with many friends and family involved in the auto industry in one form or another, and having spent a few of my formative years in [ well, near, actually ] flint, michigan at around the same time that michael moore's roger & me was released, i probably follow the latest michael moore controversy more closely than most.

anyone from flint knows that michael has always been ham-fisted with the facts. and he has a penchant for self-promotion that borders on the obnoxious. but he'd use these and many other tricks to tell an entertaining [ and often heartfelt ] story in a classic populist style. he might be a ham-fisted propagandist, but he was our ham-fisted, populist propagandist. nonetheless, over the years, i had found myself accepting an increasingly annoying caricature of moore which was reinforced by the press. while i found him entertaining, it seemed that we has straying from his roots. indeed, when bowling for columbine was released, others felt that moore had lost his populist heart. i will admit to refusing to watch the movie because i didn't think i could sit through an entire production from the "new" snarky-sans-heart michael. luckily, i eventually succumbed and found that the movie to be surprisingly good. was it created by a ham-fisted, populist propagandist? most certainly. but it was created by our ham-fisted, populist propagandist. [ as an aside, michael was recently invited to speak at a local church in my current hometown - grand rapids, michigan . for a variety of reasons, grand rapids is not the kind of place you'd suspect to find a lot of moore supporters, so kris and i decided to go 45 minutes early so that we could get good seats and perhaps say, "hi." as we approached the church on a cold, drizzly late winter day, we were surprised to that the line was several people wide, stretched around the entire block and continued down the street. we just decided to keep driving, since there were obviously far too many people in line given the seating capacity of the church. we later learned that michael stood outside and talked with those that couldn't get in for 30-45 minutes before his "official" talk began. ]

and so, it's with all this context that i read the latest headlines about moore's latest 'publicity stunt' . our ham-fisted, populist propagandist is at it again - michael responds :

"Eisner told my agent that he did not want to anger Jeb Bush, the governor of Florida. The movie, he believed, would complicate an already complicated situation with current and future Disney projects in Florida, and that many millions of dollars of tax breaks and incentives were at stake."