] I'm off on this tangent because I'm enraged by the
] numerous attempts at verbose, pseudoliterary, "nuanced"
] criticism of Moore this week by the learned priests of
] our business. (And no, I'm not overlooking this
] newspaper.) Michael Moore may be an ass, and impossible
] to like as a public figure, and a little loose with the
] facts, and greedy, and a shameless panderer. But he
] wouldn't be necessary if even one percent of the rest of
] us had any balls at all.
]
] If even one reporter had stood up during a pre-Iraq Bush
] press conference last year and shouted, "Bullshit!" it
] might have made a difference.
]
] If even one network, instead of cheerily re-broadcasting
] Pentagon-generated aerial bomb footage, had risked its
] access to the government by saying to the Bush
] administration, "We're not covering the war unless we can
] shoot anything we want, without restrictions," that might
] have made a difference. It might have made this war look
] like what it is%u2014pointless death and carnage that
] would have scared away every advertiser in the
] country%u2014rather than a big fucking football game that
] you can sell Coke and Pepsi and Scott's Fertilizer to.
]
] Where are the articles about the cowardice of those
] people? Hitchens in his piece accuses Moore of errors by
] omission: How come he isn't writing about the CNN
] producers who every day show us gung-ho Army desert rats
] instead of legless malcontents in the early stages of a
] lifelong morphine addiction?
]
] Yeah, well, we don't write about those people, because
] they're just doing their jobs, whatever that means. For
] some reason, we in the media can forgive that. We just
] can't forgive it when someone does our jobs for us. Say
] what you want about Moore, but he picked himself up and
] did something, something approximating the role
] journalism is supposed to play. The rest of us%u2014let's
] face it%u2014are just souped-up shoe salesmen with lit
] degrees. Who should shut their mouths in the presence of
] real people. o

NYPress: SHOVELING COAL FOR SATAN: Christopher Hitchens collects check from Microsoft, calls Moore a coward.