Friday, July 02, 2004

The Test

"The Devil came by this morning / Said he had something to show me." - The Chemical Brothers, "The Test."

Just read Brent Bozell's latest column on Fahrenheit 9/11. As the President of the Media Research Center, dedicated to documenting "liberal bias" in the media, he naturally has a point of view on the movie. And here it is.

"For the Left, this film is a test to separate the wheat from the chaff, the honorable from the dishonorable, the serious from the unserious. In the Clinton years, conservatives needed to step away from the unsubstantiated videos that talked in conspiratorial tones about all of Clinton's heinous secret crimes. To be taken seriously, every liberal today should criticize "Fahrenheit 9-11" as an affront to journalism and civil discourse."

A couple of points.

1. Let's make one thing clear, you and your kind will never take liberals seriously unless we become conservatives. You've made that abundantly clear, so criticizing Mr. Moore's movie in order to curry your favor? It's a pretty stupid idea. It won't work.

2. You compare Michael Moore's movie to ads put out by the Republican Party. Michael Moore is a private citizen, as are the people who produced and distributed the film, and so such a comparison is false.

3. You exaggerated Mr. Moore's movie's points in order to better fit them to your own ends. The most outrageous example of this is your statement on how Mr. Moore presents the connections between the Bush Family and the Saudi Royal Family. You state, "The Bushes and the bin Ladens plotted September 11 together?" Mr. Moore did not state that in the movie. I know that because many people who do believe that President Bush let 9/11 happen on purpose (LIHOP) or made it happen on purpose (MIHOP) are upset that Mr. Moore didn't present their beliefs (for the record I ascribe to neither LIHOP nor MIHOP).

At any rate, this distortion of Michael Moore's beliefs to suit your own political ends is probably libelous.

At any rate Mr. Bozell, you've settled it for me; I am going to go see Fahrenheit 9/11 this very weekend, and then come back here and praise it. I just don't like being bullied (I won't blind myself to it's flaws, though, and I'm sure it has some).

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