Loder unloads on Michael Moore

Yes you are, my friend

Kurt Loder has written a standout review of Michael Moore's Sicko more suited for the Wall Street Journal or National Review than MTV. I haven't bothered to watch MTV itself since 1984, but for some odd reason, in Loder they have arguably the most erudite film critic working today. ("Arguably" as in good luck convincing Richard Schickel he's not the man.)

In a point-by-point dismantling of Moore's latest fraud-fest, Loder kicks the tires and looks under the hood, raising and answering the questions Moore skirts regarding the reality of socialized medicine abroad.

"...Moore is also a con man of a very brazen sort, and never more so than in this film. His cherry-picked facts, manipulative interviews (with lingering close-ups of distraught people breaking down in tears) and blithe assertions (how does he know 18 million people will die this year because they have no health insurance?) are so stacked that you can feel his whole argument sliding sideways as the picture unspools. ... There are a number of proposals as to what might be done to correct this situation. Moore has no use for any of them, save one.

As a proud socialist, the director appears to feel that there are few problems in life that can't be solved by government regulation (that would be the same government that's already given us the U.S. Postal Service and the Department of Motor Vehicles)..."

Too many great quotes in this piece to even begin posting them here. Just click here now. Read it, commit it to memory, print it out and send it to school with your kids for show-and-tell, etc.

Also makes a fine companion piece to Libertas' excellent skewering of the film here.