I’ve been taken to task by Brendan Nyhan of Spinsanity (a supporter and former sponsor of Michael Moore’s) and gay left media guru, Jim Romenesko, for apparently making a small error in my recent Sunday Times piece about Michael Moore’s screed, “Stupid White Men.” I’m accused of being sloppy. Here’s what I wrote:
There is also barely a mention in Moore’s book about the current war on terrorism. You can understand why. It raises questions the left simply doesn’t want to answer. Was the American intervention in Afghanistan, which many leftists opposed, a liberating mission after all? How can leftists bemoan the removal of a viciously oppressive, sexist, homophobic tyranny?
So far, no factual errors. The defenders of Moore say that his book went to press before September 11 and therefore this criticism is redundant. Huh? Here’s a piece from Salon in January that shows that Moore could have changed the book if he wanted to, that the publishers wanted him to, but he refused:
Moore’s new book, “Stupid White Men and Other Excuses for the State of the Nation,” which pointedly criticizes President George W. Bush and his administration, was due in stores on Oct. 2. As with many books scheduled for release in the weeks that immediately followed Sept. 11, plans to ship the title to stores were put on hold. According to HarperCollins, “both Moore and [Judith Regan’s HarperCollins imprint] ReganBooks thought its publication would be insensitive, given the events of September 11.” By mid-October, there were 50,000 finished books (out of an announced first printing of 100,000) collecting a month’s worth of dust in a Scranton, Pa., warehouse, and ReganBooks had yet to schedule a new release date for “Stupid White Men.” It was holding off in hopes that Moore would include new material to address the recent events, and would change the title and cover art. Moore says he readily agreed to these requests. But once HarperCollins had his consent, it asked Moore to rewrite sections — up to 50 percent of the book — that it deemed politically offensive given the current climate. In addition, the Rupert Murdoch-owned publishing house wanted Moore to help defray half the cost of destroying the old copies and of producing the new edition, by contributing $100,000 from his royalty account. Moore was aghast. “They wanted me to censor myself and then pay for the right to censor myself,” he declared. “I’m not going to do that!” After close to three months of relentless negotiations that threatened to embarrass one of the country’s leading publishing houses, the potentially explosive drama was suddenly resolved when HarperCollins announced on Dec. 18 its plans to publish “Stupid White Men” as is, slating the title for early March 2002.
You can understand why Moore didn’t want to do this. I think he was probably right to hold onto his unique brand of bitter vituperation. And it was unfair for the publishing house to demand that he make a financial sacrifice for a news event he had no control over. But it’s simply not true that the book was already published by September 11 and that no changes were in any way possible. Of course, changes were possible. It was also possible that Moore could have amended the book to further excoriate Bush’s handling of the war. But he didn’t. My sentences: “There is also barely a mention in Moore’s book about the current war on terrorism. You can understand why,” therefore stand up. I can understand why Jim Romenesko, who has a gay-left agenda, and Brendan Nyhan, who also has an agenda, would want to skew this matter. But there were no factual inaccuracies in my article. And they should retract their assertion that there were. (P.S. A simple test of whether Romenesko has any fairness in this matter will be shown if he links to this post to rebut his featuring Nyhan’s piece. We’ll see, won’t we?)
The Dish 