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Politics : POLITICAL LIES -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (709)	7/11/2004 10:42:22 PM
From: Ann Corrigan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1026

You conveniently forget:EDITORIAL: Critical malfeasance Moore film plays fast and loose with facts How often does a filmmaker who purports to make documentaries have to prove himself a chronic dissembler before the nation's movie critics will hold it against him? In the case of Michael Moore, the apparent answer is that it will never be held against him. Because, you see, Mr. Moore's dishonesty amounts to a public service in which he spreads the "real" -- if not the literal -- truth about big corporations, gun owners and the Bush administration. For those familiar with Mr. Moore only from his latest film, "Fahrenheit 9/11," a little background is in order. His first film, 1989's "Roger & Me," won widespread kudos from the nation's critics for its depiction of how General Motors' layoffs harmed the prosperity of his hometown of Flint, Mich. -- all because (steel yourself) the company wanted to make a profit. Eventually, the critical enthusiasm for Mr. Moore's agitprop waned -- even among those who believe private companies should be run like the public school system, where no one can ever be fired and the answer to declining product quality is to simply charge the customers more. Why? Careful fact-checking showed Mr. Moore had played fast and loose with the facts -- especially in fabricating cause-and-effect in "explaining" some of GM's decisions. Mr. Moore's next big splash, 2002's "Bowling for Columbine," won widespread praise for its depiction of how Americans' supposed obsession with guns has yielded a country in which literally millions of armed crazies roam the streets, eager to shoot up 7-Elevens, high schools and workplaces at the slightest provocation. Once again, critical enthusiasm waned after fact-checkers documented just how deceptive was Mr. Moore's presentation of "facts" -- starting with his opening scene, in which he is given a gun while standing in a Colorado bank as a reward for opening an account. The scene was staged (guns are actually transferred at licensed gun stores only after police background checks), while Moore presented it as an everyday occurrence. Now comes "Fahrenheit 9/11," for which Mr. Moore is again piling up critical hosannas -- this time for depicting an America that has been taken over by a right-wing cabal which used public fury and anguish after the 9-11 attacks to execute a silent coup. The result: an Iraq war waged for the sole purpose of inflating the profits of Halliburton and the Bush family's real employers, the Saudis. But now, once again, the fact-checkers are slowly building a damning case that Mr. Moore grossly contorted evidence to make his case. The two examples prompting the most outrage so far involve a montage from before the March 2003 U.S. invasion that depicts Iraq as a gleaming, prosperous slice of heaven, and the bogus assertion that the Bush administration flew Osama bin Laden's relatives home to Saudi Arabia during the days after 9-11, when all other private aviation was grounded. Don't get us wrong: A credible documentary could be made raising questions from a liberal perspective about the Bush administration's direction and competence. That is a powerful reason why the leftists who so swoon over Mr. Moore should rethink their affection for someone whose work substitutes cheap shots and paranoia for intellectual rigor. This gang may be slowly realizing it's on shaky ground, at least. In Sunday's Los Angeles Times, critic Manohla Dargis broke new ground with her Moore apologia, declaring that of course a documentarian as scrutinized as Mr. Moore will be found to have made "mistakes." But there's a vast difference between accidental errors and a campaign of malicious half-truths and untruths which -- as the old joke would have it -- "doesn't let the facts get in the way of a good story." reviewjournal.com.