The Moore the Scarier
By Debbie Schlussel
He calls Bush, Cheney, and
Ashcroft the "real axis of evil." He blamed 9-11 attacks on too many
White people and not enough Black men on the planes.
And in his Oscar Night diatribe,
film-maker Michael Moore used his win of an Academy Award to rant against a
"fictitious" President Bush, "fictitious election results,"
and the War on Iraq, which he claimed was for "fictitious reasons."
"We live in fictitious times,"
he said when picking up the award for best documentary for his anti-gun film
"Bowling for Columbine."
And Michael Moore should know. Because
everything from his "working-class Joe" persona to his so-called
documentary, for which he won the award, is largely fictitious. Michael Moore
is the master of the truly fictitious.
His public persona is that of an
anti-corporate crusader from working-class Flint, Michigan, who wears a
constant uniform of slouchy jeans, a plaid shirt and a Detroit Tigers baseball
cap. But the real Michael Moore rides in limos and lives in a swanky $1.2
million Manhattan apartment. Moore's "blue collar bonhomie" is bunk.
According to Detroit Free Press film
critic Terry Lawson, Moore's first documentary, "Roger and Me"
featured manipulated facts and the breaking of established documentary rules.
Then there's his latest
"documentary," "Bowling for Columbine."
Documentary might not be the best word
for this manipulative piece of cinematic celluloid. "Fictitious,"
Moore's current term of choice, would be more accurate.
That includes the title. Moore says he
chose "Bowling for Columbine" because Columbine High mass murderers
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold attended a bowling class the morning of the
massacre. Reality check: Jefferson County Sheriffs, who investigated the
killings, say they skipped the class that day, and have the attendance sheets
and blank bowling scoring sheets to prove it. Had Moore bothered to check the
official report of the police investigation, he'd have known that. But why
bother with the facts when you're the fictitious Michael Moore?
Moore's vehement anti-war ideology gets
the best of his fact-checking capabilities. His film implies Harris and Klebold
had violent tendencies because of "weapons of mass destruction"
produced by a Lockheed Martin assembly plant in their hometown of Littleton.
"Bowling" actually features footage of giant rocket assembly to make
the point. But, according to Daniel Lyons in Forbes magazine, Lockheed Martin's
Littleton plant makes space launch vehicles for TV satellites, not weapons.
And Moore's anti-gun fervor also trumps
the facts. He stages an event at North Country Bank and Trust in Michigan's
Traverse City, claiming that opening an account would entitle one to walk out
of the bank with a gun in hand. The film shows him doing just that. But the key
word is "staged." In reality, the bank does not provide guns for
opening accounts, and you can't walk in or out of the bank with one—unless
you're a security guard employed by the bank. The gun is one of several
"giveaways" that can be chosen by customers in exchange for opening a
CD account. In order to qualify for the gun, customers must open a 3-year CD
with at least $5,000 and then must pass a background check for the gun, which
can only be picked up at a licensed gun dealer.
Arguably, the worst fiction in Moore's
documentary is visited upon Hollywood producer Dick Clark of "American
Bandstand" fame. Moore confronts Clark, trying to ask him questions and
accusing him of responsibility for the fatal shooting in 2000 of 6-year-old
Kayla Rowland of Mount Morris Township, Michigan, by her classmate, at Buell
Elementary School.
Moore blames the shooting on Michigan's
work-to-welfare program, which he claims prevented the shooter's mother,
Tamarla Owens, from spending time with him. And he blames Clark, because Owens
work-to-welfare job was at his "American Bandstand" restaurant at an
area mall.
But Clark and the work-to-welfare program
had nothing to do with it. Owens, who had three children with three different
fathers and was once charged as a drug dealer, married a convicted drug dealer.
Before the shooting, she abandoned her son, turning him over to her brother,
who lived in a flophouse rife with stolen guns and ammunition, where drug deals
went on at all hours. Michigan's Family Independence Agency reported that she
was a poor mother, and she later lost custody of all three children, two of
them permanently.
Blaming
the shooting of a classmate by Owen's son on Dick Clark is outrageous.
But that's Michael Moore. A fictitious
man living in a fictitious time. With a fictitious, Academy Award winning
"documentary." As Brian Rohrbough, whose son Daniel died at
Columbine, said, "This is just a guy trying to capitalize on the tragedy
of others."
Moore's latest best-selling book is
"Stupid White Men. . . and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the
Nation," As they say, it takes one to know one. But the stupidest and
sorriest are not Moore and those he writes about, but those who fall for his
propaganda.
This article was reprinted
with the permission of Debbie Schlussel, Courtesy of www.techcentralstation.com/ and www.politicalusa.com
To contact Debbie: debbie@politicalusa.com