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I did see the interview. To disclose my bias, I'm fairly conservative but have no reservations about trashing Bush when its called for (a lot lately). Having said that, however, Moore both picked up and lost some credibility with me.
His pro-military position (which surprised me) was refreshing and shored him up a bit. But, Moore basically admitted that he has little regard for accuracy in his public positions. Letterman asked him about his Oscar speech about basing the war on a lie and Moore admited without reservation that he had no idea whether or not it was true and took some delight in that (thought it was funny). The short clip they played from the documentary at first blush is very damning - Bush talks tough and presidential about the war on terror then (presumably as soon as the camera is "off") says "Now, watch this drive." This snippet is designed to portray W's position as insincere while nothing could be further from the truth. As wrong as he might be, he is very sincere about what he is doing.
But, what Moore did was juxtapose the two sentences snipping out what came between - the second time I watched it the cutaway was more obvious.
He did the same thing in the Columbine documentary to make it look like Heston was cheering the tragedy.
Moore is a smart guy and he knows how to make a movie. And its difficult to criticise Moore without having it look like I'm supporting W (which I'm not). And that is sort of the problem - Moore could care less about accuracy and believes that the end justifies the means. However, that really undermines his credibility with me.
Letterman asked Moore three separate times if the points he made in the film were refutable. Moore appeared to welcome all conservative challengers yet he will not appear on any conservative show to "defend" himself. I would respect him a lot moore (pun intended) if he would meet with and discuss his film with a Sean Hannity or even a Tim Russert. But he won't.
But, I'm not sorry he made the film and I plan on watching it. And there is much I will learn from it but for me, I take everything he says with a grain of salt. If there is another side to the story, you will never hear it from Moore. I treat conservative talking heads the same way.
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