John Anderson

On Sunday, New York Times movie critic John Anderson issued a favorable profile of “If a Tree Falls,” a partisan documentary from Marshall Curry featuring convicted arsonist Daniel McGowan of the environmental terrorist group Earth Liberation Front: “Activist or Terrorist, Rendered in Red, White and Green.”

When Daniel McGowan moved in with his sister after college, he was so passionate about recycling that he took all the labels off her canned food. The problem was, he didn’t wait for her to open the cans. 'I didn’t know if I had soup, or what kind of soup; I don’t know if there’s peas, or corn,' Lisa McGowan said in an interview. 'He said, 'I never thought of that.'

Some would call Mr. McGowan overeager. The government calls him a terrorist.

The problem is, McGowan isn’t in jail for taking labels off canned food items but for arson and conspiracy related to the destruction of two lumber companies in Oregon, domestic terrorism credited to the Earth Liberation Front.

 Chris Matthews on Monday participated in a little bit of revisionist history for the benefit of his former employer Jimmy Carter.

As the "Hardball" host brought up the possibility of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg running as a third party candidate in 2012, the former President actually said that this was why he lost to Ronald Reagan in 1980 (video follows with transcript and commentary):

One familiar trope about horror movies is that the characters can only survive them by abstaining from drinking, drugs, and sex, leading some movie critics to half-facetiously moan about the genre's secret social conservatism. But what about horror movies with a thuddingly obvious left-wing message of environmental alarmism inserted into the script, as part of the studio's ideological vision?

In a Sunday Arts & Leisure article on the new movie the "The Crazies," a remake of a low-budget George Romero zombie movie from the '70s, New York Times movie critic John Anderson equated left-wing environmentalism with serving the "public good."

Turns out "The Crazies" is not just another zombie movie, but a consciousness-raising piece "about the issues of weapons security and the purity of water," as the headline indicated: "Homicidally Unhinged, But for a Cause." The text box: "'The Crazies' aims to scare moviegoers and elevates their social consciousness, too."

Anderson embraced the idea of slipping in left-wing fearmongering without fans noticing:

It may come as a shock, but the fanboys reveling in the eviscerations, explosions and Car Wash of Death scene contained in the director Breck Eisner's new take on "The Crazies" will also be contributing to socially progressive cinema. Perhaps even to the public good. With any luck, they won't notice.