Tuesday, March 15, 2011

A Leftist Double Standard? Naaaaaaaaaaah!

The latest sting video by James O'Keefe exposing NPR has the media world buzzing, and not necessarily in a good way. As one might expect, Leftists are complaining about O'Keefe's video, alleging there were edits made to take certain comments out of context and make them sound worse than they actually were. These are all legitimate beefs as far as I'm concerned, especially if they're based on fact and not bluster.

But, I do have to take issue with the Left on this because they're holding someone who does what they accuse O'Keefe of doing to a different standard, solely because of his political ideology. This individual has manufactured scenes, done clever edits to make things appear to have happened in a certain order that didn't, and generally attempted to push a particular point of view, regardless of the truth.

That individual is Michael Moore.

In "Roger and Me," Moore gives the impression that he was at a GM stockholders meeting with Roger Smith and his microphone was cut off at Smith's insistence. Transcripts of the meeting show Moore wasn't in attendance, thus his microphone wasn't cut off when he asked a question. It was all fabricated for the movie.

In "Bowling for Columbine," Moore does slick editing to film a meeting with Charlton Heston about guns and gun control to take different scenes out of order and put them in a way that made Heston look less than stellar. He was also guilty of fabricating a scene in the movie where he appears to get a rifle at a bank the same day he requests one, except he had to make special arrangements for that to happen.

In "Fahrenheit 911," Moore plays fast and loose with the timeline of 9/11 and with statements and actions President George W. Bush made.

In "Sicko," Moore tells story after story about people allegedly denied health care because of insurance companies, only to find a number of those people weren't insured at the time of their care.

In "Capitalism: A Love Story," he blames Ronald Reagan for the state of the economy today, all the while ignoring or downplaying the efforts of Democrats in the 1990s that lead to the current economic problems.

And this guy is speaking "truth to power" while O'Keefe is just a "conservative liar"?

I have misgivings about O'Keefe's style and alleged misdeeds, and if he's proven to be a conservative version of Michael Moore, I'll gladly criticize him in the same vein I criticize Moore.

Will you Leftists do the same to Moore?

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