When CNN called Michael Moore to speak on Sicko, it probably expected him to sneak in a nice plug for his film on the American healthcare mess. Instead, what Situation Room host Wolf Blitzer and CNN’s chief medical correspondent, Dr Sanjay Gupta got was a blitzkrieg.
Before giving Moore a chance to talk on Sicko, CNN prefaces it with its usual “on the one hand, on the other” balancing piece (by Gupta) in which the doctor of Indian origin tries to debunk some of Moore’s conclusions, and suggests that Moore may have “fudged” some of his facts.
That results in a torrent of questions and criticism from Moore on how the mainstream media does not ask the tough questions it should and then, when somebody does it, stands up to puncture the effort.
“Just apologize to the American people and to the families of the troops for not doing your job four years ago. We wouldn’t be in this war if you had done your job. Come on. Just admit it. Just apologize to the American people.”
Also read: Sicko truth squad sets CNN straight
Good debate
Michael Moore is hardly the paragon of truth and virtue that he makes himself out to be. He is no better than the right-wing blow hard talk radio hosts. He will happily ignore truths whereever possible, and twist the truth to fit his message.
This is superb !
alok… there is this local prof/station manager/self-proclaimed-oracle who presides over the proceedings of a local public radio here. he made an interesting observation recently …
basically everybody is a duplicitous, but the real question is who is hypocritical about what.
sort of like dharma i think. water has to flow. rock has to put.
moore has to criticize, HMOs have to lobby.
but i like the casualness & unschooled way in which he speaks and seems to raise questions.
“the doctor of Indian origin…”
Sanjay Gupta is of Indian origin the same way Sunita Williams is. ie. neither of them have anything to do with India.
In fact, Sanjay Gupta & Michael Moore were practically neighbors. Both grew up in Michigan & got their education there.
Moore later came on Larry King again and did say that he fet bad that he asked Wolf to apologize to the American people. He directly too on Dr. Gupta on Larry King. You could literally see how scared and uneasy Dr. Gupta was.
Well, Moore asks questions and that’s a good thing, for one.
DS , I watched both the episodes . I think Michael Moore makes sense . But this country is virtually run by Lobbysists and Corporations Does a Movie really matter ??
We dont see ordinary citizens come out on streets and protest against healthcare/medicare policies and nothing will change .