July 09, 2007
Michael Moore Debate Tutorial: Avoiding the Question
On an appearance on CNN with Wolf Blitzer today (his first in three years, he tells us!), Michael Moore was quite testy about Dr. Sanjay Gupta's videotaped review of Sicko. Moore was so testy, in fact, that instead of speaking to Gupta's rebuttals of facts presented in the, er, documentary, he went into a raging snit about how if CNN had "done its job" before the invasion of Iraq, we wouldn't be there now.
Iraq? What does Iraq have to do with the state of American healthcare?
Hot Air has the video. I'm surprised Moore didn't need a drool cup to catch the spittle that surely must have been flying out of his mouth.
Rule one of successful debating: respond to the last point your opponent makes. It seems, however, that Moore either wouldn't or couldn't respond, so he decided to go on the attack, drawing attention away from the subject at hand with his accusations about Iraq. The entire segment is therefore less about the shortcomings about Sicko and more about how CNN and the rest of the media "failed" the American people. While I can agree that our media establishment does not always serve the public interest well, listening to Michael Moore rant and rave about them is rich -- since he is more often on the receiving end of their commendations, rather than criticisms.
Kitchen feeling a bit hot, Mr. Moore?
Show Comments »
Make sure you look at that big claim in Gupta's report, that "Sicko" reports per capita health spending in Cuba at $25. Sanjay Gupta needs his hearing checked. The movie plainly puts the figure above two hundred dollars. Next, pay attention to what Gupta says about health care spending in Canada, the EU, Japan, Australia, those rich countries who rank ahead of the USA in surveys like the WHO report he quotes, or the OECD survey that he doesn't. Oh, wait! Sanjay Gupta doesn't say a word about how the rest of the leading industrial nations get slightly better results for two thirds to three quarters the per capita cost compared to the USA.
I could go on about the various creative omissions in Gupta's report that made me angry, too. But let's just leave it at this: short waiting time is not a medical outcome.
Posted by: Noah Bennet at July 9, 2007 10:27 PMI suppose it could be argued that instead of the now $12 billion dollars a month we pay for the debacle that is Iraq, we could use that money to provide basic health insurance and maybe not have to say that we're provide health care that BARELY surpasses that of a small, impoverished dictatorship.
Posted by: Bob at July 10, 2007 12:02 AMUm, how is the MSM responsible for Iraq? I know they spin the news to suit their own purposes, but I wasn't aware that they also have voting rights in Congress.
Did I miss something?
Posted by: Kris, in New England at July 10, 2007 07:06 AMI linked over and watched the video - was he about to cry?
Anyway, talk about unhinged, this guy really should have have that wonderful Cuban system run a full workup on him.
Posted by: NewtownMark at July 10, 2007 02:40 PMCoherence is a little much to expect of Mikey. His adoring fans certainly don't seem to expect it.
Posted by: Van Helsing at July 10, 2007 10:08 PM
