Mockumentary filmmaker Michael Moore used his visit to the Toronto Film Festival on Wednesday as an opportunity to hammer Barack Obama by claiming the Democratic occupant of the White House is a “huge disappointment” who will only be remembered as “the first black president. Okay, not a bad accomplishment, but that’s it,” he said.
Moore made the remark during an interview with The Hollywood Reporter as part of the 25th anniversary of his first film, which was entitled Roger & Me and criticized the actions of Roger Smith -- then the chief executive officer of General Motors -- who closed several auto plants near Detroit that cost the jobs of 30,000 people.
After noting Obama claimed during his 2012 re-election campaign that he had “saved Detroit,” Moore said he wrote the president a letter that read: “Dear President Obama: God bless you, but you did not save Detroit. You saved General Motors. You saved Chrysler. Detroit at this point would stand a better chance if they were an Iraqi or Syrian city in terms of getting some sort of help.”
The liberal activist then stated that “I think Obama, sadly, has been, you know, he's done many, many good things, but he's also been a huge disappointment. And I really feel like, I wish somebody would say to him, maybe I'll say it in case he's watching:
When the history is written of this era, this is how you’ll be remembered: “He was the first black president. … Eight years of your life, and that’s what people are going to remember.
Boy, I got a feeling that you’d probably wish you were remembered for a few other things, a few other things you could’ve done, so it's on that level, a big disappointment.
Moore also stated: “I've always been grateful to the Toronto Film Festival because this is where my movie, my first movie got launched. No one knows what would have happened if I hadn't been selected here and ended up becoming, as you know, the first documentary to win the People's Choice awards, so it's been like [the sound of a rocket taking off] from there on.”
“I left Toronto in a first class seat, which I had never seen before,” he added. “By the way, once you ride first class, it's very hard to go back.”
As NewsBusters has previously reported, the liberal filmmaker generates more than his share of controversy.
In October of 2012, he produced a vile campaign video for MoveOn.org that featured senior citizens in the Rosebud Nursing Home using vulgar language to accuse Republicans of “voter suppression.”
One month later, Moore was a guest on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher program when the host claimed that conservatives get their news from several places: “It's Fox News, it’s Rush Limbaugh, it’s Drudge, it’s a thousand books by Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin.” Moore not only agreed, he went so far as to say that “people would actually be better off watching no news than watching Fox News because by watching Fox News, you have de-evolved.”
The liberal activist kicked off 2013 by stating he had made a resolution to stop saying he supports the troops. He declared that soldiers should punch the lights out of people who thank them for their service. “I am tired of the ruse we are playing on these brave citizens in our armed forces,” he noted. “And guess what -- a lot of these soldiers and sailors and airmen and Marines see right through the bulls**t of those words ... spoken by Americans with such false sincerity -- false because our actions don't match our words.”
One year later, Moore made the surprising charge that “ObamaCare is awful.” "For many people, the 'affordable' part of the Affordable Care Act risks being a cruel joke," he added before calling for universal health insurance that would be funded by the roughly 50 percent of Americans that pay income taxes.
Moore's harsh words for the president are the latest example of left-wingers kicking him to the curb for not being liberal enough. Will these Democrats still turn out and vote in the upcoming mid-term elections? We'll find out on Tuesday, November 4.
