"Do you ever comment on articles, or do you just feel the need to debate every opinion posted?"

Golly! I woulda thunk that pointing out the presumptions, misconceptions, mistakes, inanities in reader's reactions to a movie most of them haven't even seen *was* commenting on the articles.

This thread may not go so far as to prove that the capacity to respond to art is doomed in America. But it does a pretty fair job of proving that too many people are too immature to watch a movie where characters make decisions they wouldn't. By the logic demonstrated here, any woman who makes a decision to bring a pregnancy to term is anti-abortion. So the movie just has to be prolife, antiwoman, blah, blah, fucking blah.

I mean, come on. This is enough to make me ashamed to be a liberal. For all that we fear the right imposing their morality on everyone, this thread demonstrates a stunning lack of tolerance for other people's choices if they don't coincide with your own politics. If what we believe in really *is* choice, then why is everyone so intolerant of the Heigl character's choice. It's not presented as a prescription for society to follow. It's one character's choice. This isn't a public service announcement. It's a film. Not a prescription for living. George Will thought "Born in the USA" was a rah-rah America song. The right seized on "March of the Penguins" as a profamily statement, for crissakes. If the right seizes on this, all you'll be showing is that you're stupid enough to agree with them.

No one -- I'm assuming because most of you haven't seen it -- deals with the fact that, in Apatow's movies, it's the women who are the more mature. And people seem inordinately bothered by the fact that the men are shown to be immature. And yes, it takes the radical view that -- gasp! -- people can change. That immature jerks can, despite that, show flashes of decency. I mean if you can't accept that, you've got a black and white world view to rival Bush's.

So, to the question that started -- Do I feel the need to debate posted opinion?

Someone has be to the voice of sanity.

Vay con dios, suckers.

"The 'Exodus' history, in which Arabs are alternately pathetic or malicious, holds no room for a more layered narrative of the struggle between Arabs in Jews ..."

Shouldn't that be "Arabs and Jews"?

JennyCox,

In addition to two TV series, and some animated adventures, there were four or five Nancy Drew movies made in the '30s starring Bonita Granville.

I think it's great that Laura Harring is in this. After all, she was one of Lynch's two Nancy Drews in "Mulholland Dr."

my hatred of Richard Nixon when they carve it out of my cold, dead heart.

Fanboy.

Ah, the incense burning begins for St. Michael. Or the fondness for Holy Fool Michael.

It's rich that though we all hate Bush's "You're either with us or you're with the terrorists" simplicity, that's exactly the attitude we on the left are supposed to take to Moore.

Thus, in these letters we have, "yes, he's simplistic but he's playing to stupid people." And we on the left wonder why our message doesn't get through?

And we have that Moore is held to journalistic standards no one else in the world is -- anywhere! Gosh!

And then we have the beauty below:

"There are indeed problems in Cuba ... Sure, people are imprisoned for speaking out against the government, and we all know that's not a good thing. But they are not put in jail for being homosexuals (anymore), or for merely being poets."

Don't you love that parenthetical anymore? Perfect. And what is those poets write (or are perceived to write -- my very own parenthethical!) a poem judged to be against the government?

The review doesn't deny the benefits of the health care system in Cuba. It mentions that it's a repressive country. And guess what? Even mentioning that means you're buying Busy/GOP/John Birch propaganda? I mean how dare you mention homosexuals were put in prison? That was almost thirty years ago! Virtual aeons.

And then there's the genius who claims critics profit by writing anti Michael Moore reviews? Really? How? In *this* publication? Tell me, do they get bonuses for being against Moore? Does the National Review send them on secret all-paid holidays where they can watch former contras being tortured? What is this profit?

Jesus Fucking Christ! Will you get that criticizing Moore does not mean you're on the right? It might mean his message is too important NOT to be done in a manner that's unassailable. You can't bleat about how the message doesn't get through, how it's suppressed, when you're pig piling on someone for speaking their own mind.

"Considering he is targeting the most ignorant audience in the Western world, the average US American, anything beyond 'simple-minded, facile connections' would be taxing the lack of intellectual capacity of his audience, wouldn't it??"

No, the people Moore is targeting are the ones who think themselves infinitely smarter, better informed, more moral than their fellow citizens who they hold in contempt.

The "Bush Tactics" were in ample use when Zacharek panned "F9/11." They're in use when people claim that Moore is being unfairly dissected because he's leftist, or asking why the critic doesn't spend as much time on Sean Hannity. KStone's claim that people who go after Moore aren't accused of being on the right is pure, unadultered, 100%, grade-A, knock a dog off a gut wagon, stink to high heaven bullshit.

Clear enough for ya, pal?