Two weeks ago I wrote a column about how Democrats need to act more like conservatives, not ideologically but in terms of aggressive communication and methodology - think Karl Rove or Sean Hannity.
I referred to the issue as "the rhetoric gap," but a friend later added it might also be called "the badass gap." We, democrats and liberals, lose because we're not tough enough.
And whenever I say something like that, people from both sides of the aisle inevitably bring up Michael Moore, the supposed poster boy of 'tough' liberalism. Personally, I can't stand the guy. Democrats and liberals need to abandon our support for Moore and we need to do it fast, especially on university campuses where he is especially popular.
Now, I'm not a total spoil-sport. I will admit to gasping at "Fahrenheit 9/11" and I did get a kick out of "Bowling for Columbine." But while I recognize that Moore is a technically excellent filmmaker who directs with savvy wit and brazen self-assurance, I strongly believe that he is doing more harm than good for the causes about which he and I care so deeply.
My biggest problem with Michael Moore is that for all his rabble-rousing bluster, he's just too easy to deflate. Take the moment in "Bowling For Columbine" when Charlton Heston is allegedly in Denver the week after the Littleton shootings, lifting a rifle above his head before an National Rifle Association crowd while shouting, "From my cold dead hands!"
The scene is a fake. Heston delivered the "cold dead hands" line half a year after the Columbine shootings, when asked what it would take for him to give up that specific, hand-made rifle - which he had just received as a gift. Moore then spliced "cold hands" together with bits from other speeches, climaxing with Heston's now-infamous "Don't come here? We're already here!"
Moore fabricated several quotes for Heston, but I've heard lots of smart kids defend the auteur by saying a) all art has a point of view, b) Moore's "juxtaposition" of quotes is art. Both points may be true, but they're ethically sterile and unbecoming of an educated person, using intellectualism to defend a practice that we know deep down is wrong.
It's also just bad strategy to lie in Moore's particular way. It is much more effective to stake a bold-faced lie (Ã la the Swift Boat vets) or take someone out of context (like Ann Coulter does) because those forms of lying end in he said/she said battles - and the truth is assumed to be somewhere in the middle. A false, scattershot quote can easily and dramatically be disproved.
But even when Moore isn't outright lying, he's still making us liberals look bad. It astonishes me how few progressives realize that we all look insensitive and naive when a left-wing filmmaker portrays a joyous Iraq under Saddam's rule. Would we embrace such a portrayal of Darfur? Would we gravitate towards the people who did embrace that ridiculous portrayal of Sudan?
I'd like to think not.
Liberals who refuse to denounce Michael Moore end up having to defend a liar who stinks at lying, losing time when we could be making our own, strong points. Instead, we try to defend an idiot who is all too big a target for the right-wing attack machine to gun down. And frankly, I don't think liberals can lie as much as conservatives because the right excels in rapid response.
If you want an example of a strong liberal who doesn't make a mockery of us all, skip Moore and stick with newly-elected Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean instead. He knows how to fight without pulling punches, how to toss out bold, red-meat attack rhetoric without excessive deceit, how to be in the spotlight without making the spotlight about him, how to construct a cogent argument that can appeal to the unconverted, not just to the choir. That's the kind of leadership we need.
If we as a generation of liberals are to stand strong, we must be smart about how we do it. Worshipping at the altar of an oaf like Michael Moore - allowing him to speak for us - is a dangerous mistake.
Distancing ourselves from him is the best first step in the left direction.
Joel Silberman '05 begrudgingly accepts the "flawed politics of masculinity."
