Steve Young

Calling the Fahrenheit 9/11 Kettle Black
Talk Radio Rips Moore for Being Too Much Like Them
by Steve Young

July 9, 2004 -- HOLLYWOOD (apj.us) -- The Lords of Loud are outraged -- beside themselves with indignation.

With Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore has mangled the truth, handpicked the facts and then parsed them, spinning them makeshift into his very own biased point of view -- or so the talkers squeal.

They shake their heads in collective exasperation, hootin' and hollerin' that this one-sided, polemic view is nothing more than Moore's partisan attempt to have Bush removed from the presidency and serves as proof that propaganda -- tsk, tsk -- is alive and well in America.

They see "Fahrenheit 9/11," they say Josef Goebbels or Leni Riefenstahl could have not made anything more anti-American.

They think he's a right bad mamajama who could stand to lose a few pounds.

One host fella at in Los Angeles called Moore, among a lot of other big fat things, a big fat vicious slob. He said that if an earthquake felled the roof at a theater where Fahrenheit 9/11 was showing, it wouldn't be a total loss. On the same day he lambasted Moore, he defined the difference between political ideologies:

"Conservatives have class and liberals are animals."

I certainly don't want to rehash the endless examples of Limbaugh, Hannity et al's demeaning efforts against anyone or anything that isn't in lockstep with them (got to save something for the next column).

Ah... maybe one.

Last week Rush said Moore's film is similar to the new book that calls for the assassination of Bush. And then the man who said during the 2000 race, "the only way you could vote for Gore is if you hate America," explained, "There's no hatred in this program." He didn't even giggle.

The monarchs of the mic set up their arguments on a belief or assumption or a half-truth (or no truth at all), and then apply their polemic harangue to their bogus hypothesis.

Ignoring the administration's original alleged rationale for invading Iraq, they mythologize a liberal ignorance and/or blessing of Saddam's murder of his own people.

Ignoring whose ample pockets will benefit most from the tax breaks, they tell you that liberals want to take the money from you .

Here, they applied to Fahrenheit 9/11 the utterly invalid premise that the movie claims to be or ought to be fair and balanced, which Moore himself has never said it was meant to be.

No matter what you or I feel about Moore or Fahrenheit 9/11, please, someone, anyone, tell me: what is talk radio other than exactly what it calls Moore?

I'm not so sure Moore would argue that he isn't doing the same as talk radio does -- just with pictures, and a bit more wit. Perhaps talk radio is a bit miffed (and somewhat jealous) that someone on the left finally figured out the scam and is getting more attention than a cheap New York hooker at the Republican convention.

And my guess is, just like the barrage of Limbaughites who grew out of his big bang, there'll be plenty of Moore mimics, on the left and right, who will be trying to use the new docu-spin to get their point across while making the big Clear Channel docu-spin bucks.

Mangling, or sensually massaging, the facts or even creating them out of thin air (which those with a lesser sense of humor might even call lies) to trick your fans into thinking your point of view makes so much damned sense, is much the same mistrust of the audience, whether pitched by 35 mm or by sound wave.

So when Moore's detractors find his less than fair and balanced tactics one iota different from what they do 25/8, aren't they being far less than ... fair and balanced?

Which is exactly my point.