He might be, and we’d never know it. I don’t think he (Moore) hates America. Pushy, loud, opinionated, often annoying, a little bit loopy sometimes, yes. America hater, no. He is more what you might call “the loyal opposition”. Sometimes it takes someone like him to get people thinking and talking. You can take what he says, bounce it against what you yourself know, and if there is a glimmer of truth, you want to look into it more. If you find he is just hot air, you reject him. As long as I can remember, anyone who questioned anything at all was a “hater or a traitor”. Remember the 50s? If you didn’t want to kill Commies you were a traitor. Then people found out Joe McCarthy was a liar and fraud. Opps. During the sixties, if you opposed the Vietnam war, you were a traitor. During the Nixon years if you were a nattering nabob of negativity or pointy headed intellectual, you were “evil”. Then Spiro gets busted for stealing money to “beautify” his house and Nixon gets caught bugging the Watergate hotel. Oops. Now, if you dare question Bush or anything he does, you are a “traitor”. Moore and “his ilk” are not traitors. They are a thorn in people’s sides. They are that annoying little cousin who sticks out his tongue and says “I know what you did nya nya nya”. They are those little pains in the ass that are sometimes right. As far as Rush Limbaugh, all I can say is, the book title left out two words - “hypocrital lying”. As in Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Lying Hypocritical Idiot
Here in Virginia you couldn’t AVOID his books. They were everywhere, and heavily advertised. Still are.
I am a Michael Moore fan, and I think he really does love the hell out of America. I also think he’s a loud-mouthed blowhard who needs to take a vacation and relax for a few months on a beach somewhere, drinking highly alcoholic fruity beverages.
Same deal in Kansas. Limbaugh, Hannity, those Swift Boat dudes, they are all prominately featured at mall bookstores. They might be harder to find at some hippy, second-hand hole-in-the-wall, but you expect those places to have a heterogenized selection.
You hang out in the wrong bookstores, Starving Artist. You need to check out the independently-owned bookstores rather than the big chains.
In my store, I have a copy of Michael Moore is a Big Fat Stupid White Man and it’s sitting on the shelf right next to Stupid White Men and *Dude, Where’s My Country?"
I stock Al Franken right next to Ann Coulter. I have Dereliction of Duty next to My Life. Why I Hate The Democrats is right next to Why I Hate the Republicans (and if you already haven’t, Liberal, read both of those–they’re hilarious).
There are certainly independents that show the bias of the owners, but most of us that own bookstores really try to carry everything that our readers might want. Speaking only for myself here, I think it’s important for people to read both sides of an issue. Where I used to live, we had a very liberal talk radio station and a very conservative one. I’d listen to one of them on the way to work and one of them on the way home.
OK, maybe your rant wasn’t long. Maybe it wasn’t even a rant. But I believe my description of your claim, and its irrelevance, is perfectly accurate.
(Feel free to now spend the next 6 months calling me a liar over this issue if you like… that will actually oddly parallel the vitriol you spewed at MM and F911 despite not actually having seen F911)
I need to keep in mind that other posters can’t read my mind nor know the context I’m thinking of when I say something.
It’s true that now books by Limbaugh, Hannity, etc. can be readily found. The period I was speaking of previously was approximately eight to ten years ago, shortly after Limbaugh’s first book came out. Much has changed since then. Conservative voices are much more common, and there is more out there to offset them, vis-a-vis Franken, Moore, etc.
My apologies for not making myself more clear.
They both sound like something I would love to read! Thanks. 
Your lie stands on its on. There’s no point swatting at a squashed gnat.
Why I Hate the Democrats, ISBN 1592284361
Why I Hate the Republicans, ISBN 159228437X
Both are from Lyons Press and both are by Randy Howe. Enjoy! 
Yeah, I’ve lost a lot of credibility in this thread. If there were a version of libel/slander that applies specifically to message boards, my posts would be the very definition of it.
I checked them out at Amazon. They look just wonderful! Unfortunately, we have just spent nearly our entire life-savings to buy a house. We’re in severe pinch-penny mode right now. But as soon as I have a spare 20 bucks, those books are at the top of my list. Thanks again. 
Just to be a complete asshole and have a little fun, does this make him a Flip Flopper? ROFL
MaxtheVool wasn’t the only one to have a different take on the meaning of that post of yours. Your information was not based on an actual viewing of the film, but allegedly on MM’s poor recollection – if I understand you correctly. Thus, what you originally said was inaccurate. That did not make you a liar. Max’s interpretation of what you said may have been inaccurate, but it was certainly understandable why he might have misunderstood. He wasn’t lying either.
Starving Artist has a good line that you might like to remember:
Not if you hate almost everybody.
I don’t think it’s the case that “almost everybody” is a Republican or Democrat. Contrary to the Bush doctrine, there actually are people all over the world.
But if you hate almost everybody, that would include Democrats and Republicans. Did you misunderstand what I was saying?
Other people around the world can be compartmentalized too. According to the “are ya with us or agin us” clause, there are two groups, “us” and “them”. <wink wink>
Damn! I think he’s here:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=5323681&postcount=49
It goes without saying that George W. Bush, the current occupant of the White House (not for very much longer), would make an absolutely terrible Doper. The man can barely string three coherent thoughts together when his campaign for another term is on the line.
John Kerry, OTOH, would do quite well here. So would John Edwards and John McCain.
I think Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld both have the smarts to handle themselves here. The question is, could either man get over himself long enough to debate reasonably, or would they both quickly go the way of Collounsbury, and get banned for being jerkish to those who disagreed with them? (Those who miss Col’s take on the world can find him here, btw. Some of you already have, of course.)
Tom DeLay would get his ass handed to him. So would John Ashcroft.
It’s difficult to imagine Paul Wolfowitz doing that well here; True Believers don’t thrive in this environment. The other second-level DoD guys, like Doug Feith, would also go down in flames.
I think the jury’s out over whether Michael Moore would do well here. One of the reasons he makes the sorts of documentary/polemics he makes is that that’s how he can best get his message across. He’s smart enough to do well here; like with Cheney and Rumsfeld, the question is whether he could adapt. I submit that Moore’s chances are considerably better; he hasn’t been treated like God by those around him.
FWIW, the issue with Moore’s GMU appearance seems to have been the combination of his partisanship and his $35K speaker’s fee, and that he’s welcome to speak there if he doesn’t charge:
I’m not sure whether this “leading Virginia conservative” doesn’t believe in the free market, or whether he feels that GMU shouldn’t bother trying to get top-rank speakers to speak there. While I agree that it’s astounding what well-known speakers can charge for an hour of their time these days, the reality is that if you want to have someone who’s been in the public eye speak at your university, that’s the going rate.
As for me, I feel that deciding who to book or not book based on whether or not they are partisan is, quite frankly, absurd. Since it is a public educational institution, I’d be bothered if their partisan speakers were all from one side of the spectrum, but I think exposure to intelligent advocates of partisan points of view is a fitting part of a liberal education. I’d be fine with it if they got Moore and Karl Rove there as a package deal. (Bet Rove would make a much worse Doper than Moore!)
Since George Will’s name has been brought up, I think he’d need to work his way up to speed to be much of a poster here. Like the President, he’s a guy who doesn’t have to deal with strong challenges to his thinking very often. I think Will has the brainpower to cope, but the typical Will column is full of unsupported assumptions and bad arguments that wouldn’t survive for a half hour on this board. He may have been sharp once; these days, he’s the conservative version of David Broder, and that’s no compliment.
- Bush would get hammered. Simply repeating a mantra with nothing to back it up earns a quick flame around here. It is like chumming for sharks.
- Kerry would do OK, he can think clearly and is quick on his feet.
- Edwards might do OK, I’m waiting to see him debate before I know for sure but he looks promising.
- McCain would do alright, once he gave up the party line and said what he really felt, just like when he called Bush on his flaky campaign ads.
- Cheney would just be fun to watch, sort of like ants under a magnifying glass. Everybody tossing “fuck yourself” back and forth for hours. Same for Rumsfeld.
- DeLay and Ashcroft would be dog food.
- Wolfowitz would be a fun target.
- Feith, well he would last about <snap> that long. There is a reason General Tommy Franks calls him “the fucking stupidest person on the planet”.
- Moore might do OK, but people would drive him crazy, asking for cites and proofs of what he says. I think he’d be up to the task but he doesn’t strike me as the patient sort. I can imagine him telling us “look dumbass, it’s already in my first 2,000 pages”
Are you kidding? Bush behind the keyboard would be one of those Fearless Warriors of Cyberspace, the guy who sticks to his arguments no matter what, gladly flaming all opponents from the safety of his mother’s basement. He might not be particularly coherent nor consistent, but he’ll gladly flaunt his ignorance anyway.
Hell, I’d only be mildly surprised if it turns out that Brutus was George W. Bush in disguise…