When Moore is Less

The other day, I saw a story about Michael Moore "flopping."  I thought perhaps it might be related to his new documentary, Where to Invade Next?, and given how much I enjoyed the film, I was curious to read what it had to say.  So, I went to the news site.  I checked out its mission statement -- since political bias is always to be considered from any side -- when reading an analysis of Michael Moore, and everything looked bland and middle-of-the-road enough,

I started reading, and got a bit confused.  It seemed to be a more general criticism of Moore, focused on him losing his political influence, not that I was aware he had all that much, just that he had an outspoken voice that would often get attention, and he made films that were popular for documentaries.  The article then got to a condemnation of his news film, though it was just one particular point.  And while I remembered the sequence, in Tunisia, I was confused further.I barely even recalled  what was being criticized here, which was what the article said was a misrepresentation of gay rights.  That's because the section of the film in Tunisia was women's rights.  Now, it's possible that Mr. Moore was indeed wrong -- or not -- and if so, it should absolutely be pointed out.  But the prominent weight given the attack was such a tiny part of the film seemed odd.

And all the more odd since that was pretty much the only criticism of the movie, other than the confusing title.  It then went on to other slams at Moore in general, and at misrepresentations of his movies in specifics.  The former was to further show a loss of influence and his place of importance at the table. The latter was to show that he had long-ceased to be a real documentarian.  

The general criticism of Moore's influence was odd, describing the how low voter turnout was among young people in the 2008 election victory of Barack Obama -- odd since I didn't realize that election turnout of college students had been a mission of the filmmaker, and odd since voter turnout by college students for a presidential election was the second-highest ever in history.  The movie criticism grew odder still by referencing what was called a ridiculous, laughable scene that took place in Cuba in his film, Sicko -- but not describing the scene. 

I finished the article, scratching my head.  For such an objective article, it seemed to make incredibly weak points on just about every level, didn't seem to prove anything, and was just a jumble of random points.  I was curious who specifically wrote the article, but that proved a problem, as well.  There was no individual name, just a credit to the site's "staff."

At this point I figured I had to know more about this website.  I thought it just had to have some political bent.  The article was that bad.  I went into it with the totally open mind, even expecting the site to be middle-of-the-road, but something seemed totally off.  And so I did a web search of the supposed "news site," which went under the name of LifeZette.

Well, smack me down with a spoon.  LifeZette is a "news site" started by ultra-right wing commentator Laura Ingraham.

And the confusion of the empty, idiotic article is now completely less-odd than before.