DougR, apparently you and your right wing nuts aren't well versed in the art of the documentary film. A documentary film is ALWAYS presented with a point of view. Which is, I suppose, why we have a documentary film program on my local public television station called--wait for it--POV/Point of View.

Michael Moore says he stands behind every single fact presented in the film. He acknowledges that as a documentary filmmaker, he must present generally known and accepted facts, as no one gets their own sets of facts (except the right wingers, of course, who ignore and defy them all the time), he uses cinematic techniques that presents them in his own unique and inimitable style of documentary film. Many of us appreciate that style as much as we do the substance, and Barbara Koppel has said that she thinks he has not only made the best and most powerful film of his career to date, but that he has created a new style of filmmaking that we will be seeing for years to come.

That is quite the achievement for a filmmaker.

As to the content, if the worst complaint that can be made is that it isn't a "fair and balanced" examination of the Bush administration, my response is, American mass media coverage isn't fair and balanced reporting either, which is why this type of documentary film becomes so important. It is an entirely necessary exercise to provide some much needed balance to the skewed reporting and journalism that is the hallmark of American mass media coverage of politics.   

The collective conventional wisdom of the American mass media in the wake of 9/11 has been proven wrong again and again. The supposedly most distinguished and revered institutions of journalism have, in the past year particularly, been proven to have gotten "the facts" spectacularly wrong, and to have grossly distorted their so-called news reporting by being "patriotic". They don't teach you to be patriotic reporters at journalism school--that is a tactic and practice that is handed down by editors and news directors, who are looking to please publishers and media owners.

And finally, I'd just like to say the Ten Years After song for the trailer is fucking brilliant.