Filmmaker Michael Moore grazes in CNN’s green room Monday before appearing on “The Situation Room.”
The powers that be will probably take away my left wing when I say this, but here it is: Michael Moore is an ass.
Moore’s brand of “gotcha” guerrilla humor was amusing in 1989 when he made the documentary “Roger and Me,” but his shtick has long since lost its allure to me at least.
I must admit to not watching his major films in recent times including “Fahrenheit 9/11” or his most recent “Sicko.” That is because he has become such a shrill, unrelenting propagandist for his causes that he is just as bad as the right wing’s own Assh**e A-Team which include the likes of Hannity, O’Reilly, Coulter, Malkin, etc.
Moore appeared on CNN’s “The Situation Room” yesterday and instead of shilling for his new documentary on American health care he attacked Wolf Blitzer and Dr. Sanjay Gupta for not spouting his “my way or the highway” ultra-liberal views of the Iraq war or health care. The wild-eyed Moore could not handle having his facts checked and challenged so he spent his time ranting like some lunatic.
Reiterating that I have not seen nor likely will not see “Sicko” I understand that his film tries to make a case that socialized medicine such as that practiced in Cuba or Canada is the best way out of America’s health care woes. When I was younger and enamored with the concepts of Marx and Lenin, I too thought a socialist approach to medicine was what this country needed to take care of its young, old and in between.
Now that my medical treatment, by necessity, is provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs, I see socialized medicine in action. And if the VA is a harbinger of what socialization would look like in this country, then I think a lot of people should consider living elsewhere. Perhaps the VA model would not be a national model but I feel that it would be a likely configuration because government leaders are not imaginative enough to try something that might be better. If that is so, God (Allah, Bert, fill in the blanks) help us.
Extremists on either side of the political spectrum such as Moore or Ann Coulter do nothing but muddy the waters of discourse. These shrill voices and others such as Rush Limburger are among the reasons why American society has become so toxic.
Under the First Amendment people have the right to be asses, if that’s what they want to be. Apparently, a lot of people we hear and see every day spouting their opinions freely exercise that right. Isn’t America great?