Michael Moore is a big fat phony- why do people support this lying hypocrite?

The BBQ Pit
1

Last night I saw the revelatory anti-Moore documentary Manufacturing Dissent and was totally impressed at how it exposed this schlub to be nothing more than a big fat phony. And the film was made by Canadians, not Republicans.

Basically the movie shows how 90% of the people who have ever been his ally now have unpleasant things to say about him based on his self-aggrandizing actions and his dishonest film making. Moore and his minions don’t seem to get the basic point that you aren’t supposed to fudge with the facts or timelines of a documentary, because a doc is supposed to be accurate and factual, and people come away believing everything they saw on screen is true. They believe Charlton Helton gave his cold dead hands speech in Flint three weeks after a kid died from a gunshot there, they believe he got a gun minutes after opening a checking account, that no one in Canada locks their front door, all complete lies presented as facts. He even completely made up some news story about a news truck being stolen by an unemployed auto worker or some such, the point of which was completely lost on me anyway. He read this criticism at one of his rallies once, and his response- uh yeah its a movie, movies are edited :confused: and the idiot crowd goes nuts in support, not realizing or caring he just admitted he duped them into believing made up nonsense.

How did this inarticulate phony loser get to be the spokesman for a generation of Democrats? He basically admits how in the film- the fact that there are dozens of rabble rousing Republicans, but no equivalent Democrats, and he just filled the void. His speeches wouldn’t rouse me off the couch to take a piss- they’re basically just twenty different ways of saying Bush sucks. He can’t debate, and he’s not a quick thinker (case in point- some average woman on the Donahue show asked him why he was denigrating a project in Flint that raised 75k and asked him what he’s doing for the city- he looks like Bush during My Pet Goat for a few seconds and then responds- “I’m sorry I made a movie people want to see?”).
He mocks Bush supporters in his audience that are silent or idiots and says they are welcome, but those that attempt to expose him, he surreptitiously has removed.

Onstage when he wins his Acadamy Award, he’s had months to plan to say something brilliant, and we get some mushmouth crap ending with ‘Shame on you Mr. Bush?’ His attack on a 90 year old Charton Heston, who he duped into getting an interview by using his phony NRA cred, comes off as not crafty or brilliant but just plain assholish. The holding of the dead girl’s picture to Heston is pathetic, especially when Heston was pro NRA (rifles, liek they have in Canada, which Moore is ok with), and the girl was killed with a handgun.

Here’s a guy who’s spent his career ambushing people, trying to get them at inopportune moments to embarass and expose them, but when the makers of this documentary did the same to him, he became who he really is- a raging phony who can’t take what he dishes out. He had them physically removed from speeches and then acted like he didn’t know who they were, and of course they are welcome and he will gladly be interviewed by them- next year maybe :confused:

The guy is only interested in his own lard ass, no one else. He saw a void and used it to advance himself and his career, period. He goes on and on about the mindless Bush followers, yet we see several crowds of mindless Democrat college students mindlessly laughing and eating up every dumb lie he spews to them- what’s the difference in the two? At least Bush probably believes the shit he dishes out, Moore is just spreading lies and fear for his own advancement, and morons kids eat it up. Its not like he’s changing anything- his film are making HIM money, but he’s had zero effect on the USA- Bush has won twice since Moore “exposed” him for being the same phony liar he himself is. What a dick.

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Come to think of it maybe this is more a rant than a debate, if its better suited for a different forum, feel free to move, thanks.

3

I think Michael Moore is a bit of a bastrard, but Fahrenheit 911 and Sicko were both good movies that made a lot of good points.

Bowling For Columbine was shit and he’s since been called on all his crap (including all the lies and distortions). This made F911 and Sicko much better than they probably would have been.

4

I agree he has good points, but my main problem is that he has enough true and factual good points to work with without making up shit. Bush et al have done enought screwed up shit to legitimately fill twenty movies, why make up stuff? If you aren’t that good of an investigator or film maker that you have to lie to show Bush is evil or that American gun laws or fucked up, something a ten year old could do, let someone more skilled do the work for you.

Showing Bush making jokes about “his people” the elite while he was obviously doing comedy, and presenting it as real is poor journalism, especially when there surely exists legitimate tape of him saying similar things in a non comedic setting.

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I have no idea what all the fuss was about his F911 movie. It was such an amateurish hack job about real, important issues. He basically did drive-by shit-on this person or that group and never allowed for rebutal or follow up or questions of any kind. It had no depth because he failed to go into any depth on any point he was making. His excuse of “Well I’m just here to raise awareness of these issues, it’s up to the viewer to explore in depth” is just a total cop out. Just immature IMHO.
I have no respect for him and he falls into the same pile of crap as Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Rolling Stone Magazine, and all the others who just love to love themselves, spew their opinions and then run away with their eyes closed and hands over their ears.

6

Michael Moore used to be funny. That’s why I was a fan of his even though I disagrees strongly with his ignorant views on economics and politics. The message of Roger & Me was crap, but it was an entertaining movie. Lately, though, Moore has cared much more about scoring cheap political points instead of being funny. He is taking himself way too seriously and is losing much of what made him a good “documentarian.”

Moore is clever, though. In a lot of his movies he doesn’t outright lie (there are a few minor mistakes I’ve seen in some). What he does is leave impressions that are completely false with his editing and his leading commentary. Like in F911 when the Secret Service comes and talks to him when he’s outside the Saudi embassy. He says something like he’s ten blocks from the White House and the President’s body guards are there to question him. Well, that’s kind of true, but it’s not the whole truth. The Secret Service provides not only security for the President, but to embassies as well. Moore leaves the impression that the White House sent armed thugs to protect his Saudi cronies from being questioned. In reality, I’m sure that anyone filming outside an embassy would be questioned by the Secret Service. I’m also sure that Moore knows this but deliberately chose to leave an inaccurate impression with his viewers. That kind of lying saturates his last few movies.

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My favorite Moore-ism is from F911, and it’s when he presents the newspaper quote as a headline stating “Latest Florida Recount Shows Gore Wins Election” - and it turned out to actually be a letter to the editor and not a news article, and the newspaper even complained to Moore, who hand-waved it away.

He is a liar, pure and simple.

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I’ve only seen the Flint Michigan one…but it was brilliant.

I should see his others.

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Simple math - if it bleeds it leads. Moore is entertaining and sells movies because his subject matter is shocking.

Moore’s docu-drama-comedies have the same sort of sick pleasure as picking a scab. You know it’s bad for you, you know it’s ultimately counter-productive, but you just keep doing it anyways because it feels a bit good.

As far as being the spokesman for a generation of Democrats - yeah, the stupid ones and the Bush-is-teh-Hitler crowd, sure. Reasonable people, not so much - they see him for the partisan hack he really is.

YMMV.

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When I saw that scene with Charlton Heston I was absolutely appalled. I couldn’t believe anyone could possibly sink so low as to harass a man suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, even apart from the fact that his premise for doing so was extraordinarily retarded to begin with.

I also hated the “white men and the NRA are responsible for all of this country’s evils” cartoon. I guess that cartoon was supposed to be clever and funny. It wasn’t either. Especially when it depicted the KKK working together with the NRA. I guess Moore didn’t realize that the NRA was one of the first allies of freed black slaves and was instrumental in helping them supply themselves with weapons to defend themselves against the KKK.

Michael Moore is a fat shithead and a lousy filmmaker to boot. There used to be a great website called Bowling For Truth (and a sister website about Fahrenheit 9/11) that exposed all of Moore’s lies in an absolutely incontrovertible, straightforward and factually impeccable way, but unfortunately that site seems to not exist anymore. It systematically debunked every scene in both of Moore’s movies.

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In fairness to Moore (who I think is a talented propagandist but agree is largely full of shit), Heston was only in his 70s at the time of that interview, had not yet been diagnosed with Alzheimers, and the NRA is not limited to relaxing restrictions on rifles but also on handguns.

One of my biggest irritations with Michael Moore is that he still likes to show himself as a man of the people in cheap jeans and rumpled shirt when his personal fortune is in the 9 figures and his investments include shares of Halliburton.* He also had well witnessed prima donna fits and was, according to the hourly wage theater employees, very obnoxious and verbally abusive while doing a one man show in London because he didn’t feel he was receiving anywhere near enough money (a cite can be googled).

*Admittedly it’s not that Moore went to his broker and said “get me 1,000 shares of Halliburton”, but he’s invested in mutual funds and other investment consortiums that include H’burton in their portfolios.)

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It’s pretty much a given that Moore manipulates the facts in order to push a political agenda. The people who believe in this political agenda will also tend to believe in Moore because he’s telling them what they want to believe is true. Moore’s hardly unique in playing to his audience; you could substitute Rush Limbaugh or Anne Coulter or Sean Hannity or Bill O’Reilly and the same thing would be true.

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To be fair to Moore, I don’t think that Heston had announced (or even possibly been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s) when Moore interviewed him. I think Heston was still President of the NRA and as such, was a legitimate target for an interview.

In retrospect, the strange interview makes much more sense with the revelation of Heston’s condition. And Moore’s idiotic actions during the interview are inexcusable, regardless of the interviewee’s medical condition. But on the point of Moore knowingly exploiting Heston’s Alzheimer’s disease, I think Moore is innocent.

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Perhaps that “impeccable” list of Moore’s lies can be found elsewhere; if so, please supply a link. We keep hearing about all those lies, but the critics never get specific.

Any critique of Mr Moore that depends so heavily on his weight just isn’t all that convincing.

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This site Walks you through the lies, manipulations, falsehoods and deceits that are the earmark of a Moore movie. George Lucas makes better documentaries than Moore.

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Pun intended?

There are several sites out there that break down his b.s point by point, moorewatch.com is one. I believe moorewatch per Manufacturing Dissent is not run by Republicans, just non partisans who know he’s full of shit.

And no one is using his weight as a basis for him being a liar, just as a basis for a little humor- I mean hell the guy is in the public eye constantly, he’s at Cannes, the Academy Awards, you’d think he’d give a teensy little shit about his appearance, if only so that people would take him more seriously. The ball cap and jeans shtick is no different than what Larry the Cable Guy does- he didn’t do that early in his career. It’s “I’'m a regular guy like you” crap, is all.

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Yeah. Michael Moore is fat too. Has anyone pointed that out yet?

Fattie…

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I’d really like to see a cite on this. Here’s a brief history from the NRA’s own website - they list their activities in the early decades of the organization as running a shooting range. In 1903 they started sponsering shooting competitions. They formed their legislative division to defend second amendment rights in 1934. In 1949, they started teaching hunter safety. Their political affairs divison wasn’t formed until 1975. Somehow there’s there’s no mention of any program of supplying guns to freed slaves to fight the Klan.

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Here’s a pretty decent overview of some of Bowling’s truth stretching:

http://www.hardylaw.net/Truth_About_Bowling.html

20

You can’t possibly be criticizing him for that! At the time, it was an act of profound courage that got him booed off stage. But it needed to be said. And he was right. Only problem was, he was ahead of his time by at least a year.