Talk Radio Rips Moore - For Being Too Much Like Them

by Steve Young

With "Fahrenheit 9/11," Michael Moore has mangled the truth; hand-picked 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 hollarin' 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 F-9/11Êsaying Goebbels or Riefenstahl could have not made anything more anti-American.

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

There's a young radio host fella at KABC in L.A. who called Moore a big fat vicious slob. He said that if an earthquake felled the roof at a theater where F-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 lockstep with them (got to save something for the next column). Ah. Maybe one.

This 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 mike 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 myth 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 with a bit more wit. Perhaps Talk Radio is a bit miffed (and somewhat jealous) that someone on the left finally figured out their 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 Limbaughlites 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 docuspin to get their point across while making the big Clear Channel docuspin bucks.

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

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

Which is exactly my point.