Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

Off we went on Saturday night, whistling a happy tune, to see "Manufacturing Dissent", a critical documentary about Michael Moore by the Canadian directors (and self-described liberals) Rick Caine and Debbie Melnyk. At last, we'd see the fat fraud exposed and once the film had ended, drunk with joy, we'd hit the nearest bar and buy a round for the house.

Remarkably, we left the screening feeling the opposite of elated and drank but one glass in the nearest bar. The reason? The film is so shocking and its subject so disturbing that only a person with a heart of stone could take pleasure in what it presents. The sad fact is that Michael Moore, along with being an impostor and a charlatan, is extremely unwell.

The most revealing moment comes when we see Moore in his short tenure as editor of Mother Jones in 1986. Could this pale, scraggy, insecure-looking individual have turned into the blob that would become the nemesis of the Bush administration, er, regime? It is him! Moore departed Mother Jones in disgrace after he refused to publish a commissioned article by Paul Berman that was critical of the Sandinistas' human rights record. His inability to deal with truth then was a signal that this man would take the low road of deception. And he did.

Most deplorable are the bits of the documentary that deal with the 2004 US presidential election. What was Ralph Nader thinking when he allowed Moore to be part of a campaign that was supposed to be more ethical than those of his opponents? Tiring of Nader, the flabby opportunist switches sides and soon he's campaigning for Kerry and we see Nader loyalists being ejected from rallies when they attempt to query Moore's duplicity. The really frightening thing here is the ease with which a demagogue can attach himself to a democratic cause and insinuate himself into politics. The power of the propagandist is frightening to behold.

Equally appalling are the scenes where Moore is handed the Palme d'Or in Cannes and the Academy Award in Hollywood. The notion of the documentary as "truth" is trashed when Quentin Tarantino hands Moore his prize in France and the case is closed when he picks up the Oscar. Those who despise the values of the entertainment industry are vindicated by these farcical scenes.

What was it that Montaigne said? "In plain truth, lying is an accursed vice. If we did but discover the horror and gravity of it, we should pursue it with fire and sword, and more justly than other crimes." — Michel de Montaigne, Of Liars, 1580.

Michael Moore is proof that intellectual crime pays, and his bloated ego, body and bank balance suggest that something is seriously amiss in a world where falsification is so generously rewarded. Apparently, his next "work" is called Sicko! It has to be autobiographical.