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Dodd And Him (Michael Moore)

Michael Moore’s new anti-capitalist propaganda epic steps on a few sore Democratic toes, according to the Washington Post

“Moore zeroes in less on Phil Gramm or other GOP string-pullers than he does on White House economic adviser Larry Summers, Robert Rubin and Sen. Chris Dodd. Especially Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat and chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. Moore gets an on-camera interview with the mortgage officer who handled the special VIP loans provided to Dodd and other big names, which have dogged Dodd's reelection bid.”
The film’s ideological pretensions pivot around last fall’s bailout. On the right side of the barricades, according to Moore, stood valiant populists pitted against Wall Street titans “calling in their Washington chits.”

The film itself does not confront one obvious wrinkle: Conservatives were heartily opposed to the bailout, and in fact still are.

The Washington Post – which may possibly expect to be harangued in Moore’s next film – notes:

“Left unsaid is that a larger proportion of House Republicans than Democrats voted against the bailout -- many of the same Republicans, in fact, who have been leading the anti-government, anti-universal health care charge that Moore claims to oppose.”

It’s not what you know or who you know that makes for a good propaganda film: It’s what you know that you leave out of account.

But Moore is not bothered by and Democratic Party push-back.

Said the Palme d’Or  winning documentary maker: "One of the important things to recognize in my films is that I always went after whoever needed to be gone after. But people will be surprised by how many Democrats I went after for being too close to big money."

And when a presumptuous reporter asked Moore whether his film “glorified the anti-bailout position assumed by so many conservative Republicans,” he responded, "I wanted to stop the revisionist version of how the bailout is remembered. [Republicans] are trying to ride some phony populist wave because they know there's anger brewing. Beneath the surface, history is full of people taking advantage of [populist anger] and taking this country to an extra reactionary place."

Clearly, for propagandists the enemy of your enemy isn’t always your friend. And if booting Dodd off the progressive boat into shark infested waters helps to sell Moore's propaganda film, what anti-capitalist worth his salt would hesitate to shove him off the plank?

Sorry Chris, it’s business.

For a candid docudrama on Moore, see here:

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