Nation-Building >> Michael Moore's Ascent - And an Acknowledgment of Dean's Fundraising Appeal in Hollywood | return to front page

Frank Rich writes in today's New York Times that Michael Moore just may have more impact as a serious/funny everyman than the so-called "liberal network" that some Hollywood types are attempting to establish to counter the Rush's, Ann Coulter's, and Sean Hannity's of the world. According to the article, Moore has struck a nerve with his commentary, his unwillingness to shrink from the "liberal" label, and his refusal to dish it out as well as the far-right. In short, he's drawn some blood. An excerpt:

To Mr. Moore, the "virtual insanity" he has provoked in "the Bill O'Reillys and others" on the right is an indication that he, unlike many of his fellow showbiz antiwar protesters, has actually drawn blood. That's a shock to the conservative system. Liberals have been so lame in battling on the mass media's turf that Democratic fat cats in February ponied up $10 million to finance a talk-show radio network that will field hosts to counter Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. Yet Mr. Moore, without a talk show, may be just the lethal heat-seeking show-business weapon they have been looking for. It's telling that conservatives who deride him as a big, fat idiot sound as worried about Mr. Moore as liberals were about Mr. Limbaugh when he began his rise to superstardom.

Like Mr. Limbaugh at his least grandiose best, Mr. Moore's persona is more funny than angry, more everyman than show-biz. He is not, as he puts it, "a didactic, wimpy kind of liberal" — one of those whiners that makes audiences reach for the remote faster than you can say "Phil Donahue." Mr. Moore may not be subtle as a filmmaker or a polemicist, but the grandstanding glee of his broad strokes is precisely what makes him succeed as a showman. "Bowling for Columbine," with its wild (and sometimes dubious) leaps of logic and Kubrickesque juxtapositions of grim content (carnage-filled newsreels) with humorous trappings (Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World") makes a seemingly shopworn liberal gripe (the American culture of violence) seem like a lark.

The column closes with a reference to Moore's new work, "Fahrenheit 911" which looks at the oil connections between Texas, the Bush family, the Bin Laden family and other Saudis that will be release two weeks prior to the election. Rich notes that this in combination with Hollywood "lining up to contribute to Howard Dean" might prove a potent combination against the Bush White House.