Filmmaker Michael Moore is producing a new documentary.
Fahrenheit 11/9, which apparently is a clever reversal of the name of his previous film, is of course about President Trump. And according to Moore, it's going to be a blockbuster and Trump is going to “rue the day” he ever met the filmmaker (their paths used to cross in New York.)
But before he starts attacking the president, Mr. Moore has some Fake News of his own I’d like him to address. I'm not talking about his opinions, which are often objectionable but because they are opinions can’t be proven as true or false.
I want to address the outright untruths contained in his autobiography "Here Comes Trouble." I wrote about them when the book was published in 2011 but he has never addressed the obvious falsehoods - in fact he has recently taken to exaggerating an already obvious lie.
According to the filmmaker the trouble started with his famous 2003 Oscar acceptance speech when he condemned the Iraq War and President George W. Bush. Mr. Moore says it made him “the most hated man in America.”
Death threats followed and Mr. Moore decided to hire bodyguards – “nine ex-Navy SEALs."
After he made the documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11” Moore claims the hate rose to a new level.
In the book, Mr. Moore outlines three attacks in particular to illustrate the level of violence he was enduring. However, his accounts (and the more recent embellishments) raise questions about these incidents and reasonable doubts if they even happened.
One of the most public attacks was in Tennessee.
According to Mr. Moore:
“In Nashville, a man with a knife leapt up on the stage and started coming toward me. The Seal grabbed him from behind by his belt loop and collar and slung him off the front of the stage to the cement floor below. Someone had to mop up the blood after the Seals took him away.”
After the book was published I inquired and Officer Don Aaron of Nashville Police Public Affairs Department said there is no record of such an incident involving Mr. Moore occurring in the area.
Officer Aaron said an extensive search of their database found 700 incidents involving a “Michael Moore” but none involved the filmmaker (either the wrong date of birth or incorrect middle name). And none of the incidents in the database involved an assailant trying to attack a Michael Moore with a knife.
Strangest of all, a good faith search found no news reports of the Nashville incident. Despite a huge audience witnessing the alleged attack - no one recorded it and no journalist or blogger reported it.
Then there was the alleged Fort Lauderdale assault. The filmmaker describes how a man “in a nice suit” saw him on the sidewalk and “went crazy.”
Again, Mr. Moore was saved because of the heroics of his ex-Navy SEAL bodyguards:
“[The man] took the lid off his hot, scalding coffee and threw it at my face. The SEAL saw this happening but did not have the extra half-second needed to grab the guy, so he put his own face in front of mine and took the hit.”
The alleged assault was the most serious of them all. According to Mr. Moore, on this occasion the SEAL had second-degree burns and needed medical treatment.
According to the Fort Lauderdale Police Department, there are no police records of this incident ever happening.
“Our electronic records go back to 2000 and nothing shows with an incident involving Mr. Moore,” a police spokesman told me. Again, there were no local media reports.
The most dramatic and probably the most false attack on Mr. Moore allegedly occurred in New York according to the book.
Mr. Moore wrote that whilst holding a press conference “outside one of the cinemas showing ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’, a man walking by saw me, became inflamed, and pulled the only weapon he had on him out of his pocket – a very sharp and pointed graphite pencil.”
Again, he was saved by an ex-Navy SEAL who was stabbed in the hand after trying to block the pencil.
Strangely this attack on one of the most prominent filmmakers in America in the media capital of the world DURING A PRESS CONFERENCE apparently went unreported.
But Mr. Moore has a problem keeping his lies straight. So that you don’t have to, I went to his recent Broadway show "The Terms of My Surrender," which is basically a rehash of his autography with a bit of "Trump is a liar" porn for the overwhelmingly liberal audience. There he recounted again the details of the New York attack - only this time the assailant produced a knife and tried to stab him only to stab the ex-Navy SEAL instead.
There will be a lot of media attention around Mr. Moore’s forthcoming film. In between listening and agreeing that President Trump is a liar, perhaps the journalists could ask Michael Moore to explain his ever-changing fake news also.
Phelim McAleer is a journalist and film producer. His new film Gosnell: The Trial of America's Biggest Serial Killer will be released nationwide on October 12th. www.GosnellMovie.com
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