HE IS WHAT HE SAYS:

Michael Moore, Ugly American
Filmmaker Taken to Task for Arrogance, Ignoring Israel
By Jefferson Morley
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 13, 2004; 10:30 AM


Michael Moore can handle verbal abuse from the conservative pundits in
America, but harsh words from Pete Townshend, lead guitarist for The Who,
may hit closer to his liberal heart.



"I greatly resent being bullied and slurred by him just because he didn't
get what we wanted from me," Townshend told Ireland Online.

Moore wanted Townshend's rock anthem "Won't Get Fooled Again" for use on the
soundtrack of his anti-Bush documentary film, "Fahrenheit 9/11." Townshend
refused, saying he thought Moore's previous movies amounted to "bullying."
In response, Townshend said that Moore accused him of being a war supporter.
Townshend says Moore's attitude was evocative of President Bush's war on
terrorism credo: if you're not with me, you're against me.

"It seems to me that this aspect of his nature is not unlike that of the
powerful and willful man at the centre of his documentary," Townshend
observed.

Ouch. As "Fahrenheit 9/11" is released into theaters around the world, Moore
is beginning to face a new kind of criticism. On American talk radio, Moore
may be denounced as practically anti-American. In the international online
media, the pudgy filmmaker from Flint, Michigan, is often seen as all too
American. He is more than occasionally described as a stereotypical "ugly
American" -- overbearing to people of different cultures, oblivious to
nuance, unsophisticated in politics and arrogant in temperament.

The most common substantive criticism is that he scants the role of Israel
in the politics of the Iraq war.

But the criticism hasn't kept people from lining up at the box office. The
opening day box office receipts broke the British record for a documentary,
according to the Daily Telegraph of London.

The French attitude was evident in a droll dispatch in Le Monde about
Moore's press conference for foreign reporters in New York last week. In
front of 150 reporters, Moore dispensed political advice to the people of
many nations.

He urged the British to vote out Prime Minister Tony Blair. He wished the
Australians would dump Prime Minister John Howard.

"The chief of the Italian government, Silvio Berlusconi, was not forgotten
by the filmmaker," the Parisian daily observed dryly.

"If I were an Italian citizen, I would have left the movie theater asking
myself what in the world Berlusconi was doing by always hanging on to George
W. Bush's coattails," Moore was quoted as saying. "It is embarrassing for
Italy and the earlier there is regime change in Rome, the better."

Moore also had advice for the people of South Korea, according to the Seoul
daily Chosun Ilbo.

"I hope Korean viewers start a social campaign against the dispatch of
additional troops to Iraq," he said.

Moore was apparently unaware that South Koreans opposed to the U.S.-led war
had started such a campaign more than a year ago and that it already enjoys
substantial public support.