I'd like to make a comment about Michael Moore, since he is so much in the news these days and seemingly close to the heart of so many people. I don't know whether he's right or wrong, but I do think he's not much of a man.

I used to like MM. I thought his first movie, Roger and Me, was a clever and mostly gentle movie about the GM plant closing in Flint, Michigan. It's point was to illustrate the tragedy of what happened, and not just to slow-roast GM execs. Mostly, he let the people he interviewed and the scenes he filmed speak for themselves. The drama came from the natural conflict between the goals of the executives and the values of the workers. It was a documentary, and it was art. At least, I thought so then.

But by the time he made Bowling for Columbine, MM had become one very angry young man (even though he's not so young and should know better by now) who was so sure of himself and his cause that he felt justified in humiliating an Alzheimer's patient (a certain actor named Charlton Heston) simply because he's the titular head of the NRA. Let me say that again because it's so important. He humiliated Chuck Heston not because of anything he did, but because of what he was.

What made that episode particularly ugly to me is that I later saw an interview where he said that, after they had filmed the Heston interview, he and his crew talked about how using the footage would appear vindictive and cruel, but decided to use it anyway because; "the point we were trying to make was too important." (a paraphrase, not his exact words)

What hubris! What childish disrespect for others! If only, instead of thinking of Charlton Heston's dignity, he had considered his own!

But I suspect he only considered his own rising star. Each of his subsiquent works have become more strident, more uncompromising, more righteous. There's always been a strong streak of puritan, holier-than-thou righteousness in Americans, and populist demagogues like MM have always been willing to play on it. Traditionally, demagogues prey on conservative fears, and MM is no different. What is different this time is that MM reflects the conservative fears of the political perspective usually called liberal. But of course being "liberal" doesn't make us any more resistant to populism. Only our life experience and a strong sense of personal identity can do that. It really is all about character.

So here's my warning to MM and everyone else carried into dark territory by the righteousness of their cause:

Righteous anger only exists in the movies. Real anger is never, ever righteous. Anger can give you short-term strength, but in the long run is always exhausting, debilitating, and corrupting. Anger blinds you to the good in others and to your own errors. Anger is poison, self-administered. We all get angry, but most of us see it as a character flaw. Only a few of us are foolish and destructive enough to strive for it and make it our signature.

So I totally reject all of MM's anger. To me Fahrenheit 9/11 is a documentary the same way Reefer Madness is a documentary. Most of us will live long enough to see it discredited. Some of us will live long enough to see it become self-parody. And MM himself no doubt will serve as another reminder to us of that old Hollywood maxim:

Be nice to the people you meet on your way up. You'll meet them again on your way down.

Larry 5.1 M22/VP100/QS8/PB1-ISD