MICHAEL MOORE LIED

[Ronnie Raygun]

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/127ujhuf.asp

Michael Moore and Me
From the May 31, 2004 issue: An encounter with the Cannes man.
by Fred Barnes
05/31/2004, Volume 009, Issue 36

A FEW YEARS AGO Michael Moore, who's now promoting an anti-President Bush movie entitled Fahrenheit 9/11, announced he'd gotten the goods on me, indeed hung me out to dry on my own words. It was in his first bestselling book, Stupid White Men. Moore wrote he'd once been "forced" to listen to my comments on a TV chat show, The McLaughlin Group. I had whined "on and on about the sorry state of American education," Moore said, and wound up by bellowing: "These kids don't even know what The Iliad and The Odyssey are!"

Moore's interest was piqued, so the next day he said he called me. "Fred," he quoted himself as saying, "tell me what The Iliad and The Odyssey are." I started "hemming and hawing," Moore wrote. And then I said, according to Moore: "Well, they're . . . uh . . . you know . . . uh . . . okay, fine, you got me--I don't know what they're about. Happy now?" He'd smoked me out as a fraud, or maybe worse.

The only problem is none of this is true. It never happened. Moore is a liar. He made it up. It's a fabrication on two levels. One, I've never met Moore or even talked to him on the phone. And, two, I read both The Iliad and The Odyssey in my first year at the University of Virginia. Just for the record, I'd learned what they were about even before college. Like everyone else my age, I
got my classical education from the big screen. I saw the Iliad movie called Helen of Troy and while I forget the name of the Odyssey film, I think it starred Kirk Douglas as Odysseus.

So why didn't I scream bloody murder when the book came out in 2001? I didn't learn about the phony anecdote until it was brought to my attention by Alan Wolfe, who was reviewing Moore's book for the New Republic. He asked, by email, if the story were true. I said no, not a word of it, and Wolfe quoted me as saying that. That was enough, I thought. After all, who would take a shrill, lying lefty like Moore seriously?

More people than I thought. Moore's new movie attacking Bush was given a 20-minute standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival. Moore has described the movie as breaking new ground and revealing new facts, but the accounts by reviewers suggest it merely provides the standard left-wing, conspiratorial critique of the president. Reviewer Lou Lumenick of the New York Post, who gave Moore's previous movie Bowling for Columbine four stars, said the anti-Bush film would be news only "if you spent the last three years hiding in a cave in Afghanistan." Still, I suppose it's not surprising they loved it in France.

In publicizing the movie, Moore has been up to his old dishonest tricks. Just before the screening at Cannes, he charged that Disney had told him "officially" the day before that it would not distribute Fahrenheit 9/11. Moore said this was an attempt to kill the film. He indicated a newspaper article had the correct explanation of Disney's decision: "According to today's New York Times, it might 'endanger' millions of dollars of tax breaks Disney receives from the state of Florida because the film will 'anger' the governor of Florida, Jeb Bush."

[James]

Well I, for one, will be boycotting his movie, if it ever gets released. :posh

[mew barios]

jus for my curiosity, is there anyone on this board who doesn't already think moore is a giant goon? in general i mean.

[ScruU2wice]

I really don't know who I hate more Ultra liberals or ultra conservatives. >:

[AChimp]

I hate ultra conservatives more, because they will stomp all over you instead of just taking your wallet.

[El Blanco]

Oh no, ultra-liberals will go PC-Nazi all over your ass if you disagree with them.

Anyone who bases their life on an -ism is the type of person I try to steer clear of.

[ziggytrix]

jesus was an ultra-liberal

[Perndog]

I prefer ultra-conservatives.

Just not the hardcore Christian kind.

[Jeanette X]

Moore is just Rush Limbaugh's liberal counterpart. I don't like demogaugery of any kind, period.

[VinceZeb]

Moore is just Rush Limbaugh's liberal counterpart. I don't like demogaugery of any kind, period.

Ignorant statements like that show why you should be cooking a steak dinner instead of talking politics with the adults.

[Cosmo Electrolux]

Moore is just Rush Limbaugh's liberal counterpart. I don't like demogaugery of any kind, period.

Ignorant statements like that show why you should be cooking a steak dinner instead of talking politics with the adults.

ignorant statements like that show why you should be mopping floors and cleaning toilets instead of talking politics with the adults.

[mburbank]

Cosmo, you SO beat me to it.

I don't think Moore is bozo at all, I rather like him. I think he's funny, and I think he's one of a teeny tiny fraction of people out there who will take on the issues he does in a format that is entertaining enough to make or bestselling books, profitable movies and standing ovations at film festivals. Is he strident? Sure. Does he exagerate? I guess. I've never looked to him to dispense Gospel truth. I think his behavior is nowhere near as on the fringe as Limbaugh, Savage, or Coulter who doesn't even have the decency to admit she's entertainment and does pass herself off as dispensing truths. Then there's Hannity whos so commited to the idea he's the real deal he tried to sue Al Franken.

I haven't seen "Bowling", but I thought both "Roger and me" "Pets or Meat" and his short lived television show were excellent. I think it's a ferocious double standard to hate this guy. Folks who don't like his movies shouldn't see them. I occasionally find fault with some of the ultra right blowhards I've mentioned and then feel constrained to actually go and read some of their bile and I encourage anyone to do the same with whatever irritates them, but no one requires me to do it.

[Zebra 3]

:) - Michael Moore can sing the entire Canadian national anthem.

:lol - Pres. Moron, then as presidential candidate was once led to believe that Canadian PM Jean Poutine supported him.

[mesobe]

yes. moore is a big goon for putting a camera on people and let them discredit themselves with their own words.


you guys should really watch his movies and read his books before pretending to have anything intelligent to say about the matter.

[Jeanette X]

Moore is just Rush Limbaugh's liberal counterpart. I don't like demogaugery of any kind, period.

Ignorant statements like that show why you should be cooking a steak dinner instead of talking politics with the adults.

:meat Enjoy your dinner dear...the bitter almond taste? Oh don't worry about that, it's my new recipe.

[mesobe]

Ignorant statements like that show why you should be cooking a steak dinner instead of talking politics with the adults.

I think it more on the level of "talking" about mainstream politics in an internet forum with a bunch of forum junkies (or vets).

[Cosmo Electrolux]

Moore is just Rush Limbaugh's liberal counterpart. I don't like demogaugery of any kind, period.

Ignorant statements like that show why you should be cooking a steak dinner instead of talking politics with the adults.

:meat Enjoy your dinner dear...the bitter almond taste? Oh don't worry about that, it's my new recipe.

:lol you'll have to come right out and tell the idiot that you poisoned the steak, he won't get it otherwise...:lol

[mburbank]

See, Vinth, bitter almond is the characteristic taste of Arsenic, which is poisonous. That means it's something that if you ate you'd die from it.
So Jeanette i cooking a steak for you with poison in it so that when you eat it you'll die, which I think we can all agree is a funny thought. Because you're such a horrible person.


Those whacky Japanese.

[VinceZeb]

See, Vinth, bitter almond is the characteristic taste of Arsenic, which is poisonous. That means it's something that if you ate you'd die from it.
So Jeanette i cooking a steak for you with poison in it so that when you eat it you'll die, which I think we can all agree is a funny thought. Because you're such a horrible person.


Those whacky Japanese.

You mean Arsenic has a bitter taste and is poison? Oh man, I would have never known that! Besides, thanks to George Bush rolling back the water treatment standards Clinton signed into law a week before he left office, I have a tolerance for it.

I'm suprised that you havent sat down at the dinner table, admitted to your family that you are a utter failure, and blown your brains out of the back of your head. I figured it would be any day now....

P.S. Cosmo, try having value to this board before you insult me. Quit hanging off the dingleberries of people better than you.

[sspadowsky]

Say, Vince, I'm going to be in St. Louis this weekend. I was wondering if maybe you could re-enact that scene where you defended your family with a weapon? I mean, since you can't bring yourself to talk about it, I thought maybe a re-enactment might be therapeutic for you and informative for me. Then when I got back here, I could let everyone know you're the real deal, and not a pathologically lying chickenshit pussy coward.

Of course, if you're busy, I understand. I'm sure you're probably tied up with updating your website.

[mburbank]

Those whacky Japanese

[mesobe]

Say, Vince, I'm going to be in St. Louis this weekend. I was wondering if maybe you could re-enact that scene where you defended your family with a weapon? I mean, since you can't bring yourself to talk about it, I thought maybe a re-enactment might be therapeutic for you and informative for me. Then when I got back here, I could let everyone know you're the real deal, and not a pathologically lying chickenshit pussy coward.

Of course, if you're busy, I understand. I'm sure you're probably tied up with updating your website.

he probably just beat a stray dog with a rubber dildo for shitting on his lawn.

[VinceZeb]

Say, Vince, I'm going to be in St. Louis this weekend. I was wondering if maybe you could re-enact that scene where you defended your family with a weapon? I mean, since you can't bring yourself to talk about it, I thought maybe a re-enactment might be therapeutic for you and informative for me. Then when I got back here, I could let everyone know you're the real deal, and not a pathologically lying chickenshit pussy coward.

Of course, if you're busy, I understand. I'm sure you're probably tied up with updating your website.

St. Louis Mills. Sunday. 3 pm. In front of the movie theater. Tall white guy wearing a Warren Moon Vikings throwback jersey. Wear lip gloss because I don't want your lips chaffing my dick after you get done sucking it.

[sspadowsky]

Are you going to have a cast assembled for the re-enactment?

[mburbank]

Say, if your that eager for guys to blow you, why don't you ask those whacky Japanese! They'll probably give you some souvenier photos for your massive gay scrapbook.

[VinceZeb]

Are you going to have a cast assembled for the re-enactment?

Oh, now were making jokes when I put my cards into play. If you want to meet me so fucking bad and "prove" that I'm some fat pussy loser, then meet me at that location at that time.

[sspadowsky]

Say, this is quite a transition from the "I can't be bothered to waste my time meeting you losers." In fact, you could say it's a complete 180. That's assuming, of course, that you're not completely full of shit yet again. I mean, I wouldn't want to go all the way to Hazelwood only to find that your Nepalese roommate had thrown that Warren Moon jersey out with the sub letter.

[VinceZeb]

I know you would be scared to talk shit to my face without your buddies around, but thats natural for a pussy like you.

You want to meet, we shall meet. And the public forum gives me a reason not to get into a fight.

[sspadowsky]

Hahaha. Man, you crack me up. What's funny is that you're even more full of shit when you try to be real. You and I both know perfectly well that there's going to be no fighting, and probably not even any shit-talking. Face-to-face is a whole different world. See you there.

[mburbank]

Watch out, Sam. He's put his 'cards' into 'play'.

I think you should go. He might be there, because he wants you to see that he isn't fat. This is the central fact of his life, and the only thing he's ever said I believe to be true. He lost weight.

Vinthy, if you're willing to me Sam face to face (and I still think you're probbly too much of a chicken pussy) does that mean you're now willing to post a photo? A lot of Whcky Japanese have been asking what you look like.

[VinceZeb]

Thats great. And what do you look like, so I know who to look for?

[sspadowsky]

White guy, 6'7", about 245.....

Just kidding.

Average height, goatee, buzzcut, probably wearing a black baseball cap. And carrying a camera. ;)

[VinceZeb]

No cameras. I don't like my picture being taken. Sorry.

[Drew Katsikas]

This better happen.

[sspadowsky]

No cameras. I don't like my picture being taken. Sorry.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Oh, what, so now all bets are off? What the hell is this? Listen, Skippy, I'm showing up and I'm bringing a camera with me. Besides, I'm going to know what you look like anyway, so what's the fucking difference?

[sspadowsky]

This better happen.

Count on it, my friend.

[VinceZeb]

I do not like to have my picture taken. It's that simple. What I look like is not important. It's the fact that I do not like to have my picture taken.

[sspadowsky]

:rolleyes

Whatever. I'm still skeptical about whether you'll be there at all, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

[AChimp]

I bet it's your chubby cheeks. No matter how much weight they lose, fat people can never get rid of their chubby cheeks. :lol

[Anonymous]

Here's what will happen:

A). Vince won't bother to show up, and when Sspad returns to the boards to ask where he was, he'll say something like, "ha, you liberals are so easily manipulated!:lol"

or

B). Vince shows up, not expecting Ssspad to follow through. However, he spots Sspad from a distance, and flees the scene, racing back to his computer so that he can make a post saying that Sspad never showed. Then, when Sspad makes a post saying that he did show, Vince will try to dismiss it as a lie.

[sspadowsky]

I'm bringing the camera. In the even that he doesn't show, I'll take pictures of where he would have been standing if he had made it.

[mburbank]

"Uhhhng, no camera bad man! Camera steal Vinth soul!! "
-Vinth "Caveman" Clambake.

He doesn't want you to bring a camera so when you tell us he's still fairly fat he can say you're lieing. That and he still can figure out how to get the false eyelashes off.

[Helm]

The day a picture of vinth is posted will be the happiest day for all attending the photoshops and picture captions forum.

[Brandon]

Michael Moore replies:

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=19

May 31st, 2004 12:29 pm
WACKO ATTACKO #2 – FRED BARNES FLUNKS – AGAIN!

On January 18, 1988, I published an interview with Fred Barnes in a publication which I edited at the time, called Moore’s Weekly. I interviewed Mr. Barnes about his comments on the January 2, 1988 edition of "The McLaughlin Report," in which he expressed support for then Secretary of the Education William Bennett’s theory that high school curriculum should be dominated by courses in classic Greek and English literature.

I asked Fred to share his views about two well-known classics, "the Iliad" by Homer and Dante’s Inferno. Barnes reiterated to me that these books are "what everybody oughta learn. They’re easy to read."

In the course of my interview, I decided to give him a pop quiz. As you can see, Fred didn’t do so well.

The conservative paper, The Washington Times, liked my interview with Mr. Barnes and the paper wrote about it in their January 22, 1988 "Inside the Beltway" column. The Washington Times is the kind of paper Fred Barnes probably reads before he gets out of bed in the morning.

Fred Barnes did not complain when I published the interview with him 16-years-ago. He did not complain when the Washington Times article appeared in 1988. It was not until April 2002, when Stupid White Men came out, which recounted the Mr. Barnes interview, that Fox's Brit Hume reported, "Fred Barnes told me today that he never talked to Moore in his life, and that he has read both 'The Odyssey' and 'The Iliad' cover to cover in college."

Now that that my movie Fahrenheit 9-11 is receiving significant attention, Mr. Barnes has seen fit to publicly deny the whole thing again, even though I last referenced the interview in a book published two years ago.

Now, the cynically-inclined might say that Mr. Barnes, who has steadily faded into obscurity as an editor of a small circulation weekly, is trying to take advantage of the moment. I prefer to give Mr. Barnes the benefit of the doubt and credit his belated complaint to a fading memory. We all forget things sometimes, Fred. No hard feelings here.

Michael Moore
-----------------------------------

Moore also put links to the original articles on the site (http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=19).

[mburbank]

Wait a sec, wait a sec now, this thread is about Michael Moore? Since when?

Seriously, though, wasn't it a possability right from the go it was Barnes who was lying?

[Brandon]

WELL YOU MIGHT AS WELL JUST CHANGE THE FUCKING TITLE TO "SSPAD CHALLENGES VINTH" >:

[El Blanco]

According to Barnes, he doesn't like Moore and never bothered reading any of his stuff until lately. It was whe na friend brought it up to him a few months back that he decided to give his side of the story.

[AChimp]

Someone interviews you, and you don't follow up by reading what they say about you? Even better, you don't whine about it until a decade after the fact.

Excuse me while I :lol .

[El Blanco]

Moore said he just up and made a phjone call, not a real, formal interview. Barnes said it never happened at all.

Am I the only who finds it hard to believe that Michael Moore has the home phone number of someone the likes of Barnes within easy reach like he would make a social call?

[AChimp]

Of course he didn't have it tattooed on his ass. He does, however, have access to sources where he can get that kind of information. It's not like Fred Barnes is an ultra-popular celebrity that has to live in secrecy and hide from the world, lest the paparazzi go nuts.

Haven't you heard of those radio stations that try to boost popularity by prank-calling the Pope? How do they get that number, hmm?

Quibbling about how Moore actually went about making the telephone call is meaningless. You're failing to see that Barnes is only complaining about it NOW, ten years later. It would be better to just ignore it at this point than whine and cry.

[El Blanco]

Of course he didn't have it tattooed on his ass. He does, however, have access to sources where he can get that kind of information. It's not like Fred Barnes is an ultra-popular celebrity that has to live in secrecy and hide from the world, lest the paparazzi go nuts.

ITs not like no one knows who and what Moore is, either. Why the hell would Barnes take his call, or atleast tell him to piss off after hearing the sarcastic question.

Haven't you heard of those radio stations that try to boost popularity by prank-calling the Pope? How do they get that number, hmm?

They don't talk to the Pope. They might get through to some high ranking bishop if they are lucky and get their hands on a good number, but its not like they are tapped into JP2's hotline.

Quibbling about how Moore actually went about making the telephone call is meaningless.

Actually, the point is whether he made the call and had this conversation. He has to prove he did. Barnes doesn't have to prove he didn't.

You're failing to see that Barnes is only complaining about it NOW, ten years later. It would be better to just ignore it at this point than whine and cry.

He wasn't aware of it. He then found out it appeared in a best seller from about 3 years ago.

And why is it when Moore writes a response, he is valiantly defending himself against losers and nutjobs with nothing better to do than criticize him, but Barnes is just whining and crying?

[Perndog]

I really like that last question. But I'm sure some uber-liberal is going to think of a perfectly reasonable justification. Right.

[AChimp]

Why the hell would Barnes take his call, or atleast tell him to piss off after hearing the sarcastic question.
They don't talk to the Pope. They might get through to some high ranking bishop if they are lucky and get their hands on a good number, but its not like they are tapped into JP2's hotline.
Yep, because Barnes is the super celebrity of the world, just like the Pope, and he has dozens of levels of office secretaries in his own home that screen his phone calls. It's not even remotely possible that he hauls his own ass off of his Corinthian leather couch to answer his own phone at home.

He wasn't aware of it. He then found out it appeared in a best seller from about 3 years ago.

And why is it when Moore writes a response, he is valiantly defending himself against losers and nutjobs with nothing better to do than criticize him, but Barnes is just whining and crying?
Oh, but I thought that Barnes had a secret phone number and lived in an underground cave and had armies of lawyers combing the media for references to him! If he didn't find out about it for TEN YEARS, then it must not have made very many waves at the time, huh?

And when it shows up in a best-selling book? You issue a single statement of denial, end of story. You don't go parading yourself around and write pieces of your own to attack back with, because all you're doing is lending credence to Moore's position. That's what whining and crying about it is.

Seriously, the people that Moore criticizes need to hire better PR agents.

[El Blanco]

Yep, because Barnes is the super celebrity of the world, just like the Pope, and he has dozens of levels of office secretaries in his own home that screen his phone calls. It's not even remotely possible that he hauls his own ass off of his Corinthian leather couch to answer his own phone at home.

I said nothing like that. Nothing. Give it up.

It is completly reasonable for Barnes to have a secretary at work and have an unlisted phone number at home.

Maybe he went to Barnes' press agent. Then the PA, would atleast give Barnes a heads up as to who was about to call.


Oh, but I thought that Barnes had a secret phone number and lived in an underground cave and had armies of lawyers combing the media for references to him!

No, in fact that is quite the opposite of my point. You are taking what I said and tried to twist it into something completly different. I guess Moore does have an affect on the youth of today.

If he didn't find out about it for TEN YEARS, then it must not have made very many waves at the time, huh?

It was about a paragraph in "Stupid White Men". If Barnes has no intrest in the book, and he hangs with other people who feel the same, it isn't hard to see how it escaped his notice for the last 2 1/2 years.


And when it shows up in a best-selling book? You issue a single statement of denial, end of story.

which he has done

You don't go parading yourself around and write pieces of your own to attack back with, because all you're doing is lending credence to Moore's position.

Good thing that isn't what he did. Moore has spent a greater amount of time on this whole ugliness than Barnes.

Seriously, the people that Moore criticizes need to hire better PR agents.

Maybe Moore needs to find a smarter demographic. But then again, he'd go broke.

[mburbank]

Simply; one of them is lying.

I don't see a way to determine which one. Both scenarios strike me as plausible. The 'burden of proof' doesn't apply here, no one is on trial. It's a small issue. I think anyone who believes it's clear which one of them is lieing (or stretching, or forgetting) is being silly.

I want Moore to be telling the truth, I want him to be right, I'm on Moores side, but that doesn't mean I can't see perfectly clearly that this is just one persons word against another.

Each one is basically saying the other is jerk, a hypocrite and a liar. Does it come as any surprise that each of them would think that about the other?

[El Blanco]

Would it shock you if they were both right?

[mburbank]

Moore says he interviewed him by phone. Barnes says he's never spoken to Moore. On that part at least, one of them is wrong.

[El Blanco]

I meant in regards to this

Each one is basically saying the other is jerk, a hypocrite and a liar.

[AChimp]

Maybe Moore talked to Barne' wife! :eek