Every time Michael Moore appears on CNN, they run a report on Anderson Cooper 360 or The Situation Room trying to rip him apart. It's as if they realize that Moore is too big a story to ignore so they'd better cover him, but his ideas are too troubling to the status quo, so we better also try to discredit them. As Gupta tries to defend his clearly biased report by claiming Moore has "cherry-picked" his numbers (a typical tactic employed by Moore's right-wing detractors), Moore explains that all of his figures are from 2007 and were generated from President Bush's Health and Human Services. Favorite moments: When Larry King called Gupta's report "kinda balanced", and when Moore totally shut Gupta up by pointing out that the CNN logo covered up the Cuba figures Gupta claims Moore was trying to conceal in his film. Later on, (not in the video to your right), Gupta complains that Moore makes it seem like universal health care would cost Americans nothing, even though the film clearly points out that tax money pays for these systems. Gupta apparently can't give movie audiences enough credit to understand such a simple fact. Anyway, check out the video to your right for more.
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/56569/
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The report was first shown on 360. It called 360 because they try to look at an issue from all sides, which means that if you talk about Michael Moore's point of view you present opposing points of view. They do that with everything.
I disagree with you about the way the way Gupta and Moore came off in the debate. Gupta sounded reasonable, confident and polite. He never tripped up, or was at a loss for words. When asked about the CNN logo thing he started to respond but they had to go to commercial. Moore sounded shrill and hysterical. He didn't speak well or frame his ideas effectively. He was repetitious and sometimes didn't actually address Gupta's points.
Moore's response to Gupta's complaint about cherry picking numbers from different reports made no sense to me. So what if the president had used the numbers that way himself? This is the same president and administration Moore considers to be completely incompetent boobs and liars. And he didn't address that the Health and Human Services numbers were projected numbers.
I'm Canadian and I'd be dead in the ground before I accepted a US style health system. Gupta is right, however, that while the US system really needs a lot of change there is plenty of dissatisfaction in Canada as well. And I personally was irked by Moore's continual exclaimations of "It is free!". No it isn't. I gather he was trying to say that it would be like it was free to Americans because they already pay fees in other ways, but that was only said after Gupta pushed him. And still when Gupta said it's not free for the people in those countries Moore kept yelling "it is free" with no explanation, which is just confusing and deceptive. The medical bill I get from the government every month even though I'm in school with no income at all and I haven't been to a doctor for years (after some very bad experiences in our system) is in no way free, nor are our taxes.
Like most Canadians I continue to find Moore's presentation of our nation flattering. I think he tends to over simplify things, though, which makes his material more digestible for the masses but also weakens his case.
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