Letters

Stephanie Zacharek pens a worthwhile review of Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," with many solid points. But the theme of her criticism is summed up in one line: "If Moore is the left's great spokesman by default, shouldn't he be using his influence (not to mention his money) to raise the level of political discourse in this country instead of lowering it?"

My immediate reaction to that: Fuck the level of discourse! The level of discourse is set by the braying asses at Fox News, and the rest of the "journalists" around the country are racing Fox to the bottom.

It's difficult enough for anyone on the left to get a message out in this climate, let alone being saddled with a responsibility to somehow raise the level of discourse. Don't turn this into a typical left event, in which the messenger is savaged by his own people.

-- Tim Doran

I have not yet seen "Fahrenheit 9/11." Even so --

Most of both your reviews this morning -- O'Hehir and Zacharek -- rings true about Moore: Moore plays fast and loose with the facts, Moore's muckraking would be more effective if there were less Moore onscreen, Moore is not above cheap shots at either friends or enemies.

So what? The fact is that Moore is on a very short list of heroes of the Republic (Molly Ivins, Robert Byrd and Howard Dean are others) who fought the "Bush is God" propaganda with everything they had, while the limousine liberals were wringing their hands and hoping Bushism would run its course. Moore, with the saga of the publication of "Stupid White Men," was first. He rallied the cause in early 2002 and derailed the canonization of George W. Bush.

Is Moore's work propaganda? Almost. It's counter-propaganda. The Bushies, aided and abetted by almost every organ of the "So-Called Liberal Media," have been propagandizing since 1999; really, since the election of 1992. Even now, Bush and Cheney continue to pretend that Saddam and al-Qaida were in bed together, confident that there will be no loud and sustained resistance to the Big Lie.

How to resist such mendacity? When Hitler heard that France had surrendered, he was filmed happily stamping his foot, once. Somebody looped the film to make Hitler look like he was doing a silly jig. Later he said something like, "You don't worry about ethics when you're trying to undo a son of a bitch." That guy had the right idea.

Fight fire with fire. Set a thief to catch a thief. No matter how you phrase it, the left needs its own dirty fighters, and Moore is self-nominated and wins by default. Who else is trying? Al Franken and Air America, maybe, but they got rolling two years after "Stupid White Men" and still don't command anywhere near the audience Moore does. Any others?

No matter how much it distresses good liberals like Stephanie Zacharek, the name of the game is brawling, not dignity. (I picture Zacharek as the society dame in a Woody Allen flick. Woody wanted everyone to gather up rocks and bricks to greet a Nazi march; she insisted that "satire" in the Times was the most effective weapon. Not always.)

So, my baseball cap's off to Mike Moore, with all his flaws -- a man who knows when to bend some truths to expose the big truths.

I'll be in the theater Friday.

-- Stuart Thiel

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