Centerfield

Local and state races aren't a grand enough scale for Moore. He wants national attention, and that means a presidential race. We'll see him again in '08.

Posted by: WeekendPundit at October 26, 2006 03:34 PM

Must be the Tigers in the world series. I was pretty sure I saw him at the Detroit airport monday.

Or maybe he's working on a movie.

Whatever the reason, I count it as a blessing.

Posted by: bk at October 26, 2006 03:34 PM

Cheeseburgers

Posted by: WHQ at October 26, 2006 04:08 PM

Who needs Moore? Between Foley follies, the Mandingo fear ad in Tennessee and the hillbilly heroin addict professing his total ignorance of Parkinson's in front of a national audience, there's entertainment for everyone. Anyway why should he? It would only be a distraction from the issues because the right tries to make sure that Moore himself is an issue. Moore knows that.

Nevertheless, it's way too bad he wasn't at the Musgrave debate the other night in Colorado. Michael Shiavo was there and she apparently just freaked out enough to move the time keeper because Shiavo was sitting near him. Afterwards she lit out. All Shiavo wanted to do was ask her a question - behind doors. Newsweek is going to be doing a story on his PAC, should be interesting.

That would be a pretty good doc. Watch Michael Shiavo confront the idiots who politicized his wife to no end. Watch them duck away like Musgrave. He really should confront Bill Frist, Psychic Doctor.

Posted by: Marcus at October 26, 2006 05:02 PM

Agreed, Marcus, I would like to see that but Moore doesn't add much, he just exploits the situation with his faux populism. And, because he is so established a partisan, it's pretty easy to discount his work. The last thing the Democrats need these days is Michael Moore.

Posted by: Marc at October 26, 2006 05:12 PM

I thnk he's busy eating Manhattan. Or was that Tokyo?

Posted by: Tully at October 26, 2006 05:33 PM

Faux populism? I don't think so. Moore's pretty sincere about his views. That's the RW rhetoric. You can be partisan and a populist BTW,whether it's the left or right. George Wallace was a "populist" as was Lester Maddox. LBJ was a "populist" in Texas. Reagan was a populist. I should know, he was my governor for 8 years.

The only reason the Dems don't "need" Moore is that the GOP will make him the issue and the distraction. That's it. It's more about politics than the content of Moore's work.

Posted by: Marcus at October 26, 2006 05:57 PM

Don't know. I'll just count it as a blessing, and not jinx things.

Posted by: Rafique Tucker at October 26, 2006 06:36 PM

The only reason the Dems don't "need" Moore is that the GOP will make him the issue and the distraction. That's it. It's more about politics than the content of Moore's work

C'mon Marcus do you really believe that? To me seems much like a left-wing version of Rush Limbaugh (pre gastric bypass).

My hunch, maybe he struck up a frendship with Jimmy Carter and after he overstayed his welcome Jimmy just couldn't shake him so he sent Michael out to monitor elections in Chechnya?

Posted by: C3 at October 26, 2006 06:55 PM

Dems have him sequestered in an underground bunker to keep him from lighting a fire under GOP voters.

Posted by: Jim M at October 26, 2006 08:43 PM

Yeah, Moore isn't a "faux" populist, he's just a self-appointed populist.

I've seen people try to argue that a given populist isn't really a populist because their policy positions really wouldn't be good for the given populist's most ardent supporters. That's not a sound argument, at least not as it relates to populism. A populist is simply someone who crafts their approach to appeal to average-joe folks who for whatever reason feel their views and needs are not being addressed by the powers that be.

It's entirely legitmate to have an argument about whether a populist's policies would be good for the people, but even if that's the case, it doesn't make the pol a "faux" populist. It just makes him or her a populist whose policy prescriptions are bad.

Right now, I think the issue with the biggest populist appeal is immigration, because many average folks feel both parties are not listening closely to what they want, and rather are determined to make as few changes as possible to the status quo. Many people's view on the immigration issue doesn't get much more sophisticated than "these people don't belong here," which while true is not prescriptive. In this case, a populist appeal to these folks would probably be equally non-prescriptive. Or the prescription that follows from the problem would be very simple and quite possible unfeasible or counterproductive (like "just kick 'em all out") economically.

After taking the time to think this through above, I'm comfortable thinking that moore is indeed a true populist in the greatest tradition, that of pointing out obvious problems that trouble many everyday folks, but without exploring the underlying complexities that created the conditions or coming up with a reasonable prescription to cure the ill. Moore's not a faux populist, he's a true populist.

Posted by: bk at October 27, 2006 09:25 AM

Brian, can I use the word "demagogue" to describe him?

Posted by: PatHMV at October 27, 2006 09:46 AM

1 : a leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power

That's the Merriam-Webster definition. I don't think it quite fits.

Posted by: WHQ at October 27, 2006 10:40 AM

Only if you accept "money is power" as a truism. Then it fits quite nicely.

Posted by: Tully at October 27, 2006 10:47 AM

I would call him a propagandist. That just seems to fit better to me. He's not enough of a leader to be a demagogue, IMO. (What a trivial discussion.)

Posted by: WHQ at October 27, 2006 10:52 AM

Alright, I'll go with propagandist. "Populist" just felt like too nice of a term for such a loathesome man.

And yes, it's an extremely trivial discussion, but it's Friday and I'm brain dead, so what the heck...

Posted by: PatHMV at October 27, 2006 11:08 AM

Well see Pat, there's me again insisting on the notion that "populist" ought to be regarded as a value neutral term.

If you are taking advantage of populism, and the people's simple views include a prescription that makes true sense and would help out, then a populist is a wonderful creature.

Otherwise, I regard populists as potentially ugly and dangerous creatures, making populists an epithet. If one habitually and insincerely echoes the views of the people regardless of his or her own personal views, solely for the sake of gaining power, THEN all sorts of other epithets apply, like demagogue, opportunist, hypocrite, and so on.

During my world series trip, my buddy and I had a hot tub talk that included talking about bullshit, and how bullshitters fall into 2 classes: those who know that they are employing bullshit as an advancement opportunity, and those who actually believe their bullshit is the truth, because they are ignorant or unwilling to accept negative feedback and adjust their hypotheses.

So what do you guys think? Is Moore an insincere opportunist of a bullshitter, or a true believer bullshitter. I think Moore is a true believer bullshitter populist. He picks the low fruit of echoing his audiences gripes to cheers and backslaps, and ticket sales, and is usually nonprescriptive.

Posted by: bk at October 27, 2006 11:52 AM

I give Moore credit for being smarter than that, which puts my take of him as being in the first class. But I think your bounding is incomplete. There are those who know they're spouting BS but do so anyway, because they believe their usage is justified in some broader context. End, means.

Posted by: Tully at October 27, 2006 12:59 PM

Oh, populist is a neutral enough word, Brian, but that's what makes it too good for the likes of Moore in my book...

Posted by: PatHMV at October 27, 2006 01:38 PM

No I'd put those in the first class as well Tully, with the justifed ends falling under the "advancement opportunity."

But I can see that another way to look at it is that there are true believers of both ends and means and the ones who are true believers in the ends, which they believe justify any means.

Posted by: bk at October 27, 2006 02:07 PM

discount auto insurance

Posted by: discount auto insurance at November 8, 2006 05:48 PM

california refinance

Posted by: california refinance at November 11, 2006 11:18 PM