I can feel it...Sicko is going to start hitting the news son, and I want to get ahead of the coming storm of activity.  I’ll admit, I have basically let you guys run the site for awhile now, the message boards and comments are pretty much the reason to come back.  I’ve had so much stuff happen this last year and change, and the easiest thing to let go of was this site.  For that I apologize.  I know we need to whip ourselves back into shape, so I want to get started in little ways that will help.

Moore weasels out of another case

Jabba runs that spice one more time.

Filmmaker Michael Moore did not libel the brother of Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols, a U.S. court said Tuesday.

The appeals court sided with a federal judge who in 2005 threw out James Nichols’ suit accusing Moore of libeling and defaming him in the Oscar-winning documentary, “Bowling for Columbine.”

Nichols said statements in the 2002 film could lead viewers to believe he was involved in the 1995 bombing, which killed 168 people. He also said the film invaded his privacy and inflicted emotional distress.

But Nichols “has not presented any evidence indicating that Michael Moore intended to falsely implicate James Nichols in the Oklahoma City bombing,” the appeals panel said.

That last sentence is the key, and the key word in that sentence is “intended.” That’s how Moore has always gotten away with it ever since he lost to the lawyer in Roger & Me.  He constructs just enough plausible deniability so that he is legally protected, but we all know exactly what he intends to portray when we watch teh film.

I tell you what, whatever he pays his legal staff?  It’s totally worth it.  This guy is slimier than a Louisiana Congressman and manages to walk away from every legal challenge put to him.  He’s like the Teflon Liar.  It would almost be admirable if it wasn’t so sleazy.

Still waiting for Mike to keep his promise

Moore:

12. We will not tolerate politicians who are corrupt and who are bought and paid for by the rich. We will go after any elected leader who puts him or herself ahead of the people. And we promise you we will go after the corrupt politicians on our side FIRST. If we fail to do this, we need you to call us on it. Simply because we are in power does not give us the right to turn our heads the other way when our party goes astray. Please perform this important duty as the loyal opposition.

From the Washington Post:

Rep. William Jefferson, the Louisiana Democrat who’s facing an ongoing federal corruption probe, is being granted a spot on the Homeland Security Committee, according to Democratic aides.

The appointment will be announced Friday, according to one aide who requested anonymity because the decision isn’t yet official.

Jefferson was removed from his seat on the Ways and Means Committee, one of the most important panels in Congress, by Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) last summer in an attempt to show how seriously Democrats viewed the allegations of corruption.

But the move by Pelosi, who was still minority leader at the time, infuriated members of the Congressional Black Caucus, who said Jefferson shouldn’t be punished unless he is indicted; federal prosecutors have yet to bring an indictment, despite an FBI raid 18 months ago on his home that yielded $90,000 in cash in his freezer.

Well, Mike?  Are you going to contact Pelosi’s office and make sure that the man who was actually videotaped taking a bribe - the exact money from which was found in the freezer in his home - is not put in charge of Homeland Security?  Remember, Jefferson also commandeered military vehicles during the Katrina evacuations to destroy and remove evidence from his New Orleans home.  This guy is dirty any way you slice it.

Well Mike?  You promised that you would clean up your side first, and all we had to do was to call your attention to it.  This will be the third time I have done so, and you’ve done…

Nothing.

Just like we said you would.

“He lied to me on so many levels”

Offered without comment, because what am I going to say that will top the words of a person who was both a victim of Columbine and used personally by Moore?

After Eric Harris shot him and left him for dead on the lawn of Columbine High School, all sixteen-year-old Mark Taylor could think about was seeing his family one more time before the life ebbed out of him. Fighting to stay conscious, he prayed, he babbled—and, with the aid of police and emergency workers, he made it to the ER, where doctors were amazed to find him still breathing despite massive blood loss from bullet wounds in the chest, side, thigh and leg.

Over the past eight years, Taylor, like other seriously wounded students at Columbine, has had a long road to recovery. He’s had letters and visits from rock stars, spent private time with Bill Clinton and appeared in a Michael Moore documentary. He’s also learned bitter lessons about false friends, the fickle media and the fleetingness of fame. And belatedly, he’s published his own entry in the growing pile of books about the tragedy, I Asked, God Answered: A Columbine Miracle.

...

Also unmentioned in the book is Taylor’s role in the making of Bowling for Columbine, Michael Moore’s 2002 documentary about the American gun culture that uses the Columbine shootings as a touchstone for reflection and polemics. Taylor and fellow students Brooks Brown and Richard Castaldo joined Moore for a crucial sequence dealing with Kmart selling ammo to minors ("Attention, Kmart Shoppers,” July 12, 2001). Although the stunt shamed the company into changing its policies, Taylor doesn’t have fond memories of Moore—who, he says, used him and other Columbine survivors for his own purposes and then discarded them.

“He lied to me on so many levels,” Taylor says now. “He said that if I would be in his movie, he’d get me in front of the right people, help me make my own movies. He made promise after promise.... Man, he is something. You’d have to get to know him on a personal level.”

Thanks to reed for the tip.

Asking ourselves a question

It has been many years since the release of Fahrenheit 9/11.  The actual content of the film (the specific facts and assertions) have been so thoroughly debunked that a large number of Moore devotees now agree that F911 is basically full of errors and lies.

We’ve seen converts right here on the site.

As I have said since the film’s release, George W. Bush is a deeply flawed man, and criticizing him is easy.  It always has been.  One can stick to the facts that almost everyone can agree are true and provable and make a very impactful argument that Bush is in fact a bad president.  I don’t presume to know how history will judge him, but i do know that as I live through the experience, I feel he is not the right man for the job, he was just the least awful choice we were given.  I still feel that given the same choices, I would vote the same way since 2000.

But.

Taking a larger view, a less of a “details matter” view of things, was Michael Moore right about Bush?  His facts were all wrong.  Some things he said in the movie bordered on lies, and some were actual lies.  I’ve always been one to believe that being right and being truthful are mutually inclusive, that you can’t have one without the other.  However, Moore’s larger point was that Bush was a tool, that he did not have the skills necessary to lead the country, and that he would in fact be more partial to his buddies than he would care for the country as a whole.

In that sense, Michael was right.  Bush is overly preoccupied with the opinions of the evangelical Christian groups that helped him get elected.  He is far, far too involved with his family relationship with the House of Saud.  He has in fact mismanaged the war, although Michael had no idea what he was talking about at the time.

I realize I am bordering on making a “fake but accurate” argument.  And I realize that hindsight is 20/20.  I also think that being right is a pretty good defense.

What do you think?  Should Moore get some credit for seeing the end game, even though he used lies, manipulations and distortions to make his point?