MOORE-ON (via Southerner and Brian Boys)

Michael Moore, Humbug (Kay S. Hymowitz, Summer 2003, City Journal)

Recently a wealthy Chicago couple named Drobney announced their plan to bankroll a left-wing talk radio station. They needn't bother: the Left already has a multimedia star-and even without a radio station, he's bigger than Rush, has more fans than O'Reilly, and sells books faster than Coulter. Followers plead with this "folk hero for the American people" to run for president. Reviewers compare him to Twain, Voltaire, and Swift. Unlike Rush and company, the appeal of this blue-collar megastar extends far beyond the hoi polloi. Hollywood and Manhattan agents wave gazillion-dollar contracts in front of his face. He wins prestigious awards that will never grace the Limbaugh or O'Reilly dens-Oscars, Emmys, Writer's Guild Awards, and jury prizes at Cannes (where his latest movie received a record 13-minute standing ovation). People stop him on the streets of Berlin, Paris, and London-where, according to Andrew Collins of the Guardian, they consider him "the people's filmmaker."

He is, of course, Michael Moore [...]

In May, I went to see Moore give a talk to graduating seniors at a liberal arts college outside New York City, and it was easy to see why the kids went nuts. Moore recalled the Left as I remembered it in the "you-can-change-the-world" sixties-funny, confident, passionate, idealistic, full of possibility. As you might expect, he poked fun at conservatives, but also at liberals, those long-suffering targets of political satirists. "You must have a conservative in your family-an uncle or someone," he said confidingly. "That person never loses his car keys. He has every key marked: this SUV, that SUV. Our [the liberal] side goes [in a timid, whiny voice], `Do you know where my car keys are? . . . Where do you want to go to dinner?' `Gee, I don't know. Where do you want to go to dinner?' Right-wingers go [slamming the podium] `GET IN THE CAR! WE'RE GOING TO SIZZLER!' "

Isn't that just the gender difference between the parties? Posted by Orrin Judd at July 24, 2003 9:37 PM