Tuesday, June 29, 2004

When the good guys fight back . . . Priceless!

Friday morning on CBS’s Early Show, filmmaker Michael Moore, who showed up to promote his anti-Bush documentary "Fahrenheit 9-11", when asked if his film is “propaganda,” declared: “I consider the CBS Evening News propaganda.” Moore argued that the networks are too right wing: “We may not of even gone into this war had these networks done their job. I mean, it was a great disservice to the American people because we depend on people who work here and the other networks to go after those in power and say ‘Hey, wait a minute. You want to send our kids off to war, we want to know where those weapons of mass destruction are. Let’s see the proof. Let’s see the proof that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11.’"

Here's a transcript of this incredible exchange, on the June 25 Early Show, between Michael Moore and CBS’s Hannah Storm:

Storm: "So this is satire and not documentary? We shouldn’t see this as-"
Moore: "It’s a satirical documentary."
Storm: "Some have said propaganda, do you buy that? Op-ed?"
Moore: "No, I consider the CBS Evening News propaganda. What I do is-"
Storm: "We’ll move beyond on that."
Moore: "Why? Let’s not move beyond that."
Storm: "You know what?"
Moore: "Seriously."
Storm: "No, let’s talk about your movie."
Moore: "But why don’t we talk about the Evening News on this network and the other networks that didn’t do the job they should have done at the beginning of this war?"
Storm: "You know what?"
Moore: "Demanded the evidence, ask the hard questions-"
Storm: "Okay."
Moore: "-we may not of even gone into this war had these networks done their job. I mean, it was a great disservice to the American people because we depend on people who work here and the other networks to go after those in power and say 'Hey, wait a minute. You want to send our kids off to war, we want to know where those weapons of mass destruction are. Let’s see the proof. Let’s see the proof that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11.’"
Storm: "But-"
Moore: "There was no proof and everybody just got embedded and everybody rolled over and everybody knows that now."
Storm: "Michael, the one thing that journalists try to do is to present both sides of the story. And it could be argued that you did not do that in this movie."
Moore: "I certainly didn’t. I presented my side-"
Storm: "You presented your side of the story."
Moore: "Because my side, that’s the side of millions of Americans, rarely gets told. And so, all I’m, look, this is just a humble plea on my behalf and not to you personally, Hannah. But I’m just saying to journalists in general that instead of working so hard to tell both sides of the story, why don’t you just tell that one side, which is the administration, why don’t you ask them the hard questions-"
Storm: "Which I think is something that we all try to do."
Moore: "Well, I think it was a lot of cheerleading going on at the beginning of this war-"
Storm: "Alright."
Moore: "A lot of cheerleading and it didn’t do the public any good to have journalists standing in front of the camera going 'whoop-dee-do, let’s all go to war’. And, and it’s not their kids going to war. It’s not the children of the news executives going to war-"
Storm: "Michael, why don’t you do you next movie about networks news, okay? Because this movie-"
Moore: "I know, I think I should do that movie."
Storm: "-because this movie is an attack on the president and his policies."
Moore: "Well, and it also points out how the networks failed us at the beginning of this war and didn’t do their job."


All I have to say is thank fucking god there's still someone in this country who's not afraid to call fascists fascists and then stand eyeball-to-eyball with the fascists and say it again even louder right to their faces! Moore didn't put up with any of Storm's bullshit and did not let her change the subject as the cowardly pundits are wont to do. Now - - if we could only get every Democrat in Washington a matching set of Moore's cojones, there still might be a chance to rescue this country from these keystone kop neo-con imperialists and put America back on the road to a representative democracy.

And you know what? I hope like hell Michael takes up dingbat Hannah's challenge to do a movie about the yellow-bellied, dysfunctional media in this country. They're way, way over-due for a good old-fashioned ass-whooping.

----krazee

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