I went to see Michael Moore speak on his new book, "Downsize This!" at a local bookstore. Michael ranted about his new campaign to dump garbage on Orange County for their crime of declaring bankruptcy. (That makes tons of sense, Michael!) His logic: Orange County is trying to repay their debt by earning money in a public business of disposing of other counties' garbage. Thus, we should dump on Orange County ourselves, and let the Evil Orange Ones know what we think about them for trying to reorganize and pay back their debt.
Then Moore ranted on about how country music is the voice of the people (but he forgot about rap); about his six TV Nation episodes that he could not show on TV; about that trick he played on candidates by making phony contributions from organizations like "NORML" to Clinton; about how Ralph Nader would make a Fine President; and about how they were filming their book tour. He bragged a little about how "Roger and Me" was financed in one-half by settlement money he received in his lawsuit against Mother Jones Magazine, and ended with a big diatribe about Hillary Clinton. He pointed to big blowups of Hillary in shades, lipstick, and a straw hat, and pointed out that Hillary really is quite pretty, no matter what the media says.
Once the steam escaped from my ears, I raised my hand to ask him a question.
Basically, I called him on his "I want to sleep with Hillary" theme. There are a lot of reasons to think that Hillary sucks, I pointed out to Michael. "Why can't you just hate her on her record? She supported the 'defense of marriage [argh] act;' she dropped the ball on health care and abortion (what was that with her saying that parental notification was okay? sheesh); she stands behind bill just like the wives owned by their men as portrayed by the totally reasonable radical feminist theories she used to support (and to which i still subscribe). I openly *shout* 'Hllary Clinton sucks!' and i feel no womanly angst about it, because Hillary has done many anti-feminist deeds over the last few years."
Michael responded with some off the cuff remarks about how he *does* diss her on her record. "And, look at these blowups! Hillary is literally trashed by the media, and she is so pretty!" Was this supposed to be irony?
"But, about her record ... "
Michael then grew red. "I am just an evil white man," he sniffed. "How can you expect me to understand feminist sensibility? And, regardless, I do much prefer strong women! Hillary is a strong woman!"
"So, then, Michael, when you go to the porno store, you head for the Dom section over the story of O?"
One hundred heads all turned to glare and gasp at my smug punim.
Moore is very good at what he does -- which is rabble rousing, nothing more, nothing less. Now that he is being flown around the country on crown publishing's credit card, he makes a fine walking advertisement for his TV show. Sure Moore has something to say these days: "Buy my book!"
"Let's all be rebels! Follow me! Do as I say! I will lead the way .... "
Copyright 1996 Rebecca Eisenberg mars@bossanova.com. All rights reserved.