The Matt Lauer - Michael Moore interview transcript is up at
MSNBC.
It drips of character assassination not journalism. Lauer is completely hard cross and skeptical in this interview. It's a blatant attempt to destroy Moore's credibility. Here's a taste...
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Moore may downplay the politics, but the political nature of the film almost derailed it. Because of the content, the Walt Disney Co. refused to release it, suddenly leaving Moore without a distributor.
Lauer: "Disney decided they didn't want to distribute it. And basically, you accused them of censorship. Why?"
Moore: "Well, because they had made this movie. I mean for a year they sent me a check every month so I could make this film. And this was all with the intent of, you know, this film's going to be distributed. To find out just weeks before it's supposed to come out, after Disney sends an executive here to New York, sits in my office, watches the movie and he's like, 'whoa,' you know, and then reports back. Then they have a board meeting the next week, and they say, you know, 'No. There's no way we're going to distribute this.'"
Lauer: "It's their right, though. They're a distribution company."
Moore: "That's right." 'It's not government censorship. It's censorship by a corporation... As you have fewer and fewer voices in a democracy, in a free society. It's not good to limit the number of voices.'
Lauer: "You know what? They paid you? The checks cleared and they can look at it and say, you know what? This is not the kind of movie we want to distribute right now. Maybe it's too political. Maybe it won't attract a wide enough audience. It's their right."
Moore: "It's their right. Except here's the difference. It's not government censorship. It's censorship by a corporation. And we're at a point now, Matt, where we have fewer and fewer companies owning all our media. I mean here we are at NBC, which just bought Universal, which is owned by GE. As you have fewer and fewer voices in a democracy, in a free society, it's not good to limit the number of voices."
Disney defends 'business decision'
Disney's CEO, Michael Eisner denied the censorship charges, saying that it was a business decision that, "In the case of `Fahrenheit 9/11' we chose a path that was right for the company and its stakeholders."
Disney agreed to sell the rights to "Fahrenheit 9/11" to Miramax co-founders Bob and Harvey Weinstein, who found two distributors willing to release it in theatres.
Lauer: "The Weinstein brothers of Miramax bought the film back. And now Harvey Weinstein is a Democratic organizer. He does fund-raisers for John Kerry."
Moore: "Yeah."
Lauer: "And you've hired a couple of seasoned Clinton politicos to handle publicity and marketing for the film. So at this stage on, will you concede, it is now a sharply political movie with a very definitive point of view."
Moore: "It definitely has a point of view, that's absolutely correct. But I'm not a member of the Democratic Party. If you know anything about me, anybody who's followed me, I'm the anti-Democrat. I have railed against the Democrats for a long time. They have been a weak-kneed, wimpy party that hasn't stood up to the Republicans. They let the working people down across this country. I rallied against Clinton when he was in office. I didn't vote for him in `96. I didn't vote for Gore in 2000. This is not a partisan issue with me, this is not me trying to -"
Lauer: "Not a personal attack on the Bush family."
Moore: "Oh yeah. It's that. If you'd asked the question that way."
Not against Democrats or Republicans, just Bush family
'They got special help. They were put first in line because of this relationship between the Bush family and the Saudi royal family and I wish somebody would just say that.'
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Moore: "You know I've been sitting here for like the last 20 minutes thinking, man, if he would have only asked Bush administration officials these kind of hard questions in the weeks leading up to the war, and then when the war started, maybe there wouldn't be a war. Because the American people, once given the truth, you know the old saying from Abraham Lincoln, give the people the facts and the Republic will be safe."
"Fahrenheit 9/11" opens nationwide June 25, released in between 500 and 1,000 theaters, making it one of the biggest openings ever for a documentary. However, Moore says it's not about the box office, but the Oval Office, and provoking debate in this election year.
Lauer: "There is so much political animosity in this country right now, such a deep divide, black and white. And you know the expression, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem? With a movie like this, do you see yourself as part of the solution?"
Moore: "Oh, I hope so. If I can just -- if I do nothing else but just get people out to vote, regardless who they vote for, if I can get that 50 percent, or part of that 50 percent out that has chosen not to vote, to engage and to come back in and care about what's going on, then I will feel like I've done something important."
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Wow...where's the journalism?