This weekend will see the release of the latest Michael Moore documentary, "Sicko". I've seen all of his films thus far, as well as several episodes of his "The Awful Truth" TV show, so I'll certainly be seeing this latest film too. To be honest, though I generally like Moore and his principled stands, I take some of what he says with a grain of salt. In order to make his arguments, he sometimes ignores facts that don't support his case, while also making points from things that seem tenuous at best.
For instance, in "Bowling For Columbine", Moore finagles his way into Charlton Heston's home and, after a bit of conversation to soften Heston up and get him with his guard down, proceeds to confront him on his NRA presidency and a rally that was held very insensitively immediately after the gun-related death of a little girl. While this may be a fair attack, given Heston's longstanding, gun-loving, Second Amendment stance, I felt it rather uncalled for when he similarly ambushes Dick Clark on a matter that seems like he's really grasping at straws. He accuses Clark of being partly responsible for the gun use of a little boy whose mother was a worker in a Dick Clark owned restaurant chain, and therefore not at home to look after her son when the incident took place. As far as I could surmise, Dick Clark was guilty of nothing more than being involved in a government program meant to wean people off of welfare by giving them work in participating places of employment. I'm sure that Dick Clark was participating in this program in all good faith, hoping it would give people a leg up to a better future. As such, I felt Moore had overplayed his hand and was looking for any scapegoat that made for good melodrama in his film.
However, as I said, I generally applaud Michael Moore for his efforts. There are a lot of contentious issues in America that should be addressed and I'm glad a guy like Moore is out there to shine a spotlight on them. Here then is my caricature of Michael Moore in tribute to his efforts.
