bush slammed at oscars, page-57

Michael Moore is a hypocrite, a bigot, and an exaggerator

(U-WIRE) HONOLULU -- Recently, filmmaker and political satirist Michael Moore has been getting some publicity. His most recent book "Stupid White Men" has been on the New York Times bestseller list for a while and his latest film "Bowling for Columbine" has received great applause at the Cannes Film Festival. His earlier works include his book "Downsize This", films "Roger and Me" and "The Big One," and the canceled TV show "TV Nation."
Some of you may not be familiar with Moore's work. Moore isn't a mainstream star, but he is a star among the Radical Left, which is disproportionally represented at many of America's universities, including this one.

Popularity aside, Moore uses inaccurate data, vicious stereotypes, baseless assertion and double standards in his internet editorials, books and films. There's too many of these to list in my editorial but list some I must, because Moore's rants, inaccurate and baseless as they are, reflect the misguided views of many others.

On Bill Clinton's signing of a welfare reform bill in 1996, Moore asserts "[He] has been able to kick ten million people off welfare." The reality is that while welfare rolls have declined since that bill was signed (by 8.3 million, not 10 million), most left welfare voluntarily. Very few were "kicked off" welfare by the five year limit set by the welfare reform bill.

While Moore's argument crumbles in the face of actual statistics, there is another, more sinister assertion made by Michael Moore about the welfare reform bill. In 2000, Moore wrote a letter to then-presidential candidate Al Gore, in which he blamed the 1996 welfare reform bill (signed by Bill Clinton and supported by Al Gore) for the shooting death of a 6-year old girl in Michigan.

On the 6-year-old boy that shot that girl, Moore wrote, "One day, last February, while his mother worked off her welfare payments at the All-American restaurant, that little 6-year-old found his uncle's gun, took it to school, and shot a 6-year-old girl in the neck."

Moore went on to state in that letter, "Have you had a chance, Mr. Gore, to hear the 911 call from the teacher as she was trying to stop the geyser of blood shooting out from that 6-year-old's neck just before she died? You should hear it. She's the recipient of what you call 'welfare reform'."

A recipient of what Al Gore calls welfare reform? I'm not a big fan of Al Gore, but still, Moore's assertion that Gore's support of welfare reform caused the death of that 6-year-old is shameful and disgusting.

Moore has made many vicious, baseless assertions about the Sept. 11 attacks. The most vicious one is stated in his internet editorial (which he removed from his website after it caused controversy) where he states "They did not deserve to die. If someone did this to get back at Bush, then they did so by killing thousands of people who DID NOT VOTE for him! Boston, New York, D.C. and the plane's destination of California -- these were places that voted AGAINST Bush!"

When did anyone suggest that voting patterns mattered to the terrorists responsible for Sept. 11?

Moore seems to imply that the terrorists should've killed those who lived in states where Bush got majority votes.

Moore also states in reaction to Sept. 11, "In just eight months, Bush gets the whole world back to hating us again. He withdraws from the Kyoto agreement, walks us out of the Durban conference on racism, insists on restarting the arms race -- you name it and Baby Bush has blown it all."

Contrary to Moore's baseless rants, the outside worlds hated the U.S. long before "Baby Bush" became President and they hated the U.S. no matter who was President.

And to call the conference in Durban a "conference on racism" is a generous misnomer. That conference was nothing more than a "hate Israel and the U.S. rally." The Chinese suppression of Tibetans, Iraqis suppression of the Kurds, ethnic warfare in Rwanda -- these racial issues weren't even major issues at the anti-Semitic, anti-American "conference on racism" at Durban.

Also in reaction to Sept. 11, Michael Moore posed a stupid rhetorical question when he asked "When will we ever get to the point that we realize we will be more secure when the rest of the world isn't living in poverty so we can have nice running shoes?"

The Sept. 11 attacks had nothing do with poverty. The hijackers were college-educated Islamic fanatics, not uneducated slum dwellers! And if the Sept. 11 attack happened in reaction to world poverty, why is it that NONE of those hijackers came from non-Islamic third World nations like Laos, Haiti, Mozambique, etc? If Moore cared so much about world poverty, why didn't he demand that the Arab oil barons as well as bin Laden invest their billions in improving conditions in the Middle East?

The terrorism we saw in September had nothing to do with world poverty and everything to do with religious fanaticism. Islamic zealots terrorize Jews in Israel, Hindus in India, Christians in Sudan, Indonesia, etc, and they terrorized the U.S., and for Moore or anyone to blame it all on world poverty and nice running shoes is ridiculous.

During the Elian controversy in Miami, Moore wrote an extremely bigoted editorial on his websites and praised the Communist regime in Cuba. Read this misguided quote from Moore's letter to Elian: "The worse that could be said is that in Cuba, you were in jeopardy of receiving health care whenever you needed it, and an excellent education in one of the few countries that has 100 percent literacy".

If we went by Moore's logic, black slaves shouldn't have escaped from the plantations in the early 1800's since black slaves received free housing, free food, and free Bible studies! What runaway slaves in the 19th century U.S. and Cuban refugees have in common is that even though they are running away from a place where housing, health care, and food is provided, they are also running away from a place where civil liberties are practically nonexistent.

Though Moore and many on the Radical Left condemn the U.S. government's violation of civil liberties since Sept. 11, Moore remains silent on Fidel Castro's 40-plus years of violating civil liberties in Cuba! It seems like Moore only cares about civil liberty violations when it is convenient.

Moore's assertion of Cuba having 100 percent literacy needs closer inspection. What's the use of literacy? Literacy is important so that you can have access to a variety of information from written sources. But Cuban residents don't have access to non-communist info! So literacy in Cuba isn't really worth much as literacy in the U.S. The same holds true for education.

Moore further commented on Elian controversy by stating that, "your mother placed you in a situation where you were certain to die on the open seas (as most of the rest did) and that is unconscionable. It was the ultimate form of child abuse."

No, Mr. Moore, the ultimate form of child abuse is when Janet Reno sent armed agents to kidnap Elian and sent him back to Fidel Castro's plantation of Cuba.

Moore's claim is also a bigoted slam against all immigrants who risk their lives to come to America. If David Duke or Pat Buchanan had written such a vicious rant against those immigrants, the Radical Left would have protested. And yet, the Radical Left fails to protest Michael Moore for his vicious bigotry.

Moore continues by stating about the Cuban refugees, "instead of staying in Cuba and fighting for freedom like our ancestors did in 1776, they turned tail and ran to Miami. Once here, they began demanding that we Americans fight their fight for them. What did we do? Something stupid! We fought for them!"

Michael Moore is a hypocrite, a bigot, and an exaggerator.