:: Netmarcos' Notes ::

:: Monday, July 28, 2003 ::

KAY S. HYMOWITZ asks in a piece titled, "STUPID WHITE LIES
- Michael Moore, Humbug "
He's mendacious and obnoxious, so what accounts for his appeal?

Recently a wealthy Chicago couple named Drobney announced their plan to bankroll a left-wing talk radio station. They needn't bother. The left already has a multimedia star--and even without a radio station, he's bigger than Rush, has more fans than O'Reilly, and sells books faster than Coulter. Followers plead with this "folk hero for the American people" to run for president. Reviewers compare him to Twain, Voltaire and Swift. Unlike Rush & Co., the appeal of this blue-collar megastar extends far beyond the hoi polloi. Hollywood and Manhattan agents wave gazillion-dollar contracts in front of his face. He wins prestigious awards that will never grace the Limbaugh or O'Reilly dens--Oscars, Emmys, Writers Guild Awards and jury prizes at Cannes (where his latest movie received a record 13-minute standing ovation). People stop him on the streets of Berlin, Paris and London--where, according to Andrew Collins of the Guardian, they consider him "the people's filmmaker."

Ms. Hymowitz continues...

Mr. Moore is hardly the first to engage in a little nostalgic mythmaking. What makes him unique is his willingness to construct his myths on a scaffolding of calculated untruths. It's an irony worth savoring. Mr. Moore's chief conceit is that he is the lonely truth teller, seeking out the story no one else is brave enough to touch. He repeatedly blasts the media for ignoring issues that only he, a lowly college dropout, has the courage to bring before a hoodwinked public. "In the beginning there was a free press--well not really, but it sounded good," the announcer of his TV series, "The Awful Truth," would say as the show opened. But the awful truth is that Mr. Moore himself is a virtuoso of lying--which is the only way he can give the appearance of truth to his untenable theories.

She then classifies Mr. Moore's lies and highlights a few examples of each type: bold-faced lies, lies of omission, artistic lies, slanted, insinuating lies, lies of exaggeration... you get the idea.

I would not have been so generous in my characterization of Mr. Moore nor of his work, but it is a good article none the less.

:: Mark 10:13 AM [+] ::
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