The positive light shone on America. This film endeavors to show a part of America that is often ignored, the simple people trying to make their way in America without going insane.

Those people have nothing to do with the thesis of the piece: that Michael Moore hates America.

The movie, from start to finish, like Fahrenheit 9/11, tries to prove a point.

The point of Fahrenheit 9/11 is that the Bush Administration has a history of lying and abusing the power they have, leading up to a war we should not have engaged in. This is illustrated through facts (facts biased towards a particular point of view, yes, but facts) and clips that show the actors at their worst.

The point of Michael Moore Hates America appears to be that Michael Moore is a jerk and hates America. This is illustrated by showing a few times when Michael Moore has made bad cuts in his films (out of tens of thousands, and mostly before 9/11, the reason cited as why he seems to hate America) and by parading a bunch of people who don’t like Michael Moore in front of the camera and letting them shout about what a dick he is.

This is interesting, but it’s a parade of right-wing nut jobs, and they all do no more to illustrate that Michael Moore hates America factually or even rhetorically than a five-year-old could. They bring in Penn, of Penn and Teller, who states that Moore is a liar because he has to make selective cuts in his film. He then goes on to say it’s okay to lie if you’re entertaining. His contribution doesn’t really come to a point, which is a bad choice on the part of the filmmaker. He parades Breitbart, a noted right-wing nut, and Scarborough, a noted right-wing nut, and an NRA representative (figure out who they stand with).

Of note further is that the only voice of opposition that is shown are people who disagree with the filmmaker but want to stand up for his right to say whatever he wants. There are, to wit, no interviews with people who support Michael Moore.

That’s part of what makes Moore masterful and this film a failure.

Moore is given flack in this film for picking on Charlton Heston. I suppose Michael Moore forced Heston to make his racist statements on camera?

I suppose Michael Moore made those people give him a gun in the bank?

Moore’s entire schtick is showing how asinine people who disagree with him are by letting them run their mouth about bullshit without evidence to back up their positions, then Michael Moore comes in with facts and makes his point.

This film is just like a Michael Moore film, except it’s showing the asinine people running their mouth to show how evil Michael Moore is without any evidence, book-ended by a guy saying, “See, Michael Moore is a jerk, because America is great, and I think so.”

The equivocation this movie promotes is that because a lot of good things are going on in America, and since Michael Moore only points out the bad, he hates America.

Like, if you disagree with the war, you hate the troops.

Or like, if you don’t believe in Christ, you must be a Satanist.

These rhetorical failures have been used to demonize public figures since the dawn of time, and to try and make Moore look like an ass further, the documentary uses Moore’s style, trying to make Moore out to be a bastard for not wanting to be interviewed for a movie called “Michael Moore Hates America.” Really? He declined? I wonder why. People say this makes him hypocritical. But then, Roger Moore didn’t decline to be interviewed for his movie because the movie was called “Roger Moore Eats Babies”. He declined because he had something to be guilty of. Screwing the poor. All Michael Moore has done is make money expressing his opinion. The American dream that the movie espouses to be great.

The movie tries to demonize Moore because he’s a good editor. Because he makes his films powerful by hammering home the facts in a well-put presentation. This movie, however, fails in that respect. It has bad editing, it has few cogent points, and the narrator, in an attempt to be like Moore, instead becomes even more abrasive.

His failure is chronicled in his film as, while he tries to get in contact with Moore he interviews people without telling them the name of the documentary, for fear of the obvious visceral reaction:

That he’s making a biased movie with few facts.

Wonder why that’s a problem?

  I don’t believe in ignoring the other side. Half of my reading is things I disagree with, and this film is no exception. I’ve read some well-put criticisms of Michael Moore. I’ve seen some well-put criticisms of Moore. Ones that I agree with.

This film is a giant piece of slander portrayed as a documentary. As is 9/11. But Fahrenheit 9/11 had one thing this one didn’t. A whole ton of fact-checkers and researchers to back up claims.

This has, well, equivocation. That’s it.

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