bush family’s connections with the house of Saud, since I know very little about it, but I do know enough to recognize when tiny little apples are being compared to planet-sized oranges.

-Cf

…the human mind is very capable of maintaining a non-realistic point of view indefinitely, save for one thing: the facts. Science has so improved our lives not because it has any particular priveleged claim on the truth, but because it is a system that allows the facts to moderate theories, to filter out the garbage that human minds are fully capable of generating, and let only our most accurate imaginings of the way the world works win out.

I fully and wholeheartedly agree with both of these points. Of course I am probably thinking of diametrically opposing ‘point of views’ from what you are thinking is non-realistic.

I have no idea what the doctrines of neuroscience are, but I think that your first point is due entirely to the fact that our minds are fueled entirely by perception of reality not reality itself. Science is exceptional as a philosophical underpinning because it demands repeatable testing as a condition of saying something is true. But even these ‘truths’ are still subject to interpretation and correction due to lack of complete knowledge about anything.

When we wade into political philosophy we wade into a swamp of untestable assertions, ideologies disconnected with any reality, or even any vague notion or intention of testing said ideologies. Thus we have Michael Moore who’s idea of reality is whatever he can get away with.

The fact that the Bush family has “ties” with Saudi Arabia is only natural—the Bushes have been political leaders for two generations, and developing contacts with other world leaders is what they’re supposed to be doing. On one hand, Democrats complain about Bush’s lack of diplomacy, and the other they complain that there’s too much diplomacy! Is confrontation the only way to solve problems?

If anything, the fact that the Bushes have (or had) oil interests in Texas is a misleading distraction. People tend to forget that the middle eastern oil industry is in COMPETITION with the American oil industry. If American oil really wanted to increase production domestically, tap the Alaskan reserves, etc, and make a load of money doing it, the best way of doing it would to stiff OPEC and the Saudis—not cooperate diplomatically with them.

Martin sez

The fact that the Bush family has “ties” with Saudi Arabia is only natural—the Bushes have been political leaders for two generations, and developing contacts with other world leaders is what they’re supposed to be doing.

I always wondered what happened to Ari Fleischer…

Here’s the thing: If you were to look at Michael Moore’s work, it is fundamentally propaganda. Using the neutral definition of the word, that would be saying this is a movie meant to openly advocate and inspire a move in the audience towards a certain point of view.

Were I to do what Moore does, I wouldn’t steer this towards propaganda. That’s not my style. But Moore’s impulse is not towards the evenhanded. He believes very strongly in what he’s putting forward, and he has the skill and the wit to push the buttons to agitate people to this end.

Your people have a truckload of people just like Moore who are muckraking take-no-prisoner propagandists. It seems rather remiss that we don’t get to keep our fellow around, while your people have practically made a cottage industry out of Democrat-directed vitriol. I’ve already gone down the list of a number of factual errors of significant degree that your people make on a regular basis.

My advice? Stop doing Moore’s work for him. The more extraordinary and extreme the means you use to shut him, up the more ammunition he has to throw back at you.

But Moore’s exactly what we need—a real gift. He will rightly be used as exhibit number one in the lengths Democrats have gone to distort the truth. Either Kerry will have to disavow him—which will alienate his base—or remain silent and thereby endorse his message. I suspect that Moore will be good for the left in that he’ll energize the base, which could hardly be anymore energized. But he puts exactly the face on the anti-Bush side that is likely to alienate large numbers of swing voters. Karl Rove wanted to campaign against Dean, but Michael Moore provides an even better target. It will be interesting to see how this plays out—I’m betting on the good sense of average Americans.

Well, whatever message he’s got has gotten serious airplay. Reuters reports that Farenheit 9/11 has shot to number one at the weekend Box Office with a total of 21 million. This is on maybe a few hundred screens, so the per-screen average must be sky high.

Lets see what develops!

Oh, this is good. You are slamming Moore for doing just what Republicans do — making money and producing polemics. What you really object to is the audience he’s getting.

Ever looked into Rush Limbaugh’s legal history? He is sued repeatedly for fictionalizing events. He invariably settles with the argument that he is an “enterainer,” not a journalist. I’ve never seen a Republican site take Rush or O’Reilly to task for that. (O’Reilly has had to apologize to both Molly Ivins and Eric Alterman for lying about their political affiliations recently.)

Moore — unlike Rush and O’Reilly and Hannity and Coulter — engages in fact. That’s why you are attacking him personally. Hitchens’ critique — and by the way he has long been in the neocon camp — is a nitpicking 5,000-word rant that boils down to: “Wah wah wah, Moore wasn’t objective! Wah wah wah!”

Moore has made no claim to be objective — unlike the Bush Administration in producing its phony Medicare “news reports” at tax payer expense. His movie is an opinion piece, an editorial cartoon. It is an antidote to the gross distortions of the mainstream press, which has only just begun to wake up to the lies it printed at the behest of administration shills (Chalabi and the NY Times, for example). But the movie relies on fact, not on invention. And, yes, its context is purely polemical. Just like Rush, Town Hall, most of the TV pundits, blah blah blah.