DrugWonks and Michael Moore: Who's 'Demagoging' Who?

Peter Pitts has defended himself after I criticized him and his DrugWonks blog on June 14 for not understanding why it is that Michael Moore's new movie Sicko is likely to resonate with anyone who has ever been a patient, insured or not. You can read his comment here.

Pitts says: "Our health care system is not going to be fixed via Moore-ish demagogy."

Hold on a second, isn't that the pot calling the kettle black?

Let's take a walk through DrugWonks' coverage of Michael Moore to see who, exactly, is engaging in demagogy. (FYI, as a verb, 'demagog' means to "obscure or distort with emotionalism, prejudice.")

All the following quotes about Moore are verbatim from DrugWonks:

June 18: "Moore recycles tired old arguments for national health care, abeit with more charm, humor and poignancy than most leftists can ever muster even when high. And Moore's fact and anecdotes are mostly incorrect, outdated and easily rebutted."

June 15: Moore is "an Overweight Director Who Didn't Give His Own Employees Health Insurance … This is the same guy who spends $4000 a week to be driven to a Pritikin fat spa to lose the weight he put on eating up the praise of leftists who love his books and movies. At least he didn't gain the weight driving an SUV, the claim he makes in Stupid White Men. He was chauffered to the fat farm in a stretch limo… Better to spend the money on obese people like Moore who keep on gaining weight.”

June 13: "Paging Dr. Moore ... Dr. Michael Moore ... we will ask experts as well as average folks what they think about some of the most pressing health care issues we face as a nation. Oh yes, and some that aren't so pressing -- like whether or not Michael Moore should be trusted to direct American health care."

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May 18: "Sicko-phant: Michael Moore Scarfs Up Publicity ... Can a guy who took a stretch limo to a $3000/day fat farm do a credible movie about health care in America? He can if he plays to people's deeply held stereotypes about scummy business practices and twists the truth in the process.... here's a reminder for those of you Sicko-phants about how much Moore has to lie to make his point.

May 9: "Michael Moore's 'Sicko' will roll out on June 29th. Indeed, 'roll out' is the right phrase.  Can anyone take a film about health care from a clinically obese person seriously?"

Aug. 3, 2006: "Does Ambien Cause Anti-Semitism? ... I pondered this question in light of Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitic rant at the LA cop while deep under the influence of distilled spirits. Can we blame Gibson’s views on alcohol? You can say a lot of things when you are drunk, but the phrase “The Jews start all the wars” is not exactly one that leaps to mind in people who are plastered. Then again, Michael Moore called Israel part of the true axis of evil and he was stone sober, though overweight when he said that…No one seems to care."

Feb. 3, 2006: Moore's efforts to make his movie are "another high profile example of the Propaganda of Fear, of finding horror stories and packaging them to look like the everyman status quo."

Sept. 6, 2006: In a review of The Constant Gardner, a movie that has nothing to do with Michael Moore: "This flick is so silly—-so Michael Moore-like in its excess and mendacity."

So let's summarize: From DrugWonks' point of view we should be against Moore's movie because he's fat, lazy, vain, anti-semitic, a fearmonger, a liar and excessive. (To my knowledge, Moore hasn't said anything bad about DrugWonks.) No demagogy here!

On a personal note, in the June 15 post, DrugWonks' Robert Goldberg poked fun at my inability to find a low-cost MRI even though I have insurance, which I described to you last week: “Now some have nothing better to do than price MRIs,” Goldberg wrote.

I'm not claiming to be seriously ill or anything, but isn't making snide remarks about someone's attempts to get low-cost treatment  just about the most classless form of political discourse you've ever seen?

(And besides, as a good healthcare consumer who's trying to keep my costs down and that of my insurer and its premium payors, isn't this what I'm supposed to be doing?)

Comments

[peter pitts]

I know, and everyone else is so scholarly and even-handed in their posts!

[Jim Edwards]

Touche.

[J.D.]

More on Moore...

http://michaelwestfall.tripod.com/id17.html