Man of schtick

To everyone who is about to watch Michael Moore's new movie:

I'm imagining the average viewer of Fahrenheit 9/11 will enter wanting to believe the worst in George W. Bush. I don't begrudge them that. It's an election year and these are trying times to be an American. Everyone says they are regarding the world with an open mind. But lest you forget: The purpose of an open mind, like an open mouth, is to close on something solid. Ingesting Moore's docudrama (for things aren't as they seem) will be like eating a bag of Cheetoes. Satisfying, if you like that sort of thing. But not necessarily healthy, despite all the claims of low fat or low sodium.

Few people worry me like Michael Moore. He has an unbelievable ability to do four things. Call it his schtick.

1. Play the victim. Remember the Disney debacle. Or all the times he's claimed to be blacklisted from shows?
2. Present facts and drawn lines to connect them as equally verifiable. Dots on a page, like facts, are stubborn things. But the lines that connect them are up for debate. People who connect the dots with a magic marker should not be trusted.
3. He knows, and practices very well, the art of making assertions that are very hard to disprove. He writes about personal phone calls, personal encounters, etc. And if the second party disclaims it, it's simply a matter of he-said, she-said. Those who have believed Moore thus far will believe him some more.
4. He has it both ways, all the time. Moore will give you a reason to believe that since X is true, Bush sucks. But he'll also say about five minutes later when we've forgotten, something tantamount to, since X is not true, Bush sucks.

Before you go into his new movie, you have to consider a few things. If Michael Moore is right on the points, why does he have to use stunts, staged acts and downright contortions of events to get there?

Moore tells people what they want to hear. All of us -- on both sides of the political aisle -- believe more readily things that inwardly we already believe. If you already look at the world the way Moore does, you will be more than willing to jump from the ground of solid fact to presupposition without ever questioning.

There are a great many people who question Moore's work. (And interestingly, when Moore is pinned in a corner, he claims to be a satirist rather than a documentarian. After all, documentarians must visually present the truth of the matter. Satirists are held to a much lower standard of conduct.) Before you watch, you should consider these:

Regarding Moore the human.

Wall Street Journal wrote a piece detailing
Moore's publicity stunts at Cannes. Funny how he never talks about this kind of stuff on American TV.

New York's city journal profiles Michael Moore in a more in-depth way than any publication before it. Did you know Moore was an Eagle Scout?

Again, Ben Fritz steps out and shows why the American left deserves a better spokesman. Why do liberals let this guy do the talking for them?

Michael Moore endures some criticism from across the pond, and from the Guardian, of all places. What was that about him and Disney? This is a one-on-one interview with Moore, the control freak.

Regarding Bowling for Columbine.

Apparently Moore can dish it out, but can't take it. He charged Spinsanity with libel. Big mistake.

Gun enthusiast Larry Pratt wrote an article for gunowners.org. You know that scene where Moore walks into the bank and walks out with a gun? Completely staged. What was that about documenting the truth?

Tech Central Station tells Michael Moore to lay off Dick Clark.

This is the best of them all. A former Fish and Wildlife Service attorney carefully sifts through every bit of BFC, fact checking not just that events happened, but that they happened the way Moore says they did. Unsurprisingly, they didn't.

Regarding Dude, Where's My Country?

Again, Spinsanity takes a stab at double checking Moore and his "iron-clad" research. Problems abound in Dude…

Regarding Downsize This!

Salon.com, hardly the conservative outlet, rags on Moore and his body of work up to Downsize This! You really didn't think he was really just a union guy from Flint, Mich. did you?

Regarding Stupid White Men (an autobiography?).

Moore uses one of his tried and true tactics of telling lies that are hard to disprove when he tells of a phone conversation with Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard. Problem is that Fred Barnes isn't to be trifled with.

Once again, Salon.com writer Ben Fritz takes Moore to task for shoddy research. Why is it that Moore talks about independent fact checkers so often when his research is so transparent?

Regarding Fahrenheit 9/11.

Here's Slate's review of Fahrenheit 9/11. In it, you get a picture of Moore: a man who will not be dissuaded from purpose by facts. Highlight: The innuendo-laden first part of the movie plays up the fact that bin Laden's family escaped on a private jet following the attack. But Richard Clarke says he, and he alone, authorized those flights. It wouldn't be so bad if Moore didn't paint Clarke to be the moral hero of the film. He's not some Bush lackey. And besides, the rest of the film portrays Bush as befuddled by 9/11 so completely. Either he was befuddled and couldn't act, or he was canny and got his friends, the bin Ladens, out of the country. Which? Because it can't be both.

Here's a column from the LA Times that you would have to pay to get. But www.moorelies.com has reprinted it here. The author, a self-avowed dove, really questions Moore's ability not to stretch facts into his agenda.

Finally, if you watch the movie and leave saying that you were surprised by nothing you saw, it's because you were willing to, and perhaps already believed, everything he presented. It should be not shock that some people are quite willing to believe the worst in others, whatever the truth may be. That is Moore's audience. And the fact he knows it so well scares and annoys me equally.

What's wrong with Moore's viewers is that they never read any of this stuff. No one does.