Here’s the problem with Joe Klein.
April 16, 2007 11:19
Just What Liberals Need
Michael Moore is a disgrace.
That’s the whole post. That’s the entirety of Klein’s analysis. So, I had to follow the link to discover what it is, exactly, that makes Michael Moore a disgrace.
Guess what? Michael Moore decided to make a movie called Sicko about the state of health care in America. As part of that film he contacted people that helped clean up the ground zero site at the World Trade Center and that are now suffering from respiratory problems. He took them to Cuba for free treatment.
Moore…wanted to highlight that health care in the communist country is free. Cuban doctors are also said to have developed new techniques for treating lung cancer and other respiratory illnesses.
One of the applicants contacted to take part on the trip was Michael McCormack, a disabled medic who found an American flag at Ground Zero that once flew atop the Twin Towers.
McCormack said: “What he [Moore] wanted to do is shove it up George W’s rear end that 9/11 heroes had to go to a communist country to get adequate health care.”
John Feal, who runs the Fealgood Foundation to help raise money for the Ground Zero workers was approached by Moore to find candidates for the trip.
He called the visit a success saying: “From what I heard through the grapevine, those people that went are utterly happy.”
Okay. Klein sarcastically asserts that this stunt by Moore is exactly what liberals need. Then he says that Moore is a disgrace. Let’s take these two things separately.
If Michael Moore wanted to stick it in George Bush’s rear end, this probably isn’t the best way to do it. Why? Because the right-wing will howl like mad that Michael Moore traveled to Cuba, and that he is a communist lover, and that Castro is a bad person that has tortured people, and so on. And, given all that white-hot outrage, Michael Moore’s point about health care will be drowned out. Why? Well, that leads us to the second part.
Moore’s message will be drowned out because the people representing the left on our teevees and in our weekly magazines (like Time) will not rebut the right-wing noise machine. Instead, they will join in with them and call Michael Moore a disgrace. They will not say, for example, “Michael Moore is making a very important point.” They’ll say, “Michael Moore is a disgrace.”
This is why our left-leaning pundits have totally lost the confidence of the left in this country. They are complete capitulators.
They see a leftie, not even a Democrat, do something that the right will criticize…and they run for cover. Michael Moore isn’t a disgrace for pointing out that Cuba has more compassion for those in need of health care than America. It’s a disgrace that it is so easy to make this point.
It would be more accurate to say that Michael Moore doesn’t understand how to win a political argument. If he was smarter, he would have gone to Costa Rica or Norway to make his point. As long as wankers like Joe Klein are around to agree with Bill O’Reilly…visiting Cuba or Venezuela or Syria will trump all other considerations and make anything you have to say not only irrelevant, but a disgrace.
