"So there's no repercussions for creating a documentary in which the filmmaker re-writes history to suit his purpose, for example?"

It's done everyday. Called the network news documentary.

BTW Strick, you and no other critics of Moore's film, has proved he lied about anything. You are, however, guilty of painting with much too broad a brush, when you compare him to Rush Limbaugh or Jerry Springer.

That same tactic (claiming that the messenger is lying) is currently being used by the political right to discredit Al Franken, who actually had a boat load of Harvard grad students assisting him with the research for his book (it was written while he was on a fellowship at Harvard), and has included 26 pages of cites to substantiate his claims in it. Nonetheless, according to the political right pundits, which includes the Limbaughs, the Blitzers, and the Russerts, it is all a pack of lies. That is just plain lazy ass yellow journalism of the worst sort. Say your political enemy is lying over and over and over, without ever offering any substantive proof that they are lying, and pretty soon everyone agrees, the guy is a liar.

Well, not all of us are biting at the political right's bait and switch tactics there, Strick. Though you apparently have taken a big bite out of their misinformation campaigns, and swallowed them hook, line, and sinker, as they say.