a beef with one item out of Michael Moore’s bag of tricks
To make a very narrow point about Michael Moore…
… which has nothing to do with the accuracy or intellectual honesty of his politics and work…
I hear reference to a “standing offer” of 50,000 dollars to anyone who can find an inaccurate statement in Fahrenheit 9/11. And I hear chest-thumping that nobody has claimed it…
…as though that means anything.
As a suggestion of why this is meaningless, I invite you to look over Kent Hovind, “Dr. Dino”, Creationist Scientist Extraordinaire, and his $250,000 (upped from $100,000!) for any evidence supporting Evolution. Lo and behold, nobody has managed to get past Hovind’s committee of experts looking at the submissions to win the claim and take home the quarter of a million dollars.
And, yes, a few Fundamentalist Christians have trumpeted this fact in playing up the veracity of “Dr. Dino”.
I have never seen Fahrenheit 9/11. I suspect it’s mostly true, and I assume our politics align closely enough. I have seen and heard enough to know a couple areas of disagreement, largely in terms of what different events signify. But this is all irrelevant. My point is simply that nobody should be blathering on with this particular Michael Moore stunt, and if you do so I will wince and shake my head.
………………………….
The first few paragraphs of the cover feature on Moore in the latest issue of the Nation are as good a summation of the contours of Moore the Personality as I have seen.