..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..R.J. Matson
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Michael Wilmington

March 28, 2003

On Michael Moore's Jesus Culpa
by David Poland

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Michael Moore just can't understand why some people seem to hate him. (In fact, he won't even admit that some people hate him, preferring to pretend that Sunday night's sentiment was nothing more than a couple of stagehands near a microphone, followed by flurry of support for him. So much for accusations of fictitiousness.)

Let me explain…

Moore happened. Okay. So how does he handle it? He writes an Op-Ed for the Los Angeles Times and explains his thought process. But that's not quite enough for Michael Moore. And here is where he gets into trouble, devolving from brilliant agent provocateur and filmmaker to horse's ass… he opens and closes his article with the claim, so obviously false that one almost has to assume it's meant to be mocking, that all of this came to him because he was in church, reflecting on the evil of war.

PLEASE!!!

I have no problem with him wanting to use the bully pulpit. I have no problem with him abusing the bully pulpit. But to hide behind the church is, even for a nice Jewish boy like myself, offensive. Worse, it makes an honest man seem like a liar who will spin however he needs to in order to win an argument.

I love Bowling for Columbine. As much as I enjoyed Spellbound, Bowling For Columbine deserved the Oscar. And having Michael Moore write a piece like this that seems like nothing but let-me-back-into-the-club-you-just-invited-me-to-join baloney… it's as tarnishing to him, in my eyes, as any of the season's worst offenses. The bad speech wasn't… this was.