Michael Moore and the rhetoric of provocation

There’s probably no hotter figure in America this week than Michael Moore. Even the hoopla surrounding Bill Clinton’s memoir seems tame compared to the furor over “Fahrenheit 9/11.”

Moore’s Academy Award-winning film “Bowling for Columbine” took aim at the gun culture in the United States. In “Fahrenheit 9/11,” Moore’s bull’s-eye is the Bush administration, especially its response to the Sept. 11 attacks and its orchestration of war in Iraq.

Moore’s new film is his best to date. It has moments of greatness, but it isn’t free of the flaws that have left Moore open to criticism -- some valid, some not.

The criticism of Moore that is furthest off base is the allegation that the filmmaker is “unpatriotic.” Patriotism does not require blind loyalty to the government. From his own account, Michael Moore loves the United States deeply and feels that the current president has hijacked it just as the Sept. 11 terrorists commandeered the aircraft they turned into weapons. Moore wants Bush out of the pilot’s seat because he feels the president is way off course. That is a valid and patriotic response, and to suggest otherwise is a cheap ad populum argument.

The allegation that Moore likes to hog the spotlight is largely misguided, too.

It’s true that Moore’s documentary technique often works best when he stays off camera. In effective scenes in “Fahrenheit 9/11,” Moore presents evidence of business ties between the Bush and bin Laden families and information about the two dozen or so bin Ladens allowed to leave the United States after Sept. 13, 2001, with little questioning. When Lila Lipscomb of Flint, Mich., grieves her son, lost in a helicopter crash in Tikrit, Moore wisely stays in the background. And he allows U.S. soldiers in Iraq to voice their own confusion about the point of the war.

But Moore has also filmed brilliant scenes in which he appears. The scene early in “Bowling for Columbine” when Moore opens a bank account to take advantage of a gun giveaway would not work as well without him. Another notable example is his meeting at the end of that film with NRA spokesman Charlton Heston.

When a scene featuring Moore himself fails, it’s not the result of ego. It’s usually because he chooses an affrontive tactic, catching people off-guard and embarrassing them. Newsweek calls him a “gotcha artist.” In “Fahrenheit 9/11,” he confronts members of Congress outside their office buildings, encouraging them to send their own sons and daughters to serve in Iraq.

Based on the audience I saw the film with, Moore’s fans find his “gotcha” tactic hilarious, but although it makes its point, it’s unlikely to win over a hostile or even skeptical audience. It’s impromptu street rhetoric, and it preaches to the choir.

Moore’s confrontations hold a wider audience when they’re scheduled. A good example is his discussion with a Lockheed executive in “Bowling for Columbine” of similarities between the violence at Columbine High School and the violence Lockheed products are used to perpetrate. In “Fahrenheit 9/11,” he gently questions Lipscomb about her pride in her family’s military record, noting -- without irony -- that her children’s service is “a great gift to this country.”

Moore’s rhetoric is consistently anti-elitist, and elitists will naturally find that offensive. He indicts the decision-makers who are personally immune from the ravages of war and is considerably more respectful of soldiers, especially those who join up as an alternative to poverty.

He is not at all respectful of President George Bush, and his insolence is, to my mind, his greatest flaw. Like the confrontation tactic, it will amuse his fans and do nothing to win converts. As the president sits in an elementary school classroom on the morning of Sept. 11, having been told that a second plane had hit the World Trade Center, Moore patronizes him in the voice-over: Does the president need an aide to tell him how to respond?

There are many possible explanations for the president’s remaining in the classroom for seven to 10 minutes before reacting to the terrorist attacks. One explanation is Moore’s -- that the president did not know, initially, how to respond. Is that so appalling, given the circumstances?

Moore’s lampooning bothers me so much because it’s the same tactic used by rude, often right-wing, radio personalities. Libertarian Neal Boortz consistently calls Sen. Hillary Clinton “Hitlery,” and Jerry Falwell called Ellen Degeneres “Ellen Degenerate.” As Degeneres pointed out, we’re supposed to get over that level of ugliness in elementary school, and adults -- conservative, liberal, or otherwise -- should avoid it.

It is because Michael Moore is so important and sometimes so good that his flaws disappoint me so much. His presentation of issues is never simplistic. In “Bowling for Columbine,” he examines not only the easy availability of guns in the United States but also the climate of fear that causes people to want them and use them. In “Fahrenheit 9/11,” he indicts the war in Iraq without demonizing the soldiers fighting it.

In a recent “Larry King Live” interview, Bill Clinton pointed out the tendency of public rhetoric to deify or demonize.

Ronald Reagan dies and is deified, despite the fact that his government was involved in the trading of arms for hostages and sponsored a group of Nicaraguan “freedom fighters” who murdered not only civilians but even priests and nuns.

Clinton himself was demonized for having an affair with an intern and initially lying about it, despite the fact that he presided over eight years of economic prosperity, foiled a number of terrorist attempts, and kept our country out of war.

Michael Moore may well be a victim of this same polarity. He’s a demon to Bush supporters and the new patron saint of those who want Bush out of the White House.

To avoid this simplistic labeling, Moore now needs to decide how wide an audience he’s after. If he aims to provide a feature-length “Saturday Night Live”-type opportunity for liberals to laugh together, hand out bumper stickers, and renew their resolve to replace the government, he’s on course.

But if he hopes to actually change policy and voter’s minds, he’ll have to tone down the provocative rhetoric. It repels the very people not inclined to buy his arguments.

In “Bowling for Columbine,” Moore even found a way to put the confrontational rhetoric to good use. He and two students shot at Columbine High School (one a paraplegic) visit K-Mart headquarters to ask the company why it stopped selling handguns and assault weapons but left the ammunition for those weapons, including the bullets that injured the students and killed their classmates, on the shelves. Moore and his cohorts wait hours in the lobby, make polite requests of K-Mart executives, and show the students’ bullet scars. Then they are told that K-Mart will stop selling the ammunition within three months.

It’s one of the most dramatic moments in Moore’s films. At the resolution, Moore looks genuinely surprised. Perhaps if he replayed that scene a few times, he would realize that rhetoric without rudeness may not play for a laugh, but it often works.

As Michael Moore continues to learn this lesson, it’s important that people not use excuses to avoid seeing his film. They should watch the film and judge for themselves. Skeptics should try to see beyond any questionable tactics to the filmmaker’s argument: that George Bush started the war with Iraq and has sent about 850 young Americans to their deaths in order to further enrich his friends, especially those in the oil business.

“Fahrenheit 9/11” is one of the most important films I’ve ever seen. Its message should be taken seriously by anyone who cares about this country, regardless of what we think of the messenger.