Michael Moore has a rub bud. Better believe that he’s on a path to destruction; Bush destruction. He’s said it plain and simple. I take no offense at the idea that someone can be out to oust a regime, and I have no problem seeing that there can be differences that drive people to campaign one way or the other. That’s us; America. That’s good. What I take offense to is someone actually believing, or pretending to believe that they can take pictures, add sound, edit, overlap the pictures in the order that they want to, cut out what they don’t want, publish it and call it a documentary. In truth we all do it to some degree; there is really no such thing as a documentary. When I put the pen to this page or fingers to the keyboard as it were (pen to page? wow, I really am dating myself aren’t I?) I am essentially telling my version of the truth, just like every blogger we know.

There is a certain amount of rhetorical juggling we all do to create an atmosphere that is both believable and sellable at the same time, and the balance of those elements eventually makes us a commodity that others buy into. Therefore integrity has a lot to do with the end results of our efforts as writers, photographers, painters, musicians, columnists, and documentary film makers. However, no matter how close to reality we can get in a media form, there is always an edge of ourselves involved, and therefore if we have a following it only follows that our followers will have a like-minded position and will gravitate towards our work and nod their heads with us. That is life.

My mother, among many pseudo-culturally literate positions that she took, had a saying about churches. As a child I asked her once why there were black churches and white churches. She answered simply that, “most people gather up with those who are like themselves because they are comfortable with that.” Years later when struggling with racial issues in my own life I came to resent that and it seemed to me an excuse for segregation or bigotry. However, I have come to see now that this was not an excuse for anything, but rather simply a truthful observation. People gravitate toward what they are comfortable with.

There seem to be many who are comfortable with Michael Moore’s version of the truth and applaud it. It won the Cannes film festival and received a standing ovation there of 45 minutes in length. Please note that this is France. It seems rather odd that the country that stood for liberty and democratic values so much so that they gave us one of our greatest memorials to liberty in the statue that stands in NY harbor now stands for 45 minutes applauding a work that in “my church’s” definition is downright manipulation and distortion.

Just having seen the 7/1/04 rerun of Michael on Charlie Rose for a full hour of confrontation on the Fahrenheit film (which by the way brings up so many other images for us who lived in the time when Fahrenheit 451 was a big deal and meant so much about governmental subterfuge and loss of freedom by the individual, etc, I’ll talk about the old film in a moment as that is an important comparison – but the link is certainly not lost on us) and Charlie was certainly not soft on him about the issues, Charlie raised the specters of the details of the film and most certainly brought out the fact that the film is not based on anything more than Michael Moore’s opinions. Mike’s “church” is large, yes, and he has a large following, but it was confirmed by Charlie that he was indeed “preaching to the choir”. In response to that, Michael said that yes he was but, “my purpose in the film is for the film not to be finished by me, but by having a reaction take place whereby people who are not normally involved at all in the process of government would leave the theatre deciding to become involved.” CR: “So you mean go out and vote?” MM: “Yes”. CR: You mean go out and vote for John Kerry. MM: No, I mean go out and vote, period. CR: Against George Bush is what you mean. MM: No no, I mean just go out and get involved and vote period.

My best intuition tells me, after seeing that interview, that MM has got his foot in two different worlds and is only deceiving his self into thinking that he is truly telling all there is to tell. He actually believes that he has made a documentary and has been as close to actual truth as possible. But when cornered with his own strongly opinionated bias he tries to make out as some egalitarian with the saintly purpose of giving people enough doubt as to make their own decisions concerning the matter of Iraq and George W. I seemed to think after awhile of watching him that I could see another mouth appear, and he was speaking from two distinct different mouths, both saying very different-sounding things.

Other people can see this as well. It’s political posturing. A reviewer of a Minneapolis paper (and this is a heavily democratic town where they like things anti-Bush in general) said that the film was heavily biased. Anyone can see it. He is unabashedly anti-Bush, yet he says he’s not skewing his material to reflect that, “only relating the facts”. Please. Can’t Michael Moore simply say with great tact and flair, “Bush is horrible for the country and I don’t like him so I made this film in hopes of helping the democrats, or anyone else for that matter, win the next election so he will not be in office”? Why can’t he just say that? Why is it that what is so painfully obvious to the rest of us is so lost on one who is supposedly so well-informed?