Besides being intellectually dishonest, anti-liberty and just plain wrong, the Daily Kos, HuffPo, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow and Michael Moore all have another thing in common: a smidgen of my respect for being upfront regarding their political agendas. Each fights dirty and dishonestly, but at least they’re in uniform — unlike those left-wing spies hiding pompously behind “objectivity” at CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, Washington Post, ABC, PBS, NPR, CBS and NBC.
I digress…
I like Michael Moore. I like his movies and while there are a number of stories floating around describing him as an awful human being, he seems affable enough during television interviews and personal appearances. Most of all, I like him because he lays completely bare his anti-all-things-freedom agenda for the world to see. He’s my ideological enemy, but unlike the coward Bill Maher who hides behind libertarianism and the coward Jon Stewart who hides behind being a “comic,” Moore makes no secret of the Statist goals he shamelessly pursues.
Too bad for his side he sucks at it.
Not at film-making. Moore’s a terrific filmmaker. Without fail, his documentary features are entertaining in every sense of the word. They’re just not convincing … at all. Not even close. “Sicko” was one of my favorite films of 2007, but not for a moment was Moore able to convince me that socialized medicine was anything close to a good idea. And I wasn’t watching as a right-wing ideologue, either. I was still a few days from being told a spot that had been found on my lung was benign. Believe me, nothing knocks the ideology out of you like being certain you have “6 months to live.”
And when it comes to finding Moore’s anecdotal appeals to emotion and lack of hard facts completely unconvincing, I’m not alone. At best, a look back at the Moore canon shows that each and every one of his films had zero impact on the issue in question. At worst, you could argue that Moore’s championing a cause has only done it damage.
Roger & Me (1989): In his feature debut, Michael Moore went hard after General Motors for plant closings in his hometown of Flint, Michigan. RESULT: The company would go on to enjoy years of record profits until the 2008 financial collapse when, in March of 2009, the most liberal President in history would bail GM out. Ouch.
Bowling For Columbine (2002): A mere seven years after Moore won an Academy Award for summoning all his propagandist powers to target gun manufacturers and lobby for stricter gun control laws, polls show the public’s desire for stricter gun control are at historic lows.
Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004): Moore’s two-hour anti-Bush, anti-Iraq War screed would break all kinds of box office records but the end result later that same year was Bush coasting to re-election and eventually winning the war in Iraq.
Sicko (2007): Moore spends two hours hoping to convince Americans to champion socialized medicine and today, even with the help of the entire media complex and the President of the United States, polls show support for even a disguised version of socialized medicine (the public option) tanking.
Capitalism: A Love Story (2009): Finally, after a few weeks in release, I was able to duck into a matinee the other day to witness yet another entertaining but ridiculously unconvincing Moore tale – this one openly declaring capitalism an “evil.” And yet…
There’s only one possible explanation. Michael Moore is a genius – an absolute genius. But… A gun-toting, big business-loving, capitalist-embracing, right-wing, neocon genius… Rip off those nerdy glasses, the faux-populist baseball cap, and…
Well, let’s just say that no one’s ever seen Michael Moore and Dick Cheney in the same room together.
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