[Oblivion437]

Originally posted by Chewbacca: Godwin's law aside...

That's not a real law, nor does its stated meaning have any value in our present context. I believe the exactitude is the use of ad hominem or ad hominem tu quoque attacks playing the Nazi card. Not comparing a subject of discussion to a particular act or behavior. The Nazis are an excellent source for a broad range of negative emotional extremes. It seems to sort of trivialize the raw horror and pure evil of what they did, but there's no denying the straight-and-honest comparability.

Moore's critics are equally guilty of the same by ommitting parts of his works when making critisms.

Except in the case of Hardy's attack on BfC... He took whole statements (scenes or collections of scenes) and shows smoke and mirrors deliberately at work. He didn't, in any way as I read his articles (or used them in any discussions on the matter) extrapolate, or go beyond or strawman anything Moore said, deliberately. Moore on the other hand...

Again it is the nature of the 'opinion beast' to show the parts of a story that support the given veiwpoint being made. This is neither unethical or dishonest.

Well... I don't know how to answer this... That's amazing... Excuse me if I'm so appalled at this statement that I can't even begin to express it in words. I'll just go drink a few cups of coffee, read another passage from Joyce's Ulysses, and calm myself down, as I'll never be able to respond to this without blowing up like a shaken case of Nitro...

At least Moore actually has facts*(asterisk mine --O437) and cites sources to back up his opinions.

*He uses artificially inflated numbers, as shown by Hardy, and has a long running track record of contradicting what his sources say.

Unlike many of his critics in the links you have posted who's allegations are really a bunch of conjecture and unsupported assertions.

Except...Hardy backs up nearly every factual call with reliable sources (he's a gun enthusiast, and he even uses the VPC ((one of Moore's closet political bedfellows)) numbers against Moore) or in the case of the Denver speech by Heston, a cross-sectional comparison which shows us something that Moore didn't want us to see. It was deliberate deception. Or how about a scene which should have been enough to get Moore out of the documentary category; The Heston walk-out scene...

"Serious" according to whom?

Serious according to those who attack his film, and his credibility.

These "serious" critisms according to your opinion could be shallow, contensious and unfounded conjecture according to another's opinion.

To dismiss the nature of Hardy's most damning criticisms against BfC on the basis of opinion would be low. We're not Bill O'Reilly, or Rush Limbaugh, or Al Franken. We're John Q. Public and Jack Canada. We're way, way above that. It's a question of how sound is the basis of his film? Hardy's attacks in respect to that, and the reality and sources and logic that back them up, altogether flush Moore's film "down the fuckin' toilet" to quote Travis Bickle. They exclude it from the realm of documentary, and they put Moore in a position not as a smart, well-angled Liberal commentator or a documentarian, but a propagandist, liar and butcher of the American dream and practicing hater of his own people.

Perhaps Moore considers many of these so-called serious critisms are actually lame cheap shots not even worth replying to.

Showing that he staged the most significant scenes in the film, and distorted the truth to give those scenes the weight they had is hardly a cheap shot.

So, like the "serious" critisms themselves, Moore's lack of response to them is hardly a damning smoking gun, though you are free to claim as such.

Considering that, in all actuality they knock the whole house of cards down, this is hardly the case. Though you are right, a non-response isn't actual concession, but the fact is, he responded to criticisms that only appeared in a context with other criticisms, and he didn't respond to ones which completely flatten his credibility. And that was over a year ago. It's not like he hasn't responded for a year... And besides, he has responded to far less signficant criticisms.

I'll use Hardy's Heston argument as my cornerstone of this point.

We see an interview, between Moore and Heston, where a clock reveals foul dealings by Moore. Fully 1/4 of the actual discussion is on the film. Then the walk-out is obviously staged, with what Moore originally said to Heston lost to a cutting room.

It works like this: There was one take, looking from behind Moore, at Heston, that film is intact, but its o/s is gone. I wonder if Moore privately has all the negatives from his cameras, or what. Anyways, it's not in the film as presented, and not as won an Oscar...

Well, there's a second take, and that's obvious because you can't see the other camera, which would be the case were the whole shot done in one take. The o/s from that shot is clearly what we're hearing here, and thusly, we aren't hearing what was actually spoken to Heston. It may be just a slight difference, but Heston wasn't even there when Moore gave the showable sample of the speech. The picture, the Moore and the Heston are never together on the same screen...

Besides that, he's had three conflicting stories to tell about how it happened, one starting the one-take lie, the other purporting the second camera myth, and another including a felony.

What we have here is manipulative editing deliberate lies after the fact, and an attempt to cover it up...