Spinsanity has another fine skewering of Michael Moore and his film, Bowling for Columbine. Putting aside Moore’s claim to be in it for the humor, the column points out the numerous contradictions, distortions and untruths that Moore puts forward as fact.
Much more mendaciously, Moore has apparently altered footage of an ad run by the Bush/Quayle campaign in 1988 to implicate Bush in the Willie Horton scandal. Making a point about the use of racial symbols to scare the American public, he shows the Bush/Quayle ad called “Revolving Doors,” which attacked Michael Dukakis for a Massachusetts prison furlough program by showing prisoners entering and exiting a prison …. Superimposed over the footage of the prisoners is the text “Willie Horton released. Then kills again.” This caption is displayed as if it is part of the original ad. However, existing footage, media reports and the recollections of several high-level people involved in the campaign indicate that the “Revolving Doors” ad did not explicitly mention Horton, unlike the notorious ad run by the National Security Political Action Committee (which had close ties to Bush media advisor Roger Ailes). In addition, the caption is incorrect — Horton did not kill anyone while on prison furlough (he raped a woman).
Questions of fear, and violence, and guns are all valid ones. Use of humor, satire, and hyperbole to drive home a point are all legitimate avenues of expression. But Moore does himself, and his cause (whatever it is) little good by by simply making stuff up. Sure, it lets him be more outrageous in his claims, but ultimately it’s self-defeating, as it is here.