Hello cathyed~
Indeed, it's now generally acknowledged that Michael Moore?s fact are
not to be trusted, whether in his early works like ?Roger and Me,? or
his latest works, including the Oscar-winning ?Bowling for Columbine.?
In Moore?s ?Rodger & Me,? for example it?s now a well-known fact that
?he famously shifted the actual timeline of events for dramatic
effect. While garnering some criticism, most notably from the New
Yorker's Pauline Kael, the distortions didn't get too many people
riled up; indeed, the movie made him a celebrity.? (Ben Fritz, ?Viewer
Beware,? Spinsanity, http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20021119.html )
Regarding ?Stupid White Men,? Ben Fritz' article ?One Moore Stupid
White Man? (which originally appeared on Salon.com), says that
?readers are told that 10 million people left the welfare rolls during
the '90s, brutally kicked off by Bill Clinton. He writes that
five-sixths of the defense budget in 2001 went toward building a
single type of plane and that the recent recession is nothing more
than a fabrication by the wealthy to keep down the working classes.
And readers who uncritically accept those "facts" -- along with a
number of other egregious and sloppy distortions -- will be
duped?Regrettably, Moore gets his facts wrong again and again and
again, and a simple check of the sources he cites shows that lazy
research is often to blame. Consider, for instance, his claim that
?two-thirds of [the over $190 million President Bush raised during the
presidential campaign] came from just over seven hundred individuals.?
Given the $2,000 federal limit on individual donations, this claim is
obviously false. To back it up, he cites the Center for Responsive
Politics Web site (opensecrets.org) and an August 2000 article from
the New York Times. As opensecrets.org clearly indicates, however,
only 52.6 percent of Bush's total $193 million in campaign funds came
from individuals. The Times article Moore references actually states
that 739 people gave two-thirds of the soft money raised by the
Republican Party (which uses its money for ?party-building? activities
that support all GOP candidates, not just Bush) in the 2000 election
cycle as of June of that year. Whether out of malice or laziness,
Moore conflates the party's soft money with Bush's campaign funds.? (
read the entire article here:
http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20020403.html )
By far the most criticism, however, comes for his highly successful
?Bowling For Columbine.? In the UK?s Telegraph, Damian Thompson points
out even more obvious discrepancies: ?It takes Moore just a couple of
paragraphs to absolve Osama bin Laden of the destruction of the World
Trade Centre. ?How could a guy sitting in a cave in Afghanistan, have
? plotted so perfectly the hijacking of four planes and then
guaranteed that three of them would end up precisely on their
targets?? he asks. Viewers of ?Bowling for Columbine? may find this
puzzling, remembering the film's insistence that ?Osama bin Laden used
his expert CIA training to murder 3,000 people?; but Moore regards
consistency as the hobgoblin of little minds.? (?Only stupid white men
would believe Michael Moore,?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/01/01/do0101.xml
)
Even the simplest figures seem to have gotten past Moore?s editors,
Lowell Ponte of Frontpage: ??You are never going to be rich? like
Horatio Alger, writes Moore. ?The chance of that happening is about
one in a million.? (This means that in our nation of 293 million
people, we have only 293 millionaires.?when in fact we have literally
millions of citizens with a net worth in excess of a million dollars ?
and would have millions more if government greed and excessive
taxation could be ended?but is it fair to apply logic to an utterly
irrational hyper-Leftist ideologue like Moore?)? (?Michael Moore:
Class Clown,? http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=11470
)
Forbes also points out:
?TITLE: Moore titled the movie Bowling for Columbine because, he
suggests, the two kids who shot up Columbine High in Littleton, Colo.,
went to a 6 a.m. bowling class on the day of the attack.
ACTUALLY: Cool story, but police say it's not true. They say the
shooters skipped their bowling class that day.
MISSILES: Moore wonders whether kids at Columbine might be driven to
violence because of the "weapons of mass destruction" made in Lockheed
Martin's assembly plant in Littleton. Moore shows giant rockets being
assembled.
ACTUALLY: Lockheed Martin's plant in Littleton doesn't make weapons.
It makes space launch vehicles for TV satellites.
WELFARE: Moore places blame for a shooting by a child in Michigan on
the work-to-welfare program that prevented the boy's mother from
spending time with him.
ACTUALLY: Moore doesn't mention that mom had sent the boy to live in a
house where her brother and a friend kept drugs and guns.
BANK: Moore says North Country Bank & Trust in Traverse City, Mich.,
offered a deal where, "if you opened an account, the bank would give
you a gun." He walks into a branch and walks out with a gun.
ACTUALLY: Moore didn't just walk in off the street and get a gun. The
transaction was staged for cameras. You have to buy a long-term CD,
then go to a gun shop to pick up the weapon after a background check.?
(?Bowl-O-Drama,? by Daniel Lyons, Forbes,
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2002/1209/059.html?_requestid=2372&_requestid=6287
)
In ?Bowling for Columbine,? one of the more famous Moore fabrications
is ?altered footage of an ad run by the Bush/Quayle campaign in 1988
to implicate Bush in the Willie Horton scandal. Making a point about
the use of racial symbols to scare the American public, he shows the
Bush/Quayle ad called ?Revolving Doors,? which attacked Michael
Dukakis for a Massachusetts prison furlough program by showing
prisoners entering and exiting a prison?Superimposed over the footage
of the prisoners is the text ?Willie Horton released. Then kills
again.? This caption is displayed as if it is part of the original ad.
However, existing footage, media reports and the recollections of
several high-level people involved in the campaign indicate that the
?Revolving Doors? ad did not explicitly mention Horton, unlike the
notorious ad run by the National Security Political Action Committee
(which had close ties to Bush media advisor Roger Ailes). In addition,
the caption is incorrect -- Horton did not kill anyone while on prison
furlough (he raped a woman).? (Ben Fritz, ?Viewers Beware,?
Spinsanity; to read the complete text, go here
http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20021119.html )
Dave Koppel, in his odd write up defending Moore says, ?The
introduction of Bowling is a purported clip from an NRA documentary,
announcing that the viewer is about to see a National Rifle
Association film. Obviously, Bowling is not an NRA film, and so Moore
makes it clear right at the beginning that Bowling is not a
documentary (based on true facts), but rather a mockumentary (based on
fictitious ?facts?). It's a humorous movie, but the biggest joke is on
the audience, which credulously accepts the ?facts? in the movie as if
they were true.? (?Bowling Truths,? The National Review,
http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel040403.asp ) Interestingly,
Moore himself doesn?t defend his work as anything other than serious.
?I don't know what category to put my films in,? Moore says. ?They're
like a film version of the op-ed page, and not a traditional
documentary. They are cinematic essays presenting my point of view. I
may be right or wrong, but if I state something as a fact, I need the
viewers to trust that those facts are correct." (?Ebert on Michael
Moore,? reprinted here:
http://journalscape.com/derekjames/2003-04-11-13:09 )
So outrageous did many people find the supposed facts in ?Bowling,?
that several websites have been set up to provide the real facts
behind the film; for example: http://www.bowlingfortruth.com At this
website, you?ll find a myriad of articles about the truth of Michael
Moore?s projects. Also notable is http://moorewatch.com/index.php
In addition, Moore?s Oscar (for ?Bowling?) is in question. The Academy
wishes to revoke it, given the dubious nature of the film. For more on
this, see ?Michael Moore?s Oscar Targeted? on World Net Daily:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=32217
Regards,
Kriswrite
Keywords Used:
"Michael Moore" facts
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