Much as I dislike being on the same side of an issue as Oni...I have to agree with him on Michael Moore, although worded in a manner a bit less volitile. The basic problem is that Moore always assumes he's talking to the choir, so he rarely bothers to back up his observations with hard facts, just assuming everyone knows what he's talking about. To be fair, many of the problems people have with his work might have perfectly reasonable explanations, but, taking any criticism as an attack, he responds to critics with verbal haranguing or completely ignoring them, rather than answer their questions.
Here's some examples of problems people have found with his works. Concerning his book "Stupid White Men."
http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20020403.html
"Most baffling of Moore's misstatements may come in a listing of categories that the U.S. tops, such as per capita energy use and births to teenagers. In a blatant misrepresentation, he states: "We're number one in budget deficit (as a percentage of GDP)." When Moore wrote his book last year, the United States was running a budget surplus, as it had for the previous three years. "
Even people in the same political spectrum as him have grown tired of having to defend their policies while the opposition attacks the straw men Moore sets up. (In short, if Moore lies when making his points, and the opposition can take down his arguments by pointing out the lies, everyone else has to argue all the harder just to be trusted.)
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/02/47/film-powers.php
(Go about halfway down for a differing opinion on Bowling for Columbine.)
In fact, sometimes hatred for the man himself starts getting in the way of making reasonable arguments on the topics at hand.
http://www.reason.com/hod/bd101802.shtml
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www.nj.com/entertainment/ledger/index.s ... 820710.xml[/url]
"I think Michael is a great showman and propagandist for political causes that I support, and I'm delighted at his success," e-mails Salon editor-in-chief David Talbot, whose Web site also runs Spinsanity's articles. "I just don't think people should confuse him with being a journalist."
For me, I dislike Moore because of a little something that happened to him after his first film "Roger and Me" came out. One of his staff got canned. Figuring that imitation was the sincerest form of flattery, the ex-staffer got a couple of friends and a movie camera and started following Moore around every day. (This is what Moore did to "Roger" in his own film.) Despite the fact that "Roger" was a big bad evil corporate cutthroat, he never did anything about Moore following him around other than get angry a couple of times.
Moore, on the other hand, called the cops and had the ex-staffer arrested. In my book, that makes him a hypocrite.
Again, all IMHO.
Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheueren Ungeziefer verwandelt.
