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Michael Moore’s Audacious Lies

By Dan Gifford
20 Oct 2009

If the evil men do lives after them, the legacy of dishonesty, 
demagoguery and hypocrisy that Michael Moore has been enabled to 
legitimize in film and the body politic will endure for a long time 
after he quits making documentaries as he says he may. That hopefully 
means his disingenuous indictment of capitalism now making him millions 
in theaters will be the last time he’ll project his puerile class 
warfare demons onto a movie screen and insult our intelligence by 
calling it a documentary.



Don’t get me wrong. Moore came up with a clever shtick that can be 
amusing, but he doesn’t make real documentaries. He makes sophomoric 
agitprop that violates the Oscar’s rule against fiction in that form 
which other documentary makers must apparently follow — a double 
standard point I’ve made to the Academy awarders twice. Only the first 
of those letters is listed below because of space limitations, but a key 
point made in that second note is that there should be a separate 
category for Moore’s type of fabricated political schlock if such stuff 
is going to be receiving awards. Sans that, “anything goes with 
documentary film … there are no standards … it’s all a game,” as 
University of Texas film professor and indie producer John Pierson put it.

The Academy’s silence was and remains deafening. Disquieting as that is, 
the worst silence is that of the news media that has known about Moore’s 
lies and kept mum. Such has been the case ever since this baseball 
capped faux populist schlub allegedly chased General Motors Chairman 
Roger Smith around for an interview to no avail in “Roger & Me.”

The entire premise of that Warner Brothers distributed film was that 
Smith would not meet with Moore to explain why the cruel GM capitalists 
annihilated Michael’s Flint, Michigan home town with plant closings and 
loyal employee firings. But according to the makers of two separate real 
documentary films who researched Moore’s methods and fidelity to his 
socialist political message, it’s all baloney.

Roger Smith never did an interview with Moore?

Kevin Leffler, a Flint CPA who grew up with Moore and made “Shooting 
Michael Moore” confirmed to me that a member of the “Roger & Me” crew 
told him he was present when Moore did interviews with Smith. Debbie 
Melnyk and Rick Caine, makers of “Manufacturing Dissent,” corroborated 
that in their film research. “Anyone who says that is a fucking liar,” 
responded Moore.

Michael doth protest too much.

How about those fired General Motors workers Moore shows?

According to Leffler, two of the film’s main characters, Flint locals 
Rhonda Britton and James Bond, are presented as fired GM employees when, 
in fact, neither worked for GM. They told Leffler that Moore coached 
them on what to say, how to say it with the most drama, edited their 
comments out of context and even promised money to the illiterate 
Britton if she’d sign a paper Moore gave her. The paper was a trick 
forfeiting any right to money from the film.

How about Fred Ross, the Flint hard heart presented as evicting fired

GM employees from their homes?

Ross told Leffler those he was evicting were not GM employees either.

The bottom line is that there are no limits to the outright lies Moore 
has embraced in all his his films to create false realities that can be 
exploited for leftist political causes, including the fabrication of 
quotes. That’s what he did to the late Charlton Heston by editing two 
speeches he made a year apart in order to make him say something on 
screen he never said in person. He hid the cut with a cut-away shot. 
Notice that Heston is wearing different suits, but the viewer doesn’t 
catch the deception in real time and Moore wants to keep it that way.

Kevin Leffler’s well-researched film has so upset Moore that he is 
trying to block it from being shown. Leffler told me Moore intimidated 
Carmike Cinema, the fourth largest movie house chain, into pulling it 
from its Traverse City, Michigan theater, a bully he may try elsewhere. 
One reason among many Moore probably does not want “Shooting Michael 
Moore” seen is that Leffler snuck into Fidel’s Cuban hospitals with a 
hidden camera to show what socialized Castro care is really like and it 
ain’t pretty.

That’s a sharp contrast to the Cuban hospital Moore showed in “Sicko” 
which was exclusively for rich foreigners and top communist party 
officials in Fidel’s regime. But Moore never mentioned that and neither 
have government health care advocates here who have shamelessly used 
that Cuban hospital as an example of the utopian system Americans are 
being denied.

Leffler says he does have a distribution deals in Europe and America and 
that “Shooting Michael Moore” is likely to be on its way to a screen 
near you.

***

April 21, 2003

Bruce Davis

Executive Director

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

8949 Wilshire Boulevard

Beverly Hills, CA 90211

RE: “BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE” INVESTIGATION REQUEST

Dear Mr. Davis:

This is a letter I had hoped not to write. However, the disturbing 
amount of credible evidence published in reputable venues such as “The 
Wall Street Journal” and “Forbes” that “Bowling for Columbine” violates 
the Academy rules which define a documentary feature can no longer be 
ignored.

Therefore, as a prior Academy Award nominee who is concerned about the 
integrity of the Oscar, I hereby respectfully request a fair and 
complete formal Academy investigation as to the eligibility of this 
year’s winner.

Should that investigation determine that “Bowling for Columbine” 
contains, as claimed, fabricated scenes and video of real people that 
has been edited to manufacture a fictional reality intended to mislead 
viewers, then the director and producer of this film should be stripped 
of their award. That Oscar should then be awarded to the runner up.

Failure to conduct such an investigation and act according to its 
findings will diminish the stature of the Oscar, establish an 
exploitable precedent for future rule violators and be grossly unfair to 
the other nominees who did follow the rules. That unfairness will be 
particularly bitter to those whose film would have been nominated in 
place of “Bowling for Columbine.”

Even the accusation of such rule violations taints the Academy Award 
with implications of politics and favoritism that are most damaging. So, 
I again respectfully ask that you not delay your attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

Dan Gifford

Producer, “Waco: The Rules of Engagement”

---
Dan Gifford is a national Emmy-winning,
Oscar-nominated film producer and former
reporter for CNN, The MacNeil Lehrer
News Hour and ABC News.

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