Whenever Oscar-winning filmmaker Michael Moore releases a new documentary the reaction in the press is typically jubilant. Rave reviews. Fawning interviews which rarely ask tough questions. Oscar buzz aplenty.

But this time could be different.

Moore’s last film, “Slacker Uprising,” didn’t go straight to DVD. It went straight to download. Now, Moore’s catching heat from Movieline.com, the online film magazine which routinely taunts conservative targets like Gov. Sarah Palin. The site’s new Moore-related post swats the filmmaker for a less than sharp attempt at marketing his upcoming film about the country’s economic collapse. The movie blogger sets up his critique here:

Here we go again. Controversial filmmaker Michael Moore is going offer his solution to societal ills through one of his documentaries.

If Moore's past movies are any indication of the coverage he will get, it is sure to be a media hit. Already, Huffington Post blogger and MSNBC daytime anchor Carlos Watson is praising praised Moore's early promotion of the flick.

"Michael Moore, the filmmaker, is back and this time he was taking aim at Wall Street," Watson said on June 15. "[H]e did a very funny thing, Sarah, this weekend when you showed his documentary in some of the movie theatres. It was very interesting. He had ushers walk along, trying to take up money for CEOs and Wall Street banks."

Given the paper's unfair treatment of his Fox News show, it comes as no surprise the New York Times didn't much approve of talk show host and provocateur Glenn Beck's recent simulcast comedy show, which aired from Kansas City and over 400 theatres around the country. 

The criticism came in an Arts Beat blog post (hat tip Hot Air) by Times critic Mike Hale, "Glenn Beck, Simulcasting Discontent." Hale is clearly far more at home when praising left-wing Frontline documentaries for PBS, where he showed his eagerness for Euro-style socialized medicine to supplant the American system's "high-costs" and "failure."

Before starting his performance Thursday night at the Midland Theater in Kansas City, Mo., which was simulcast to more than 440 movie houses around the country, Glenn Beck walked over to the camera, waved, and acknowledged the critic for The New York Times. The poor guy was in a theater somewhere in New York, Mr. Beck said, "all by himself."

Actually, at that moment I was one of eight people watching at the Clearview Chelsea Cinema, a number that would grow to 14 and hold there until almost the end of the show. (More on that later.) Not for the last time that night, Mr. Beck -- the comedian, Fox News host and suddenly hot spokesman for American populist discontent -- was hazy on the specifics but shrewdly aware of where his listeners were.

The small group that braved West 23rd Street was audibly pro-Beck, laughing at the same times as the capacity audience in Kansas City and occasionally saying something in menacing tones about the Federal Reserve or the progressive income tax. Being the critic, I didn't cheer or heckle, but I did yell at the screen once, something I don't think I'd ever done in a movie theater. It was 50 minutes in, when Mr. Beck announced that he was taking a 15-minute break and coming back for the second half of the show. "You've got to be kidding me!" was out of my mouth before I knew what was happening.

Actor, director and screenwriter Liev Schreiber thinks America needs a replay of propagandist filmmaker Michael Moore's "Sicko."

According to Schreiber's June 5 remarks on The Daily Beast's Buzz Board, Moore's movie would be "worthwhile" as the health care debate begins.

"As the health-care debate gets under way, a replay of Sicko is worthwhile. It's preposterous that there still isn't affordable health care in this country," wrote Schreiber.

Schreiber admitted that "Moore's approach to filmmaking is the theatrical equivalent of Artaud; he just wants to shock people into action, and he does a damn good job of it. I don't have a problem with that style if the intention is good, and in this case, the intention is good."

As if school kids didn't get enough liberal propaganda. Whether parents know it or not, millions of students across the country have been receiving biased news magazines in the classroom. Without adult guidance, children are at risk to take as fact the consistently liberal views of Time magazine.

Through Great American Opportunities, people can order magazine subscriptions and earn Time for Kids subscriptions for the school of their choice. Kindergarten through sixth-graders will then receive this publication free of charge.

According to its website, "The Time For Kids Program helps schools receive the best in current weekly classroom news magazines for students in grades K-6 at no cost. TFK delivers three weekly news magazines to over 3.9 million students."

This program comes from a magazine that has published articles on how kids are bad for the environment. As CMI noted previously, Time's article on May 8 described this environmental problem:

On Tuesday’s American Morning, anchor Kiran Chertry and correspondent Jason Carroll failed to mention the left-wing politics of filmmaker Michael Moore during a report about his latest project, which targets the financial industry, and included a sound bite from People Magazine’s Leah Rozen, who expressed a desire to “see Michael Moore spank Wall Street.” Carroll emphasized Moore’s credentials, and agreed with Chetry that many would rush to assist him: “They loved that ‘gotcha’ kind of filmmaking, and Michael Moore does it better than no one else and he’s about to do it again.”

The segment on Moore’s new production began with a clip from “Sicko,” his last movie, as Chetry announced that “the controversial filmmaker is setting his sights on Wall Street. He’s actively recruiting people who’ve worked in the financial sector to expose what he calls the biggest swindle in U.S. history.” As she introduced Carroll, the anchor continued that Moore “probably has a rapt audience at this point, because everything that’s happened with this financial crisis and a lot of people are blaming Wall Street.”

Michael Moore is in the middle of shooting a movie about Wall Street and the financial industry. So who is he now turning to for help? The Daily Kos. I kid you not. Yesterday Moore posted a thread on the Daily Kos titled, "Will You Help Me With My Next Film? ...a request from Michael Moore." Here is the text of his request asking for Kossack "expertise" about high finance:

Friends,

I am in the middle of shooting my next movie and I am looking for a few brave people who work on Wall Street or in the financial industry to come forward and share with me what they know. Based on those who have already contacted me, I believe there are a number of you who know "the real deal" about the abuses that have been happening. You have information that the American people need to hear. I am humbly asking you for a moment of courage, to be a hero and help me expose the biggest swindle in American history.

All correspondence with me will be kept confidential. Your identity will be protected and you will decide to what extent you wish to participate in telling the greatest crime story ever told.

Having just won the 2008 Weblog Award for Best Military Blog, Michael Yon is considering filing a lawsuit against schlockumentarian Michael Moore.

Since last May, Yon has been trying without success to get Moore to remove from his website an award-winning picture the milblogger took back in 2005 (photo available here).

Yon explained the situation to his readers on Monday (photo courtesy AP via NYP):

On World News Saturday, during the show’s "A Closer Look" segment, ABC anchor David Muir gave attention to those who question whether CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta has sufficient qualifications to be Barack Obama’s surgeon general. Muir even played a clip of David Letterman poking fun at Gupta twice during the show: "The choice, it was between a Gupta, Dr. Phil, and a guy on Scrubbs. I don’t know what the hell-" He also recounted that Muir was forced to apologized to liberal filmmaker Michael Moore after making errors in a report fact-checking Moore’s film Sicko. As Muir gave voice to those in the pro-Gupta camp who believe it is important for the surgeon general to be well known to the public, the ABC anchor reminded viewers that Dr. C. Everett Coop talked about AIDS while President Reagan was "largely silent," and that President George W. Bush’s surgeon general resigned in protest in 2006 charging he had been "muzzled by the White House."

The folks at "Fox & Friends" had some fun at Chris Matthews' expense Sunday morning, and managed to mock some other high-profile, liberal media members while they were at it:

As they reported rumors that "the alleged journalist on MSNBC" is looking to unseat Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Penn) in 2010, the gang contemplated what Congress would look like if Michael Moore, Keith Olbermann, and Sean Penn also ran (video embedded below the fold, h/t AmericasNewsToday.com):

Who you choose to surround yourself with makes you what you are and we already know Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama's associations with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko and William Ayers.

The media have given an extensive examination to Samuel J. Wurzelbacher aka "Joe the Plumber" and Republican vice-presidential nominee Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. But they've allowed another Obama associate to fly under the radar - Sokoni Karanja, president of the nonprofit Center for New Horizons. According a story in the Nov. 23, 2006 Chicago Tribune, Karanja co-founded the Lugenia Burns Hope Center, a leadership training nonprofit founded in 1994 with Obama.

But following the release of Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," Karanja was arrested by Chicago Police. According to an article by Maureen O'Donnell in the June 28, 2004 Chicago Sun-Times, Karanja was walking his Doberman through a South Side Chicago neighborhood - where residents had been complaining about dog owners not cleaning up after pets.

**Update - Apparently Moore is Against Copyright Laws**

Left-wing, faux documentary filmmaker Michael Moore famously announced late last year that his newest film would be a "free" download on the Internet. He claimed that his new film was a "free" gift to all his fans. Apparently, he didn't really mean "all" his fans, though. It turns out that his lawyers have sent out a raft of letters to downloading services like PirateBay.org, TorrentFreak and BitTorrent to cease and desist allowing downloads for anyone outside of the U.S. and Canada because he wants to sell the film to foreign markets. I guess "free" is in the mind of the beholder?

Since Sarah Palin was tapped as John McCain’s running mate, everything from her family to her hair to her glasses has been scrutinized. Today, CNN targeted her phonetics.

The network pointed out the word “nuclear” was spelled phonetically as “new-clear” in the text of her convention speech. While a camera shot caught the text of Palin’s speech in the prompter, CNN says the script handed out to the press still had the phonetically spelled out word in it.

It is not uncommon for broadcast writers to script words phonetically for talent.  In fact, news personalities are known to get angry at writers and producers who do not phonetically spell out words which are easy to fumble when reading a prompter during a live broadcast.  However, CNN portrayed the phonetically scripted word “new-clear” as a way Palin would spell the word herself.

 Seemingly anxious to connect the Alaskan governor’s pronunciation of the word to President Bush’s famously mocked pronunciation, CNN’s Jeanne Moos showed how Palin could not pronounce “nuclear” correctly either without a phonetic guide.  Anyone who reads a teleprompter needs a little help now and then. Just ask Larry King.

Nobody would ever hope or pray for a hurricane to strike at the expense of their political opponent. Or would they?

Well, maybe Michael Moore would. In fact, he did, as has already been discussed on this site.

By the same token, the Financial Times has also demonstrated a knack for cheering on a catastrophic event in the hopes of striking a blow to the GOP convention this week.

While delegates and attendees at the GOP convention spent Monday offering prayers, scaling back the pageantry, and generally demonstrating that most have their minds on the well-being of Americans in the Gulf region, liberals have been taking the opportunity to make jokes about their religion and hoping that a catastrophic event derails the Republicans all together.

For those unfamiliar, Donald Fowler was the national chairman of the Democratic National Committee between 1995 and 1997.

According to the video embedded right, Fowler, on a plane from Denver to Charlotte following the recently concluded Democratic National Convention, was joking with Rep. John Spratt (D-SC) about the timing of Hurricane Gustav potentially hitting New Orleans when the Republicans start their convention.

At least that's what it appears he's talking about:

If you put controversial left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore and MSNBC "Countdown" anchor Keith Olbermann in the same setting - there's bound to be some sort of lunatic remark made. Their latest get-together, neither failed to disappoint.

On the August 29 broadcast of "Countdown," Moore told viewers how Hurricane Gustav, a storm with the potential to be catastrophic, reaffirmed his faith in God.

"I was just thinking, this Gustav is proof that there is a God in heaven," Moore said, laughing. "To have it planned at the same time - that it would actually be on its way to New Orleans for day one of the Republican Convention, up in the Twin Cities - at the top of the Mississippi River."

Here's something you don't see every day: a film spoofing revered Hollywood liberals such as schlockumentarian Michael Moore.

Yet, that's exactly what David Zucker, the film director that has brought America such comedy classics as "Kentucky Fried Movie," "Airplane," and "The Naked Gun," will be offering viewers soon with a movie entitled "An American Carol" (trailer embedded right).

On Monday, The Weekly Standard previewed the film and its director:

As noted earlier today on Newsbusters by Matthew Balan, Michael Moore appeared on CNN's "Larry King Live" last evening. I caught a good portion of the "interview" (if King's constant agreement and sucking up qualify as an interview) and one little segment in particular got my attention. The subject was taxes:

MOORE: You were asking me a serious question. I'm sorry. Actually, you know what I would do is I would get -- I would try to lower Americans' taxes to the rate that the French pay. The French pay less taxes than we do, less.

KING: Socialist country?

After Jimmy Carter and Joy Behar, CNN’s Larry King had a prominent liberal guest on his show for the third night in a row on Wednesday, this time Michael Moore. After King played a clip from Bill O’Reilly’s interview of Hillary Clinton which concerned the issue of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Moore pulled out the "black rage" card, as well as the stereotypical rich white liberal guilt. "[Y]ou have to ask yourself, Larry, what's it like to be black in America? And what kind of rage would you feel? And if you did feel that rage, what kind of things would you say that, at times, would be outrageous, crazy even, because you've had to live through this for so long. And I do not believe, as a white guy, that I am in any position to judge a black man who has had to live through that." [audio clip here]

Moore appeared as a guest on "Larry King Live" for the entire hour of the program. His comments on Wright came twenty minutes into the program. Besides explaining away Wright’s many polarizing and outlandish statements, he also attacked Hillary Clinton for her actions in the campaign, as well as his more usual targets of George W. Bush and John McCain.

There are more examples of biased reporting in connection with Charlton Heston's death beyond what Tim Graham discussed earlier this morning.

AP movie writer David Germain devoted the second paragraph of his story chronicling reactions to Heston's passing to, of all people, Michael Moore:

Nancy Reagan was heartbroken over Charlton Heston's death. President Bush hailed him as a "strong advocate for liberty," while John McCain called Heston a devotee for civil and constitutional rights.

Even Michael Moore, who mocked Heston in his gun-control documentary "Bowling for Columbine," posted the actor's picture on his Web site to mark his passing.

Not that much later (paragraphs 13-16 of a 40-plus paragraph report), Germain gave the far-left documentarian four additional paragraphs:

The April 7 edition of Time includes an article by Richard Lacayo hailed the peace symbol, "50 years old and still working." It was the ready-made icon for the sixties counterculture. But then Lacayo decided to compare it to the Christian cross, and things got ugly:

There were people who didn't like the symbol any better than they liked the movements it represented. They saw it as an inverted broken cross or "the footprint of the American chicken." But it kept spreading through the culture. Like the Christian cross, which has served the purposes of soup kitchens and Crusaders, the Sisters of Mercy and the Ku Klux Klan, it was adaptable. Over time, it evolved from its narrow association with nuclear disarmament into an insignia for countercultures of all kinds. Hippies made it a sort of all-purpose symbol of peacefulness. The environmental group Greenpeace, the militant wing of flower power, adopted it for its eco-defense campaigns.

While the Klan and the burning cross certainly go together -- and the Klan definitely saw itself as righteous Christians -- this is still a bit of free association that burns and singes the vast majority of Christians (including black ones) who loathe the Klan.

If Michael Moore wins an Oscar Sunday for his controversial documentary "SiCKO," it seems certain Hollywoodans and the left will try to use the moment to advance universal healthcare in this country much as they did last year with Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" and global warming.

Yet, as media gush over Moore and his socialist healthcare philosophies, will they point out how antagonistic he is to the two Democrat presidential candidates?

In particular, will they address a recent unfriendly exchange between Moore and Hillary Clinton reported by The Hill late Friday evening (h/t NBer Par for the Course, emphasis added throughout):

A few years back, I interviewed Michael Moore and asked him if Fahrenheit 9/11 should be considered a political advertisement, and if so, whether campaign finance laws should apply. Moore admitted the film contained his opinions, but that his film should be treated like an op-ed in the paper.

During the 2004 election, neither ads for the Bush-bashing Fahrenheit 9/11, nor the film itself were regulated under campaign finance laws.

But now that there’s a new film about Hillary Clinton, all of a sudden, campaign finance laws do apply to political perspective films:

Al Gore. Michael Moore. Robert Redford. On Wednesday, the actor/director became the third prominent left-winger to appear on "Good Morning America" this year and berate journalists for not being liberal enough. Redford, in his second GMA interview this week, Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep stopped by to promote "Lions For Lambs," their new anti-war drama. During the interview, co-host Diane Sawyer played a minute-long clip of the movie in which Cruise's character berates a journalist for being a "windsock" to the Bush administration during the Iraq War. The clip featured Cruise haughtily complaining, "Your network led every report about the invasion of Iraq with the digital screen-sized flag to the square-jawed saluting Marine and the bald eagle soaring to Aaron Copland."

Sawyer then sycophantically begged, "Speaking as your resident windsock, what would you have us do? What would this film have us do?" Being a tough journalist, Sawyer then allowed Redford to get away with responding that when "we found out the cause behind the war was a lie, that's when I think everybody should have stood up, wakened up, and moved forward." At no point did the GMA host point out that, in regards to Iraq, Bill Clinton said the same thing about WMDs as President Bush.

On Friday’s "Good Morning America," token conservative reporter John Stossel told portly filmmaker Michael Moore, "Forgive me. More of us look like you" and that obesity explains why Canadians live longer than Americans, not universal health care. Stossel appeared on the morning show to promote his program debunking the myth of "free," government-run health care. His "20/20" special, which will air September 14 on ABC, includes a quarrel with the left-wing director.

Stossel’s appearance on GMA, and his conservative take, also strongly contrasts with the morning show’s own coverage of government controlled health care. In June, Moore appeared on the program to promote "Sicko," his movie bashing the United States system of private care. Back then, GMA co-host Chris Cuomo mildly questioned the filmmaker’s trip to Cuba to lavish praise on the communist country’s health system. After the director noisily objected to this offense, Cuomo backed down, saying, "Look, I like the stunt."

Is Cuba threatening ABC News? Why won't the media report that ABC's John Stossel stated the Cuban government's Central Committee “called members of the ABC Cuban bureau in for questioning?” (emphasis mine throughout)

After Stossel challenged “Sicko” director Michael Moore's claims that Cuba's health care system is superior to America's, which resulted in a stammering Moore reversing years of crowing about the island's excellent “free” universal health care, Cuba showed its true totalitarian colors.

According to Babalu Blog's Henry Gomez, Stossel posted an email on his “20/20” page that revealed Cuba's meddling:

Anyone who follows the MSM knows that Cuba is a virtual paradise. A land of free health care, universal literacy and low infant-mortality rates where, as Andrea Mitchell has explained to us, kids don't care about freedom and the only big problems are those caused by the U.S. Yes, Cuba is the sort of place no one would ever want to leave. Certainly not to go to live in the United States, where, as everyone knows thanks to Michael Moore's "Sicko," health care is so bad that 9-11 heroes are forced to seek help from Havana.

And yet . . .

According to AP: Defection fears to keep Cuban boxers at home

Alert Michael Moore! Both he and the World Health Organization say France has the best health care system in the world, and America's system is barely better than Slovenia's. However, French professor Alice Teil not only said the French system is “not sustainable anymore,” but copying parts of America's could save it.

Teil turned to a privately-owned hospital in Utah after a survey of international health care experts ranked Salt Lake City's Intermountain Health Care the number one hospital in the world. You would think that a media so hyper-worried about the “broken” US health care system would report the encouraging news, but other than some bare bones local coverage, this story was ignored.

Maybe it was ignored because Teil's startling description of France's situation did not match the media's typical positive depiction of “free” health care. The earliest online report of Teil's trip was a brief August 22 article posted on Salt Lake City radio station KCPW's website, and it did not stick to the usual MSM script (bold mine throughout):

"It's true we really have good access, but what if the system is not sustainable anymore?" says Teil. "It's going to break. It's going to blow. And then no more accessibility for anybody."

On Sunday's CBS Evening News, correspondent Kelly Cobiella filed a report about American medical students who are receiving the "gift" of a free education from the Latin American School of Medicine, established by former Cuban president Fidel Castro to train doctors for poor communities. But, while entertaining suggestions from one student who thought that Michael Moore's trip to Cuba for health care "proposed a really good question about looking at our medical system and seeing what things we need to change," the CBS correspondent also found that "Cuba is no health care paradise," as she reported on "crumbling" hospitals, doctors making $20 a month, and "shortages of just about everything from drugs to high-tech equipment." (Transcript follows)

In addition to insisting the U.S. needs universal health insurance, Michael Moore introduced another plan to help Americans on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" July 26.

He urged audience members to use threats and intimidation with his new "SiCKO health care card:"