A Paean to Michael Moore

Posted this at Tim Blair today, regarding this critical article:

Michael Moore might have moments of intellectual dishonesty, but in "Bowling for Columbine" I was impressed with the mental cartoon he rendered of the Lockheed Martin rocket facility just outside Littleton, Colorado, USA, where I was once employed (1976/77). Moore portrayed the facility as a missile factory, and folks like SpinSanity howled that the facility is used to build rockets for communications satellites. Remember, my friends, that the Littleton facility USED to be a missile factory, until the retirement of the Titan II missile from the U.S. strategic missile arsenal in the mid-80's (when Klebold & Harris were children). So Moore's argument, that there was a pervasive atmosphere of sublimated violence in the town that affected Klebold and Harris' upbringing (and by extension, given the millions of people employed by the arms industry, many Americans), CANNOT be dismissed offhand. Paradoxically, that would be the DISHONEST low-road approach: the approach ALL Moore's conservative critics take! What Moore failed to mention (probably for simplicity's sake, although some may argue) is that the Littleton facility NO LONGER produces missiles.

Moore charms through simplicity and directness. It's a useful skill, leaving enough out of an argument to make it direct and easily digested. After "Bowling for Columbine", no one can look at Charlton Heston quite the same way again. Bye Moses, hello heartless creep.....

A big man with big shoes and big ambitions! Someone to watch!